MN: Probable Milan XI vs. Rennes – Double change at defensive midfield

Exactly. Even if Pioli was supposed to play 4-3-3 he couldn’t have done it without a real CDM. In the summer he requested the management to sign box-to-box players or ball carriers, and no one who can actually defend well. He thought Krunic was this top class CDM and vetoed against his sale even though we would have recieved 10-15 mil for him. Now he immediately realises that Krunic is an average player and he excludes him from the squad altogether, and asks the management to sell him. Now we were forced to accept an offer worth 1/3 of what was offered in the summer.
Inter has built a world class midfield with Calhanoglu, Barella and Mkhitaryan Who are all box to box players or attack minded midfielders. But that midfield still works exceptionally well because Inter have a clear system, and their midfield has an organised tactical setup, where each midfielder covers the other without leaving too much space between them.
But in our case, Pioli has never been a coach who has been stringent with his tactics, and has always been one who lets his players play to their strengths. The only way a midfield of Reijnders, Musah and Bennacer would work only when the manager provides each midfielder a clear set of instructions, which Inzaghi can do and Pioli cannot. That is why under Pioli our current midfield will always be lacking defensively. What are the strengths of our midifielders? Dribbling and passing, not defending, that’s why we end up conceding many goals as we have no defensive midfielder.
At the start of the season Pioli claimed that he wanted to play a possession oriented style and control games more often. However most of the success we achieved under Pioli came when we played counter attacking football, with ball winning midflielders who pressed the opposition midflielders in possession, won the ball, and started quick counter attacks where we would exploit Leão’s pace (that was how we achieved most of our success in the scudetto season and in the UCL against Napoli). This season he has tried to play ‘possession’ football many times, and has failed almost each time (mostly because of the reasons I mentioned above). We concede too many goals. Pioli is a counter attacking manager, and he tries to be someone who he is not, by trying to play ‘possession’ football. My advice to Pioli is just play counter attacking football and don’t try the possession oriented style when you don’t know how to do it. And for that we need a CDM, but he refuses to ask the management to sign one. So you want to play defensive football? Okay, do it properly. You want to play attacking/possession based football? Do it properly. I would be fine with Pioli, but only if he imparts a clear tactical system to this team, be it attacking or defensive. But from his tenure at Milan, I am convinced that he can play only a counter attacking style, so he should sign a CDM and do that, and I would be satisfied with that. Instead he keeps trying to play possession football, and fails almost always.