Mazzara: ‘Wounded’ Milan are dragging themselves towards a ‘failure’ of a season | OneFootball

It has been a season to forget for AC Milan, and unless there is a substantial improvement in the final period of the season, it will be a season to remember for all the wrong reasons.

Across the board, this season has been woeful for Milan. Summer recruitment has largely been viewed as poor, causing the club to need to invest in the January mercato. However, the success of this has also been scrutinised a little recently.

On the pitch, performances have fluctuated consistently all year, resulting in a mid-season change of head coach, and so far the improvements have been minimal, leading to questions about his future as well.

No one is really ‘safe’ from the questions either, and there have been scrutinisations of the management, staff and key players – few if any of them have been positive. Today, Pietro Mazzarra tried to analyse this season and the ending in store.

“Certain things happen when a year is born crooked and not even the interventions made, first and foremost the change of coach, succeed in having the desired effects. There are no appeals to bad luck, Milinkovic-Savic’s night of grace or anything else: Milan are wounded and are dragging themselves, slowly and agonisingly, towards the final months of a season that, as of today, is to be considered a failure.

“It is strange to hear from someone like Zlatan Ibrahimovic that the Supercoppa Italiana can give a positive spin to the ratings, but that trophy – which remains a trophy – is an impromptu satisfaction, something that rightly and quickly passes into the archives because what counts, at Milan, is something else.

“The elimination against Feyenoord was as humiliating as the one suffered against Rosenborg in 1996 (yes that was the group stage) and the mood around this Milan team is very reminiscent of that nefarious two-year period, 1996-98, when the fans were discouraged by the results and the choices made.

“Since history is cyclical, here we go again with those negative feelings, which arise from what we see on the field. Thiaw’s own goal is so comical that it seems impossible, yet it happened. The feeling, by now, is that something can happen in every Milan game and that the virus is so deeply rooted within the team that there seems to be no antidote to put something back on its feet that rests on shaky foundations.

“It is hard to believe Sergio Conceiçao’s words in the press conference when he says he is convinced he can still chase Champions League places. It is difficult because, once again, Milan have failed in a game that they should not have failed, also by virtue of the results arrived from the other fields just before the match in Turin.

“It is all so unnerving, so demotivating, so debasing that the Sud’s new chants of disappointment sound like the right soundtrack to the horror film that is the current season. Pavlovic’s look at the end of the match was a faithful picture of his thinking and that of the whole Milan world.

“Just as it is clear that Joao Felix is enjoying preferential treatment or, if not, that he enjoys many more chances than his teammates. Even against Torino he was ectoplasm, yet he remained on the pitch even in the second half. Then, when he came off and Sottil came on, Milan improved their attacking phase by getting an equaliser and putting a hungry player on the pitch.

Photo by AC Milan

“This Joao Felix is a huge waste of talent, which is not helping the team at all, also because his presence on the pitch is limiting Tijjani Reijnders and not a little.