The days of Milan giants AC and Inter ruling the roost in Italian football are well and truly over, with Juventus the nation’s undisputed best and a renaissance in the capital seeing AS Roma as their closest rivals.
While the Nerazzurri have brought back former coach Roberto Mancini to oversee the sizeable task of reinvigorating Inter, their cross-town rivals continue to struggle under the stewardship of an inexperienced manager.
Over the years the Rossoneri have had some of the most-distinguished managers the modern game has seen, with the likes of Arrigo Sacchi, Fabio Capello and Carlo Ancelotti overseeing periods of success for the historic club.
Following Ancelotti’s departure to take over at Chelsea in 2009, the club have had four managers in the space of the last five years. Three of them have been thrown into the lion’s den in their first coaching role in senior football.
For a club which such a remarkable history, prestige and sky-high expectations, appointing inexperienced first-time managers seems like a massive oversight.
Firstly Leonardo was promoted from his role as technical director at the club into a more hands-on position, despite not even having all the necessary coaching badges to take on the mammoth assignment of replacing Ancelotti after an eight-year tenure.
The Brazilian only lasted a solitary season, with Massimiliano Allegri taking over and stemming the flow in a club experiencing severe financial constraints.
Despite the San Siro outfit opting to sell world-class stars such as Zlatan Ibrahimović and Thiago Silva during the former Cagliari head coach’s four-year stint at the club, Allegri still delivered a Scudetto and did a good job despite the diminishing resources and player quality available to him.
Since the now Juventus manager was shown the San Siro door last January, Milan have reverted back to their ploy of hiring green managers.
Firstly former midfielder Clarence Seedorf was coerced into ending his playing career and handed the reins to take over at the Rossoneri.
The distinguished former Netherlands midfielder’s lack of experience was telling, as Milan finished eighth last season and was promptly shown the door after only four months in charge.
With the gulf between the top teams in Italy and Milan increasing rapidly, the appointment of an experienced manager to get the best out of a squad without the quality of generations past would surely have been a sensible choice.
However, the powers that be at Milanello made the same mistake again by giving the job to former striker Filippo Inzaghi.
In his first managerial job in senior football there have been some signs to suggest that Milan could well put a string of results together and battle back amongst the elite.
However, the frank reality of the situation is that without Jérémy Ménez’s 12 Serie A goals and the heroics in goal at times of Diego López, the Rossoneri would be in a considerably worse situation than their current underwhelming 11th place on the table.
Against reigning champions Juventus at the weekend, the visitors to Turin were second-best all over the park and looked like a team that belonged in the lower reaches of the division.
Despite complaints over Carlos Tevez’s opener being offside, Milan were thoroughly outplayed for 90 minutes, with the disparity in the respective side’s abilities surely alarming to the travelling support.
Inzaghi may well have scored over 70 goals in eleven years for the club as a player, but being promoted from the under-19 Primavera outfit to take charge of the senior side is an unfair ask on the 41-year-old.
With understandable rumblings that ending Inzaghi’s time in the hotseat is being considered, the best thing that Milan can do to get back on track is to replace him with a manager of pedigree, experience and a positive track record.
However, with the club showing that it does not learn from recent mistakes, don’t be overly surprised if another former favourite on the pitch is handed the unenviable task despite being underqualified for the job.
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