Milan coach Stefano Pioli believes the club can still have a say in both Serie A and the Europa League this season. The Rossoneri have suffered from some dips in form in the 2023-24 campaign, dropping out of the Champions League after defeats to PSG and Borussia Dortmund, while losing to the likes of Udinese and Juventus in the league. A 2-1 victory against Roma at the San Siro last night capped off a run of five games without defeat, giving them an 8 point lead over Fiorentina in fourth place, something Pioli was keen to point out in the post-macth:
On Milan’s victory…
“At 2-1, the match was certainly reopened, we needed to kill it when we did. That third goal gave us greater serenity at the end”.
On the defensive phase…
“The attacking wingers did what I asked of them. Given Roma’s formation, we worked more with the full-backs. We waited for them to avoid giving Roma depth. We did okay in the defensive phase, but we can always do better.”
On the transfer market…
“The club knows that there are needs and work is ongoing. We’ll see if we can seize some opportunities to cover some holes we have due to injuries.”
On Cardinale…
“His presence in the dressing room before the match was nice. He supported and stimulated us, he confirmed that the club will always be ambitious, always respecting the budget. I’m not talking about the budget for the January transfer window because I don’t know about it.”
On the group…
“We were the ones who raised expectations after the work done in recent years. When you don’t reach certain objectives there is criticism. We must always try to improve. The season is still long.”
On the Scudetto…
“Get us out of the Scudetto fight (he smiles, editor’s note). We only have to focus on ourselves. We have a clear objective: we had a decent first round, now we want to have an excellent second round. It won’t be easy, but we can only thing about the next match.”
On the standings…
“We could have had a few more points. We are paying for those four matches in which we only collected two points, not playing badly. But we don’t look at the past, we look at the present and the future. We can have our say in the league and in the Europa League.”
