There is a team on the Italian peninsula that has been one of the most dominant Champions League teams in the history of the competition. This team has some of the greatest young talent in the entirety of the world and features (at the very least) two players that will stand forever in the annals of footballing history. However, this team now finds themselves sitting in 12th place with as many points as games played (5) this season and no sign of quick relief in sight.
This team is AC Milan.
I understand that five games into the season would be a little soon to start throwing gasoline on any fire, but Milan are not coming off of the best season. They barely salvaged their season a few months ago and the team seems likely to be searching for a new manager in the next few weeks. With only five points at this point in the season, AC Milan will need to get their act together immediately if they hope to even be performing in the Europa League next season. Their last two fixtures would have been massive boosts to them if they could have taken three points, but a loss against Napoli and a draw against lowly Bologna sees them struggling to deal with the pressure.
Generally, international teams and club teams perform better after a managerial change; however, with the personalities and youth involved with Milan, a managerial change may seem them fall further into the rabbit hole. Balotelli is already causing a ruckus, Kaka has not even made his way to the field yet, and your team is having to depend on Robinho (yes, THAT Robinho) as a viable scoring option. When Milan had Prince Boateng, Ibrahimovic, and Robinho, the small Brazilian was just a small piece of the attack…now, he is the biggest option after Balotelli (that is not good). Factor in that Juventus export Matri has decided that he will no longer be scoring consistently, Milan are grasping at straws.
Milan have scored ten (6th best) but they have allowed ten (16th best) goals so far in this young season. Allowing two goals a game is not a recipe for victory, and it seems that Milan are definitely starting to regret jettisoning Thiago Silva for PSG and having a bunch of defensive pieces that should have retired years ago. Nowhere in top-tier football is there such a massive gulf between the age of their attackers and their defenders…sadly, it is not working out for Milan.
AC Milan was a Serie A champion in 2011/12 and the were Champions League winners in 2007, but they seem to be attempting to erase all of those memories beneath a sea of mediocrity. Perhaps Milan are trying to impersonate the team that they battled in their last two Champions League finals as both Milan and Liverpool seem to be mere shadows of themselves…at least Liverpool did okay for almost three whole weeks in the EPL! Definitely keep an eye on this situation as things at Milan will be one of the most interesting subjects in world football…all they can do now is go play their season in Qatar!
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