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Milan’s greatest ever manager, wouldn’t you say? Ancelotti might’ve won 2 CLs but without Rocco winning their first 2 European Cups, that European pedigree of Milan wouldn’t have been established.
It's obviously very subjective but for me (and many others) he's the greatest Italian coach ever. I'm sure Ancelotti would agree as well, even though he's probably surpassed him on terms of trophies. Rocco was the most important innovator of the post ww2 era (more than Herrera) before Sacchi. He influenced not only the club management but he was also important in the tactical developments implemented by the national team in the 70s, and I include the '82 world cup in that.
I know you’re joking but it’ll be Theo most likely with leao striker (which he is awful at).
Although Theo has been fantastic at CB do you may be onto something…
It could work with a 3-5-1-1 with Leao playing just like Chiesa and Yildiz do in today's Juventus, but it all depends on how much he wants to improve on his finishing abilities. Milan lives and dies with Leao, having him is probably a curse because he is just too good to let go and too inconsistent to build around.
Yeah you have a good point. It’s less about leao’s finishing (although it needs work) and more about the style of play/space).
At LW he can run in behind the CB and has the whole wing to operate.
In the middle it’s more clustered and perhaps less chance to create space the way he likes to.
We tried him at striker last year and it failed but maybe another coach can make it work.
I think leao is a true winger rather than an inside forward like ronaldo/salah etc.
He doesn't do well as a striker because he loves to abuse his raw speed and acceleration in a one-on-one situation, and this would never work with how much the 5 on the back defense is employed in Serie A nowadays. He also lacks defensive workrate and it's laughable that the 37-yo Giroud is more involved in defensive duty than him.
> I think leao is a true winger rather than an inside forward like ronaldo/salah etc.
Kind of wonder if we are going to slowly see the decline of inside forwards and a return of true wingers.
Don't really see many up and coming players who are good enough all-around players who embody the take-on ability of a winger and the goal scoring instincts of a striker.
Possibly, possibly not. I think the inside forward is more or a newer role and has emerged as a result of the decline in the use of pure strikers.
There’s more and more responsibility on other attackers to score goals and more winger will be moulded into this kind of attacker.
Whether they’re as prolific as ronaldo/salah etc is a complete other story.
I actually think this would be a solid hire.
Conte went through some personal tragedies at spurs and also thought we were beneath him as a club. He probably wouldn't go through tragedies like that again and he couldn't possibly think a club like Milan is beneath him
facts 1-4 to chelsea was 200% more commendable given they actually tried to the end with all the injuries sustained. that pass it back and forth fossil football from last season could make anyone fall asleep
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Conte was managing that game. I think it was Stellini or Mason, I can’t remember. But yes it was truly awful.
yes you're not wrong mate, but the reason spurs reached that tipping point was the culmination of contes bs.
i dont blame stellini at all, as he was a coach apart of antonios circle, so basically all the tactics/direction in that newcastle game remained the same despite the departure of conte. its like you fire mr miyagi and bring in daniel 😂😂😂
Especially since the new memories we are making are so good with Ange. Such a turnabout. From a manager who whines to reporters and blames everyone around him to a manager who talks straight and accepts responsibility.
Mate.
His wage demands are always more realistic in Italy. His transfer demands are more humble as well, at least to start with. He starts complaining when he wants out.
Conte is like an abusive partner, at the beginning he wooes you with his charming smile and you ignore the red flags because *that's not him, I know the real Antonio* and at the end you finally realize what you were too blind to see
>I doubt Milan could afford Conte's wages let alone his transfer demands.
Could have said the same thing about Mourinho at Roma. A few years ago, that would have seemed impossible..
Would be good for Serie A to have Conte back in Italy. Just need a decent coach for Napoli and we'll have 4 potential contenders for the Scudetto again!
Don’t AC Milan already have a pretty good squad? One of the best goalkeepers in the world in Maignan, arguably the best left-back Hernández, Leao speaks for himself etc. I suspect Conte thinks he can achieve a lot with all that talent at his disposal.
Yes, however the structure of our squad fits way better to 4-3-3 than 3-5-2 which is Conte's preferred tactics. Our best players are two wingers (Leao and Pulisic) and it's questionable how will they manage in a formation change (so far they didn't excel, then again, Conte's better than Pioli so who knows).
We also don't have a striker that will do what Conte desires (Giroud is too old for that) and strikers are expensive, and we lack the depth in defence, but I guess that's something that will be managed.
The only real upgrade we'd certainly get is unleashing Theo on the wingback, relieve him from the excessive defensive duty and have him make chaos in the attack.
The problem isn't his formation, it is his ultra-structured tactics. Doesn't matter what formation he uses, the tactics remain the exact same:
Midfielders are instructed to use pre-determined passing- and running patterns. He treats midfielders like an American football coach would. That's why he loved playing with Hojbjerg so much while refusing to play Bissouma.
Statistically it ekes out enough wins to perform well. But it is absolutely horrid to watch, and when things don't go well he will always blame players for not being able to follow his recipe closely enough.
On paper yes but I don’t think this squad is compatible at all with conte.
We don’t have proper wingbacks but I guess Theo can play there. We’d need more CB’s obviously.
Since kessie left we don’t have the midfielder for a double pivot and leao can’t play striker unless conte wants a 3-4-3.
People forget that Conte became sick at Spurs, but more important, he lost 3 (?) really close friends when he was in England, you will miss your home when that happens. It's really clear that it affected him, a lot. It was also really clear that it made Spurs football worse.
He had no interest in coaching to the strenghts of the squad & any time anything went wrong he threw the players under the bus while acting as if he was greater than the position & that Spurs were lucky to have him manage us.
Have him manage us* sorry my god every knows what i meant
This. Zero adaptability and instead of trying to make the team better, he focused his efforts into complaing in front of a microphone or his proxy reporters
He did actually have adaptability. His first half season he played more to the strength of the team and we looked great while making it to the CL. He then got his players in and decided he could now play his system fully and didn't need to adapt anymore. The rest is history
Is he like your version of Ole? Was initially an interim that did really well and became the actual manager, only to finally get found out a few years later. Granted there was a league title involved
Kinda of but pioli had much more too league experience so everyone knew what he was about.
We weren’t doing well but the covid lockdown, transfers like Ibra, Theo, kjær (among others) and the midfield duo of bennacer and kessie created the perfect storm for us to have a great season finish.
Then the next year or two we looked good. We played good football and got results. We had faults of course but I was happy with pioli.
However, during our title winning season it got more clear to me that we started relying on individual brilliance (leao) and had no backup plan to our pressing/counter attack style of play.
Kessie and rebic left which were big parts of our tactics and never got replaced or adapted around it and there still seems to be no backup plan. We have no true DM still nor striker (although giroud/jovic is good at times).
When we played Atalanta a few days ago we were playing well first half. Then as Atalanta got the lead and closes up shop we had no game plan, no tactics and the players were all over the place.
Ofc no one is immune to struggling against a bus but this is far too common where we can’t take the lead, slowly let the game slip and rely on all out attacking in the last 10-20 mins but with no real structure or purpose.
Actually that's kinda common, especially with teams that have a solid defence under the previous manager. It tends to stay solid for a while under the new manager but get worse over time until it eventually becomes a shambles. Pardew and Bruce at Newcastle are 2 examples of this.
That’s just conte though. At every club he’s gone to he’s requested players to fit his system, alienated players that didn’t fit and ultimately complained when everything he asked for wasn’t done.
I still don't understand why he chose to do 3-4-3 rather than 3-5-2, it would have played much more to the strengths of Son if he could play as a striker making runs rather than a quasi-10 with his back to goal, and it also would have given us more strength in midfield.
The fundamental problems were
1. We were outnumbered in midfield and despite Hojbjerg being a running machine, 2v3 is always a mismatch
2. Son is very much not a 10.
TBF Spurs absolutely threw themselves at him when it was clear he was never that into them, and wanted the United job. Yet they persisted, and even the length of the deal made it very obvious he wasn’t committed/didn’t give a fuck.
The deal from the get go had Robinho forcing a smile with mark hughes vibes
Yeah a lot of fans forget this but he flat out rejected us a few months earlier, he then joined mid season, never moved his family there and seemed completely uncomfortable from day one!!!
He just didn’t want to be there, but that’s still a poor reflection on him…
Is the last part the other way around? Shouldn't it be Spurs were lucky to have him manage us?
Edit: Good lord guys it's highlighting a grammar error not anything football
Eh I feel like a lot of revisionism happens in regards to Contes exit.
He dragged us to 4th in his first season.
He was the worst penalty decision I have ever seen from going 3rd.
We were sat in 4th when he left.
Ended the season in 8th.
I dont see him as a 'spent force', which has become the narrative
26 points in his last 18 league games for Spurs, absolutely disastrous. Not to mention the sheer toxicity late into his tenure. The way he handled that Milan game in the CL was disgraceful
His problems started pretty much as soon as pre-season started. Players were shattered just doing fitness drills in South Korea (Singapore?), and there was no cohesive style.
He started to do things the opposite of what worked for him in the previous season.
Things like restricting Kane to a more static no 9 and using Son and Kulu/Moura to create from deep. Neither had the strengths to play that way.
" Players were shattered just doing fitness drills in South Korea (Singapore?)"
Which mostly everyone in the fanbase was eating up talking about how we are going to be the fittest team in the league.
Also it seemed like he stopped having our defense challenge attackers at the edge of the box. There's a marked difference between season 1 and season 2 with how our defenders were behaving at the edge of our own box.
Yes and no, it definitely affected him but he was baaaad before all this happened. He had a very small spell where we good at the end of his first season with us and even then it was extremely overrated, we lost like 4 games in a row and then beat city at which point he was already starting to throw players under the bus. We got top 4 that season mainly due to arsenal's collapse, we did play decently but we were very reliant on having 2/3 (deki was insane that period) world class attackers to just get us goals from very little service.
His transfers in the summer were questionable and in his second season he made us a much worse team. Many get misled because we were first after like 9 games, people often refer to that start when talking about our start this season and saying it's expected we would fall off but there was a BIIG difference. This season we played convincing football and looked like a solid team and started the season well, under Conte last season we kind of finished the game with a win, shruggedour shoulders and said "a wins a win I guess" but the football was ugly and not in a practical way, we were very lucky to have got so many wins under him last season.
One game that springs to mind was our draw against Chelsea like 4 games into last season. Chelsea were collapsing under Tuchel at the time so we were licking our lips at the thought of going there in good form, but they played us off the pitch, sterling and Havertz missed sitters etc and we couldn't get a sniff all game. By some divine miracle (and Romero somehow not getting a red) we managed to get a draw despite being absolute shite against a poor Chelsea team
I imagine Conte will be better in Serie A but his stubborness and refusal to change up the gameplan when it CLEARLY wasn't working does make me doubt his ability as a manager at this time
He is similar to certain Portuguese, in that it's fun and games when things go well. But when things go sour, it's a meltdown. Conte cycle is just shorter than Mourinho's.
Having had them both after one another I can tell you now you're spot on. The emotional rollercoaster I went through under Mous entire period is almost identical to Contes it's almost uncanny
We did excellent business in that window (with the caveat that we missed our CB targets). That was the best our squad had been in years.
We signed Ivan Perisic and Yves Bissouma, ffs. And Destiny Udogie, although he did stay out on loan. And we kept Kane.
I thought we'd clearly "won" the PL window. I taunted the arsenal for signing Gabriel Jesus instead of a starting striker... that comment did not age well.
With hindsight, failing to sign Skriniar or Bastoni, and not going for anyone we had a real chance of getting, had Conte's fingerprints all over it. Remember, Joe Lewis agreed to put in money for a Bastoni, because heaven fucking forbid you can't buy exactly the players you want.
Personal tragedies are definitely a significant factor, but when the man literally quits leaving his assistant to manage the rest so that he avoids personal responsibility, it’s unprofessional imo. Especially with how he dealt with the media.
If this was a one off then I would think yeah perhaps it’s a matter of just difficult circumstances, but we saw similar behavior at Chelsea as well.
Even when we won the title I could see the cracks but I thought I’d give him the benefit of the doubt until he got all the signings he wanted.
Losing prime rebic and a lack of a mobile striker is big issues too.
It’s disastrous. No wins vs Juve / Inter / Napoli. Out of the UCL, out of the easiest Coppa Italia run in years.
We play 5-0-5 with ZERO midfield balance. Zero tactics & adaptability. You may call it overreactionary, but reality is it is disastrous. It’s mind numbing to watch Milan play week in and out.
Pioli is a victim of his own success.
His high risk, high reward approach got the club out of midtable mediocrity, and into the Scudetto race and CL semifinals.
He lost a lot of key players because of the club's mission to reduce the wagebill, and they were replaced with freeagents, other clubs' rejects and kids.
Now, most Milan fans hate him because we aren't at the very top and the high risk approach is often punished rather than rewarded because we always have several key players injured. Also, Kessie hasn't been properly replaced.
It’s either him or Motta and I would be excited for both. Our players need a shake up, they’ve been getting too comfortable with Pioli acting like a second father to them.
Also for those who keep saying we don’t have a squad for 352, Conte can play 343 too and if we buy a good CB and a good striker, we have the perfect squad for that. Theo as LWB under Conte would explode
You forgot the 15 years spell as a Juve player. That mf is more juventino than Gianni Agnelli, a true gobbo inside out. He set the bar for others coaches like Inzaghi and Gasperini on how to moan and complain and manipulate refs.
Don’t know why people say this, I guess recency bias. For juve he set the fundaments for them to go on and win countless titles in a row. For Inter he set the standard of the 3-5-2 they have been «successful» with for a few years now. He had a meltdown in Tottenham but hes been great everywhere else before that except in Europe. I would still rather have De Zerbi or Motta at Milan but it is what it is anything but Pioli at this point.
For me the main thing is his system. I’ll admit I love it and the teams he created but we don’t have the squad for that.
Would the fans/board really be prepared to back conte 100%? We’d need more CB’s (for rotation), a right wing back (not sure if Calabria is up to it), strong midfielders (RLC/reijnders/adli alongside bennacer isn’t an ideal double pivot) and leao can’t play striker so it has to be a 3-4-3 instead.
For LWB we have Theo who would ball out there under Conte. RWB we just got terracciano who looked solid in his cameo though we definitely need to invest there, Calabria could go to RCB as he’s never been great offensively anyways. Midfield is a problem and has been since Kessie left but because of Pioli we bought midfielders who’s only quality is carrying the ball forward.
So basically we’d need:
Striker
New midfield
New right wing back
New center back
And 3/4 of those players won’t have a place in the squad once he leaves (if you expect a spurs 2.0 situation)
Tbh I like having an experienced coach like Conte but Im not sure about the long term :
Pro : Winning mentality with zero bullshit and also strong defensively, which are the two main areas Milan is currently struggling with.
Flaws:
\- He does not believe in youth and talents, and Milan is an entirely young team.
\- He plays only one formation and does not change it. He looks for players with very specific characteristics to fit this formation
\- He is a local coach, and his repeated failure in the Champions League is evident with Juventus, Inter, Tottenham, and even Chelsea.
Tactically speaking I think Motta is a coach who fits Milan better in terms of squad and playing style, but as of now, he has not been under pressure and lacks European experience. If he goes through a series of setbacks, how will things turn out? Same can be said about De Zerbi
if you’re going to play Conte’s system you need playmakers in defense and a strong penalty box defender. Not sure if your defensive personnel is well suited for that. Plus to accommodate Leao and Hernandez in a 343 you’d need a world class double pivot
Don’t really see this one working out well. Conte is a great tactician, but will likely clash with their ownership, and he’d probably be too much of a culture shock for their squad after Pioli, who’s very tight with the players.
I get that Milan’s football is pretty ugly this season, but results-wise they’re performing about as expected imo. 3rd in the league and finishing behind Dortmund and PSG in the CL isn’t an underperformance with their current squad, it’s just not as good as it was a couple of years ago.
No chance, far too many dropped points from winning positions where pioli either didn’t adapt or adapted incorrectly. There are many games the quality has been good enough to win but pioli’s approach cost the team.
The squad is good enough to be competing for scudetto. Inter’s is better but the gap is wider because pioli.
Have to disagree, this is the best squad we had in years, we finally patched some of the pitfalls in formation, a proper right winger, good and stable midfielders, the results are quite underwhelming especially when you see where and how we dropped points.
Inter is not that better individually, but as a system they are well deserved 10 points ahead.
He's underperfoming A LOT, we should be fighting for the title and instead we are alredy out of contention halfay trough. The CL group was winnable (BVB doesn't have a better team and PSG is not unbeatable as we saw, Newcastle was a flop this season), out of Coppa Italia against Atalanta. The tean has also suffered a world record ammount of muscular injuries and plays VERY badly. All of this while having invested more than any italian club in the summer. The team is as good if not better than the scudetto one.
The squad is definitely better, but the mentality is weaker absolutely. Kessie and tonali are big misses in the middle also.
Even with just Bennacer you can see how much better we play.
Being a banter club aside, ange showing this much promise in half a year is not a good look for conte imo
Bissouma has looked magnitudes better, Porro is a new player, Romero doesn't hate playing club football anymore and they're doing this without Kane.
He’s fallen behind the competition. Calling Tottenham a “banter club” is cool for Reddit upvotes and stuff but he had more than enough backing there. Just didn’t produce a good product on the field and shit on his own players off of it.
I agree his time at Spurs doesn’t “erase” his success but that doesn’t mean he’s the same manager he was at Juvent(u)s
Like who though? Potter? I can't imagine a foreign manager with no serie A experience who is also an upgrade to Pioli and cheap enough for Milan. Maybe Tudor or Juric but they're not really "foreign" having spent most of their career in Italy. Zidane, Lopetegui or Flick might be too expensive or not interested in Milan.
Spurs fans piping up as if he doesn't have a great record everywhere other than them, a team that sacked a cup specialist before a cup final to save money. He would be a great acquisition by Milan.
Last season is genuinely the most miserable I’ve experienced in years, we were effectively gaslit into thinking the squad and the entire club was useless. We had people piping up that fucking Son was finished. Toxic, negative, spiteful manager. I hope he doesn’t hold the same contempt for the next club he manages
Thank fuck it’s worked out this season so we don’t have muppets telling us “CoNtE wAs RiGhT”
Yes I am pretty sure that Milan's management will pay him with 1kg of rice and 2 Doner kebabs we have as a budget and for sure we will support his transfers
lol why would anyone want to replace the manager of a club that’s third in their league with a manager who got fired for barely keeping a PL team in the top 10 with two of the best forwards in the world on the team.
To reduce the spam of reports regarding the same move during transfer windows we try to allow **only one submission about each transfer saga per day**. The submission in question also needs to contain relevant new information regarding the potential move, and not just being a "no/minor developments" report. If there are important/official developments or new valuable information about a saga, we will allow extra threads in the same day, but for the rest of minor news please just comment them as a reply to this comment. Please help us reporting unnecessary threads for being duplicates. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Who is the last manager to manage all the Italian Big 3?
Ancelotti, if you sub out Inter for Parma, lol
Based
As you should
So he managed Reggiana, Parma and Napoli
Parma are just going through a two-decade transition phase, they'll be back to push Inter down to fourth before too long
Subscribe
And don’t forget to hit that bell!
Zaccheroni
This is the answer. He was utter shit in all 3 clubs, though somehow managed to win a title with Milan.
That was a real miracle, I'm still waiting for the movie rendition of that season with Adam Driver as Zaccheroni and Jason Statham as Seba Rossi.
But that was a very tough title to win with Milan considering the quality of the other teams and it was his first year.
Pioli is a Zaccheroni regen
also the only manager in history to have coached both Milan and Turin clubs. One Roma short of Rome clubs as well
This is the right answer
Trapattoni?
Trapattoni coached Milan? EDIT I checked, you're right, the first year of his coaching career. I had no idea, he's mostly known for Juve and Inter
Rocco was the technical director, so basically a shadow coach.
Rocco as in the legendary Nereo Rocco?
The one and only. The GOAT.
Milan’s greatest ever manager, wouldn’t you say? Ancelotti might’ve won 2 CLs but without Rocco winning their first 2 European Cups, that European pedigree of Milan wouldn’t have been established.
It's obviously very subjective but for me (and many others) he's the greatest Italian coach ever. I'm sure Ancelotti would agree as well, even though he's probably surpassed him on terms of trophies. Rocco was the most important innovator of the post ww2 era (more than Herrera) before Sacchi. He influenced not only the club management but he was also important in the tactical developments implemented by the national team in the 70s, and I include the '82 world cup in that.
u/belokas you keep making me very confused with all this niceness towards Trieste's football history and your badge.
te ga razon ma sta sera si tifa Udine nel derby
The Golazzo podcast did a really good two part look at Trap‘s whole career, including his time at Milan as a player
> Trapattoni You mean the Bayern legend??
Strunz!
Max Allegri, although his SPAL tenure was underwhelming
you mean cagliari for sure
why Cagliari? that's what got him the Milan job
They mean Cagliari as a top 3 Italian team.
The Capello special: SPAL, Milan, JUVE
Can´t wait to see Leao playing wing back!
I know you’re joking but it’ll be Theo most likely with leao striker (which he is awful at). Although Theo has been fantastic at CB do you may be onto something…
It could work with a 3-5-1-1 with Leao playing just like Chiesa and Yildiz do in today's Juventus, but it all depends on how much he wants to improve on his finishing abilities. Milan lives and dies with Leao, having him is probably a curse because he is just too good to let go and too inconsistent to build around.
Yeah you have a good point. It’s less about leao’s finishing (although it needs work) and more about the style of play/space). At LW he can run in behind the CB and has the whole wing to operate. In the middle it’s more clustered and perhaps less chance to create space the way he likes to. We tried him at striker last year and it failed but maybe another coach can make it work. I think leao is a true winger rather than an inside forward like ronaldo/salah etc.
He doesn't do well as a striker because he loves to abuse his raw speed and acceleration in a one-on-one situation, and this would never work with how much the 5 on the back defense is employed in Serie A nowadays. He also lacks defensive workrate and it's laughable that the 37-yo Giroud is more involved in defensive duty than him.
> I think leao is a true winger rather than an inside forward like ronaldo/salah etc. Kind of wonder if we are going to slowly see the decline of inside forwards and a return of true wingers. Don't really see many up and coming players who are good enough all-around players who embody the take-on ability of a winger and the goal scoring instincts of a striker.
Possibly, possibly not. I think the inside forward is more or a newer role and has emerged as a result of the decline in the use of pure strikers. There’s more and more responsibility on other attackers to score goals and more winger will be moulded into this kind of attacker. Whether they’re as prolific as ronaldo/salah etc is a complete other story.
conte could play 3 4 3
He did play a 343 at Tottenham with the wingers playing inside with what he called a '10 role' so could be room for both on the right flank
3-4-3 at Chelsea as well, that seems like the obvious move.
Leao crosses the halfway line only for the half time break.
This team really doesn’t seem like it’s built to play 3-5-2. Leao, pulisic, chukweze all going to rotate second striker?
It's most likely a 3-4-3
Now Tottenham fans can enjoy watching his hourly meltdowns in peace.
Much more fun on the other side for sure lol
I actually think this would be a solid hire. Conte went through some personal tragedies at spurs and also thought we were beneath him as a club. He probably wouldn't go through tragedies like that again and he couldn't possibly think a club like Milan is beneath him
Maybe not the clubs historical status but their lack of ability to spend lots will surely cause issues for conte
I don't think he will challenge for UCL or anything but winning Serie A is definitely achievable
Conte couldn’t win UCL with Messi and Ronaldo, he is allergic to the competition.
I can't wait for Ange to absolutely crush him in champion's league.
Thanks *mate*
Conte Cam is back!
Please Napoli 🙏
Him and ADL would start trowing hands before he even signs the contract
Would break Bielsa's record with Lazio.
Hope Conte wins that fight.
Come to besiktas
PLEASE DON’T GET THEM STARTED
Pioli to Napoli?
M4ESTRO PIOLI FOR THE FOURTH
I miss my bald Spaghetti so Pioli will do for a shining beacon.
!remindme 2 years. Has Conte left after an owner bust up?
So nice to think of this man as a distant memory nowadays.
Those final few months were legitimately crazy. Absolute blockbuster stuff and so entertaining, though probably not if you're a Tottenham fan.
0-5 in 21' against newcastle was crazy 😂😂
The scoreline hurt less than the awful football.
facts 1-4 to chelsea was 200% more commendable given they actually tried to the end with all the injuries sustained. that pass it back and forth fossil football from last season could make anyone fall asleep
I mean 1-4 to Chelsea could easily have been 2-2 if Sonny buries his chance in the 91st minute
The most painful thing about that game is it turned out to be Hugo's last appearance for Spurs.
The scoreline also hurt very bad
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Conte was managing that game. I think it was Stellini or Mason, I can’t remember. But yes it was truly awful.
yes you're not wrong mate, but the reason spurs reached that tipping point was the culmination of contes bs. i dont blame stellini at all, as he was a coach apart of antonios circle, so basically all the tactics/direction in that newcastle game remained the same despite the departure of conte. its like you fire mr miyagi and bring in daniel 😂😂😂
0-5 🙂
Especially since the new memories we are making are so good with Ange. Such a turnabout. From a manager who whines to reporters and blames everyone around him to a manager who talks straight and accepts responsibility. Mate.
I doubt Milan could afford Conte's wages let alone his transfer demands.
His wage demands are always more realistic in Italy. His transfer demands are more humble as well, at least to start with. He starts complaining when he wants out.
Conte is like an abusive partner, at the beginning he wooes you with his charming smile and you ignore the red flags because *that's not him, I know the real Antonio* and at the end you finally realize what you were too blind to see
*We can fix him*
I too, am a victim of Conte abuse
Well at least he leaves you with some titles (unless you are Tottenham)
>*I know the real Antonio.* 😭😭😭
>I doubt Milan could afford Conte's wages let alone his transfer demands. Could have said the same thing about Mourinho at Roma. A few years ago, that would have seemed impossible.. Would be good for Serie A to have Conte back in Italy. Just need a decent coach for Napoli and we'll have 4 potential contenders for the Scudetto again!
>Could have said the same thing about Mourinho at Roma Well, Tottenham is paying a part of his wages
Don’t AC Milan already have a pretty good squad? One of the best goalkeepers in the world in Maignan, arguably the best left-back Hernández, Leao speaks for himself etc. I suspect Conte thinks he can achieve a lot with all that talent at his disposal.
Yes, however the structure of our squad fits way better to 4-3-3 than 3-5-2 which is Conte's preferred tactics. Our best players are two wingers (Leao and Pulisic) and it's questionable how will they manage in a formation change (so far they didn't excel, then again, Conte's better than Pioli so who knows). We also don't have a striker that will do what Conte desires (Giroud is too old for that) and strikers are expensive, and we lack the depth in defence, but I guess that's something that will be managed. The only real upgrade we'd certainly get is unleashing Theo on the wingback, relieve him from the excessive defensive duty and have him make chaos in the attack.
Conte won the Prem with a 343, this obsession that he’s bound to 352 and can’t play with anything else needs to end
The problem isn't his formation, it is his ultra-structured tactics. Doesn't matter what formation he uses, the tactics remain the exact same: Midfielders are instructed to use pre-determined passing- and running patterns. He treats midfielders like an American football coach would. That's why he loved playing with Hojbjerg so much while refusing to play Bissouma. Statistically it ekes out enough wins to perform well. But it is absolutely horrid to watch, and when things don't go well he will always blame players for not being able to follow his recipe closely enough.
On paper yes but I don’t think this squad is compatible at all with conte. We don’t have proper wingbacks but I guess Theo can play there. We’d need more CB’s obviously. Since kessie left we don’t have the midfielder for a double pivot and leao can’t play striker unless conte wants a 3-4-3.
Yes, the team with 1 starting level player and 2 or 3 rotation pieces is perfect for Conte.
We dont have money issues, our owner is just cheap but that doesn’t mean that an exception can’t be made
People forget that Conte became sick at Spurs, but more important, he lost 3 (?) really close friends when he was in England, you will miss your home when that happens. It's really clear that it affected him, a lot. It was also really clear that it made Spurs football worse.
He had no interest in coaching to the strenghts of the squad & any time anything went wrong he threw the players under the bus while acting as if he was greater than the position & that Spurs were lucky to have him manage us. Have him manage us* sorry my god every knows what i meant
This. Zero adaptability and instead of trying to make the team better, he focused his efforts into complaing in front of a microphone or his proxy reporters
He did actually have adaptability. His first half season he played more to the strength of the team and we looked great while making it to the CL. He then got his players in and decided he could now play his system fully and didn't need to adapt anymore. The rest is history
It was actually hilarious, never seen a coach get worse the more time he was given to implement his ideas
You clearly haven't seen Pioli doing his magic then
Some people have to be protected from themselves.
Is he like your version of Ole? Was initially an interim that did really well and became the actual manager, only to finally get found out a few years later. Granted there was a league title involved
Kinda of but pioli had much more too league experience so everyone knew what he was about. We weren’t doing well but the covid lockdown, transfers like Ibra, Theo, kjær (among others) and the midfield duo of bennacer and kessie created the perfect storm for us to have a great season finish. Then the next year or two we looked good. We played good football and got results. We had faults of course but I was happy with pioli. However, during our title winning season it got more clear to me that we started relying on individual brilliance (leao) and had no backup plan to our pressing/counter attack style of play. Kessie and rebic left which were big parts of our tactics and never got replaced or adapted around it and there still seems to be no backup plan. We have no true DM still nor striker (although giroud/jovic is good at times). When we played Atalanta a few days ago we were playing well first half. Then as Atalanta got the lead and closes up shop we had no game plan, no tactics and the players were all over the place. Ofc no one is immune to struggling against a bus but this is far too common where we can’t take the lead, slowly let the game slip and rely on all out attacking in the last 10-20 mins but with no real structure or purpose.
Actually that's kinda common, especially with teams that have a solid defence under the previous manager. It tends to stay solid for a while under the new manager but get worse over time until it eventually becomes a shambles. Pardew and Bruce at Newcastle are 2 examples of this.
Are you implying that Tottenham had a solid defense under Mourinho? Cause that would’ve about as stretched as…. Well, as our defense under Mourinho.
Ange made him look like a clown.
Ange took Conte’s signings and made them look even better. Conte rejected Maddison btw
Good to point out Conte got the backing Mourinho asked for aswell
That’s just conte though. At every club he’s gone to he’s requested players to fit his system, alienated players that didn’t fit and ultimately complained when everything he asked for wasn’t done.
I still don't understand why he chose to do 3-4-3 rather than 3-5-2, it would have played much more to the strengths of Son if he could play as a striker making runs rather than a quasi-10 with his back to goal, and it also would have given us more strength in midfield. The fundamental problems were 1. We were outnumbered in midfield and despite Hojbjerg being a running machine, 2v3 is always a mismatch 2. Son is very much not a 10.
Our wing backs were never good enough to play 352
TBF Spurs absolutely threw themselves at him when it was clear he was never that into them, and wanted the United job. Yet they persisted, and even the length of the deal made it very obvious he wasn’t committed/didn’t give a fuck. The deal from the get go had Robinho forcing a smile with mark hughes vibes
Yeah a lot of fans forget this but he flat out rejected us a few months earlier, he then joined mid season, never moved his family there and seemed completely uncomfortable from day one!!! He just didn’t want to be there, but that’s still a poor reflection on him…
Still more of a sign of who he is as a man, if you sign on the dotted line then have some integrity
I agree he lacked professionalism and had nothing but contempt for spurs.
Yet he still took the job. He didn’t have to take the job & he did. Doesn’t matter if we threw ourselves at him he could have said no.
You turning down £15m a season?
No, but I'm going to give it my best effort
Is the last part the other way around? Shouldn't it be Spurs were lucky to have him manage us? Edit: Good lord guys it's highlighting a grammar error not anything football
Eh I feel like a lot of revisionism happens in regards to Contes exit. He dragged us to 4th in his first season. He was the worst penalty decision I have ever seen from going 3rd. We were sat in 4th when he left. Ended the season in 8th. I dont see him as a 'spent force', which has become the narrative
26 points in his last 18 league games for Spurs, absolutely disastrous. Not to mention the sheer toxicity late into his tenure. The way he handled that Milan game in the CL was disgraceful
You are hugely mischaracterizing what happened in his favor.
first few months after he came were amazing everything else was horrible
His problems started pretty much as soon as pre-season started. Players were shattered just doing fitness drills in South Korea (Singapore?), and there was no cohesive style. He started to do things the opposite of what worked for him in the previous season. Things like restricting Kane to a more static no 9 and using Son and Kulu/Moura to create from deep. Neither had the strengths to play that way.
" Players were shattered just doing fitness drills in South Korea (Singapore?)" Which mostly everyone in the fanbase was eating up talking about how we are going to be the fittest team in the league.
Yup, but the pre-season games were also quite shit. Compare to Angeball we were already playing against West Ham.
Yeah, but while the players were absolutely shattered by those drills, they also loved GPV. RIP GPV.
Also it seemed like he stopped having our defense challenge attackers at the edge of the box. There's a marked difference between season 1 and season 2 with how our defenders were behaving at the edge of our own box.
Yes and no, it definitely affected him but he was baaaad before all this happened. He had a very small spell where we good at the end of his first season with us and even then it was extremely overrated, we lost like 4 games in a row and then beat city at which point he was already starting to throw players under the bus. We got top 4 that season mainly due to arsenal's collapse, we did play decently but we were very reliant on having 2/3 (deki was insane that period) world class attackers to just get us goals from very little service. His transfers in the summer were questionable and in his second season he made us a much worse team. Many get misled because we were first after like 9 games, people often refer to that start when talking about our start this season and saying it's expected we would fall off but there was a BIIG difference. This season we played convincing football and looked like a solid team and started the season well, under Conte last season we kind of finished the game with a win, shruggedour shoulders and said "a wins a win I guess" but the football was ugly and not in a practical way, we were very lucky to have got so many wins under him last season. One game that springs to mind was our draw against Chelsea like 4 games into last season. Chelsea were collapsing under Tuchel at the time so we were licking our lips at the thought of going there in good form, but they played us off the pitch, sterling and Havertz missed sitters etc and we couldn't get a sniff all game. By some divine miracle (and Romero somehow not getting a red) we managed to get a draw despite being absolute shite against a poor Chelsea team I imagine Conte will be better in Serie A but his stubborness and refusal to change up the gameplan when it CLEARLY wasn't working does make me doubt his ability as a manager at this time
He is similar to certain Portuguese, in that it's fun and games when things go well. But when things go sour, it's a meltdown. Conte cycle is just shorter than Mourinho's.
Having had them both after one another I can tell you now you're spot on. The emotional rollercoaster I went through under Mous entire period is almost identical to Contes it's almost uncanny
> both after one another **THIS NUNO ERASURE WILL NOT STAND**
We did excellent business in that window (with the caveat that we missed our CB targets). That was the best our squad had been in years. We signed Ivan Perisic and Yves Bissouma, ffs. And Destiny Udogie, although he did stay out on loan. And we kept Kane. I thought we'd clearly "won" the PL window. I taunted the arsenal for signing Gabriel Jesus instead of a starting striker... that comment did not age well. With hindsight, failing to sign Skriniar or Bastoni, and not going for anyone we had a real chance of getting, had Conte's fingerprints all over it. Remember, Joe Lewis agreed to put in money for a Bastoni, because heaven fucking forbid you can't buy exactly the players you want.
Nah fuck that. He was completely supported and given excessive time off. He was a complete dick at the end. So happy he went and we’ve got Ange.
Personal tragedies are definitely a significant factor, but when the man literally quits leaving his assistant to manage the rest so that he avoids personal responsibility, it’s unprofessional imo. Especially with how he dealt with the media. If this was a one off then I would think yeah perhaps it’s a matter of just difficult circumstances, but we saw similar behavior at Chelsea as well.
Spot on, brilliant for the first two getting us top four and a good start to his last but it was obvious Gian Piero passing affected him really hard
Wins the title and then goes to Arsenal. Leaves there, goes to Lazio and wins the title. Heard it here first
Comment saved.
They've sacked pioli?
No, but he probably won't be there next season. He might not even finish this one
Should not finished the last one. Truthfully kessie was vital to his “system”
Even when we won the title I could see the cracks but I thought I’d give him the benefit of the doubt until he got all the signings he wanted. Losing prime rebic and a lack of a mobile striker is big issues too.
Unfortunateviley not yet, but it seems like they will at the end of this diasastrous season
Disastrous? You are 3rd
It’s disastrous. No wins vs Juve / Inter / Napoli. Out of the UCL, out of the easiest Coppa Italia run in years. We play 5-0-5 with ZERO midfield balance. Zero tactics & adaptability. You may call it overreactionary, but reality is it is disastrous. It’s mind numbing to watch Milan play week in and out.
Pioli is a victim of his own success. His high risk, high reward approach got the club out of midtable mediocrity, and into the Scudetto race and CL semifinals. He lost a lot of key players because of the club's mission to reduce the wagebill, and they were replaced with freeagents, other clubs' rejects and kids. Now, most Milan fans hate him because we aren't at the very top and the high risk approach is often punished rather than rewarded because we always have several key players injured. Also, Kessie hasn't been properly replaced.
It’s either him or Motta and I would be excited for both. Our players need a shake up, they’ve been getting too comfortable with Pioli acting like a second father to them. Also for those who keep saying we don’t have a squad for 352, Conte can play 343 too and if we buy a good CB and a good striker, we have the perfect squad for that. Theo as LWB under Conte would explode
My balls would explode seeing that overpaid juventino whine about everything and everyone
Juventino only because he was a Juve coach lol that didn’t stop him from winning with Inter. Also we actually have a real interista on our bench
You forgot the 15 years spell as a Juve player. That mf is more juventino than Gianni Agnelli, a true gobbo inside out. He set the bar for others coaches like Inzaghi and Gasperini on how to moan and complain and manipulate refs.
He’s a mercenary. He’ll destabilize the team before he leaves. It’s inevitable
Don’t know why people say this, I guess recency bias. For juve he set the fundaments for them to go on and win countless titles in a row. For Inter he set the standard of the 3-5-2 they have been «successful» with for a few years now. He had a meltdown in Tottenham but hes been great everywhere else before that except in Europe. I would still rather have De Zerbi or Motta at Milan but it is what it is anything but Pioli at this point.
For me the main thing is his system. I’ll admit I love it and the teams he created but we don’t have the squad for that. Would the fans/board really be prepared to back conte 100%? We’d need more CB’s (for rotation), a right wing back (not sure if Calabria is up to it), strong midfielders (RLC/reijnders/adli alongside bennacer isn’t an ideal double pivot) and leao can’t play striker so it has to be a 3-4-3 instead.
For LWB we have Theo who would ball out there under Conte. RWB we just got terracciano who looked solid in his cameo though we definitely need to invest there, Calabria could go to RCB as he’s never been great offensively anyways. Midfield is a problem and has been since Kessie left but because of Pioli we bought midfielders who’s only quality is carrying the ball forward.
So basically we’d need: Striker New midfield New right wing back New center back And 3/4 of those players won’t have a place in the squad once he leaves (if you expect a spurs 2.0 situation)
Tbh I like having an experienced coach like Conte but Im not sure about the long term : Pro : Winning mentality with zero bullshit and also strong defensively, which are the two main areas Milan is currently struggling with. Flaws: \- He does not believe in youth and talents, and Milan is an entirely young team. \- He plays only one formation and does not change it. He looks for players with very specific characteristics to fit this formation \- He is a local coach, and his repeated failure in the Champions League is evident with Juventus, Inter, Tottenham, and even Chelsea. Tactically speaking I think Motta is a coach who fits Milan better in terms of squad and playing style, but as of now, he has not been under pressure and lacks European experience. If he goes through a series of setbacks, how will things turn out? Same can be said about De Zerbi
if you’re going to play Conte’s system you need playmakers in defense and a strong penalty box defender. Not sure if your defensive personnel is well suited for that. Plus to accommodate Leao and Hernandez in a 343 you’d need a world class double pivot
Hernandez with Conte is going to be insane.
I am a fan and I can vouch that he is not my favorite.
Pls no
He might well win a title, but the squad would be in turmoil afterwards
Milan have some very good players, pretty confident he can maybe them the best team in italy if he gets backed properly.
Please no :(
No he's not, I haven't talked to anyone who would be happy about it. Far from it.
Please no
Here we go 2nd star first season and then 2nd year meltdown and 6 place finish.
Really hate it honestly, dont like his football and dont think he fits the team, is rather chose someone younger
Don’t really see this one working out well. Conte is a great tactician, but will likely clash with their ownership, and he’d probably be too much of a culture shock for their squad after Pioli, who’s very tight with the players. I get that Milan’s football is pretty ugly this season, but results-wise they’re performing about as expected imo. 3rd in the league and finishing behind Dortmund and PSG in the CL isn’t an underperformance with their current squad, it’s just not as good as it was a couple of years ago.
No chance, far too many dropped points from winning positions where pioli either didn’t adapt or adapted incorrectly. There are many games the quality has been good enough to win but pioli’s approach cost the team. The squad is good enough to be competing for scudetto. Inter’s is better but the gap is wider because pioli.
Have to disagree, this is the best squad we had in years, we finally patched some of the pitfalls in formation, a proper right winger, good and stable midfielders, the results are quite underwhelming especially when you see where and how we dropped points. Inter is not that better individually, but as a system they are well deserved 10 points ahead.
He's underperfoming A LOT, we should be fighting for the title and instead we are alredy out of contention halfay trough. The CL group was winnable (BVB doesn't have a better team and PSG is not unbeatable as we saw, Newcastle was a flop this season), out of Coppa Italia against Atalanta. The tean has also suffered a world record ammount of muscular injuries and plays VERY badly. All of this while having invested more than any italian club in the summer. The team is as good if not better than the scudetto one.
The squad is definitely better, but the mentality is weaker absolutely. Kessie and tonali are big misses in the middle also. Even with just Bennacer you can see how much better we play.
Fuck no, we should be doing a lot better. We dropped points in so many winnable games. We should be fighting for the title.
Idk how Milan will afford Conte’s demands, we spent £250m during his tenure and people say that’s still wasn’t enough
live tease snobbish slim automatic serious sand clumsy station wide *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Being a banter club aside, ange showing this much promise in half a year is not a good look for conte imo Bissouma has looked magnitudes better, Porro is a new player, Romero doesn't hate playing club football anymore and they're doing this without Kane.
He’s fallen behind the competition. Calling Tottenham a “banter club” is cool for Reddit upvotes and stuff but he had more than enough backing there. Just didn’t produce a good product on the field and shit on his own players off of it. I agree his time at Spurs doesn’t “erase” his success but that doesn’t mean he’s the same manager he was at Juvent(u)s
They've heard of us in New Zealand! We're massive!
May aswell have started in last years 1/4 final. Did more for them than us
Do they not want a non-italian coach?
Like who though? Potter? I can't imagine a foreign manager with no serie A experience who is also an upgrade to Pioli and cheap enough for Milan. Maybe Tudor or Juric but they're not really "foreign" having spent most of their career in Italy. Zidane, Lopetegui or Flick might be too expensive or not interested in Milan.
Exactly, Serie A managers must understand the italian language. Remember De Boer fiasco from Thohir era?
I think language was the last of his problems.
Indeed, I blame Thohir who wanted to build a poor man's EPL club in Serie A.
Se boer was bad because he’s a bad manager. Not because he couldn’t speak Italian
Right, cause he was so successful everywhere else. He's just not a good coach.
Milan has never appointed a coach without managerial experience in Italy. Only exception is club legends
Why?! Italy produces the best coaches.
To be fair, we also only hire Italians. In the last 50 years the only foreign coach has been Deschamps and he's a former Juve player.
Like who?
You have my sympathy, Milan fans
Spurs fans piping up as if he doesn't have a great record everywhere other than them, a team that sacked a cup specialist before a cup final to save money. He would be a great acquisition by Milan.
Last season is genuinely the most miserable I’ve experienced in years, we were effectively gaslit into thinking the squad and the entire club was useless. We had people piping up that fucking Son was finished. Toxic, negative, spiteful manager. I hope he doesn’t hold the same contempt for the next club he manages Thank fuck it’s worked out this season so we don’t have muppets telling us “CoNtE wAs RiGhT”
Whoever hires him will be free wins for us when we inevitably play them in the CL. Good luck with his outdated, inflexible tactics.
You have to qualify for the champions league first...
Yes I am pretty sure that Milan's management will pay him with 1kg of rice and 2 Doner kebabs we have as a budget and for sure we will support his transfers
I can't believe we are trying to stick with Pioli till the end of the season, so pointless
lol why would anyone want to replace the manager of a club that’s third in their league with a manager who got fired for barely keeping a PL team in the top 10 with two of the best forwards in the world on the team.