GdS: Pioli ready to reverse previous trend and put full faith in summer arrivals

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SempreMilan

·15 August 2023

GdS: Pioli ready to reverse previous trend and put full faith in summer arrivals

AC Milan head coach Stefano Pioli is expected to reverse a previous trend and put a lot of faith in the summer signings from game one, a report claims.

La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) write how Christian Pulisic has already played more minutes in preseason alone than Aster Vranckx did in the entirety of last season.

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Then there are Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Tijjani Reijnders, the duo who seem to have established themselves as two starters in the midfield from mid-July onwards.

Samuel Chukwueze and Noah Okafor arrived later but are impatient and can’t wait to get into the starting line-up themselves.

Milan are revolutionised and this seems to have rewritten Pioli’s previous rules when it comes to integration time. The coach used to require all new additions to have a period of adaptation, slowly being introduced to the team when they learned more about the mechanisms.

In the last three seasons, seeing a new signing regularly in the starting XI in their first season with the Rossoneri was a rarity. From 2020 onwards, only Fikayo Tomori and Olivier Giroud were deployed from the 1st minute for at least 50% of the season’s games.

The likes of Sandro Tonali, Brahim Diaz, Jens Petter Hauge, Fode Ballo-Toure and more recently Aster Vranckx, Sergino Dest, Charles De Ketelaere and Yacine Adli all struggled for regular minutes.

Reijnders and Loftus-Cheek will form the midfield trio with Rade Krunic to whom Pioli will entrust the heart of the new Milan, given the Bosnian will operate in a slightly deeper role.

Why the change in strategy? Simply put, Pioli was more involved in the transfer strategies than he has been in the past, and logically he is much more convinced of the players he started coaching this summer.

Pioli believes these these are the right players and there is be no need to evaluate them for too long. Instead the mission is to create the right alchemy with those who were already in the team.