After the 3-1 loss at the Dacia Arena, AC Milan's head coach, Stefano Pioli, has spoken to the microphones of Sky Sport Italia and said these words:
"A negative game. When the team plays like this, halfway: we were neither aggressive nor attentive, imprecise. It means that the coach has trained badly. We can analyze that Zlatan could have stayed higher and everything, but the performance was too low for our level. It would be serious to already think about the quarterfinals, we are struggling in the league and reaching the top 4 is too important. In the last games, we have had a level that is too low: if we drop so much, then we risk performances like this."
He continued:
"Disappointed or worried? Definitely disappointed, we have obtained too little and we haven't played as we should have. The concerns are always there. Now we will have to take advantage of the break to raise the level. I believe that in the other games, we have conceded very little and created a lot. Tonight was a game under the rhythm, it was difficult to be dangerous", said Pioli, "With Krunic and Rebic, we returned to 4-2-3-1, but it's not a matter of playing systems, it's a matter of quality: tonight it was lacking."
On Rafael Leao:
"I asked him to be incisive and in the game, to be a forward. Sometimes he was too far from the goal, but he took the penalty and the shots were his. When he gets few balls, he tends to drop back and can't take the ball so far away to dribble 5 or 6 players. I don't want to talk about individuals because it was the team's performance that influenced the game. We can all and especially we must do better."
Pioli concludes:
"It is possible that we can return to 4, we'll see when I have the whole team available, it will also depend on the opponents. We will do everything necessary to return to playing the football we like the most. Tonight too many things didn't work. I didn't expect a misstep, absolutely not. There were no signs of a drop in tension and attention. When I prepare the game, we prepare it to have advantages over the opponents. We started badly tonight and ended worse. I will have to work better and we will have to work better: there is work to be done. We cannot win the championship again, but we can win this mini-championship between the teams that have to go to the Champions League. I coach a team that is aware and I know that we want and can do better."
