Intriguing press conference outbursts reveal Pioli is resigned to his fate

Stefano Pioli is expected to be sacked by AC Milan at the end of the season, and the last few days have seen him look more and more like a lonely figure as per a report.

This morning’s edition of Corriere della Sera (via PianetaMilan) speaks about the statements made by Pioli yesterday at his press conference in Milanello, on the eve of today’s match against Juventus in Turin.

The paper remarks: ‘Pioli is a lonely man: he inevitably feels the end of his story at Milan approaching and this is perhaps why after the horror derby, but in reality, if you think about it carefully, already following the searing elimination in the Europa League, something has also changed in his words, in his communication choices’.

It seems that the coach ‘wanted to remove a few pebbles from his shoe’ regarding where his Milan side are at and what they have achieved compared to the expectations and the reality.

“Inter have had the strongest squad for four years and have only won two Scudetti. We have never been the strongest team in the league,” he said.

“We tried to fight for the top positions, sometimes we succeeded and sometimes less. We gave everything mentally, but we weren’t always able to raise our level of play.”

It is not a criticism of Milan, the club or the players, but pride in the achievement of the 2021-22 season, when Milan won the Scudetto as underdogs.

Behind Pioli’s outburst, however, there is also the quite bitter awareness of having reached the end of his cycle, one that looked like bringing a lot of success but in the end will bring just that one trophy.

With five games still to play and a second place to conquer, perhaps this was not the right time for an outburst of this kind. Pioli’s words on the eve of Juventus-Milan then raised a social uproar not only among the Diavolo fans, but also among the Inter fans.