The AC Milan management will take most of the blame for the 2024-25 season, but some players are hiding from their accountability too.

As MilanNews write, the leadership created a real sporting (and economic) disaster with the management of the contractual situations of Theo Hernandez and Mike Maignan is beyond any doubt, and the last season was compromised by poor recruitment.

The discussions for the renewal of Theo have never really got going, while CEO Giorgio Furlani and co. never formalised the verbal agreement reached in February with Maignan, which is believed to have annoyed him.

Igli Tare and Massimiliano Allegri’s attempts to get the case back on track seem to be futile, with the French national team’s starting goalkeeper already having his head in the Premier League and in London, with Chelsea.

The Blues have not yet come close to matching the Rossoneri’s valuation of the player, but signals from various quarters suggest that the deal will be done at some point. Enzo Maresca’s team has set a very tight deadline due to the Club World Cup, so it won’t take long to know the final outcome.

Abandoning the ship

Having acknowledged this series of errors by the management, it is equally correct to launch into another type of reflection: the players did not provide a sufficient level of performance for long enough to finish above eighth place.

Playing at Milan this season must certainly have been difficult, but what was seen on the field was often disastrous. MilanNews also recall an incident where Maignan himself responded with ‘arrogance and haughtiness’ to a legitimate question from one of their journalists.

The question was: “Given that even with two different coaches the music doesn’t change and the season is disastrous, what do you need at Milanello?” His reply: “We need people like you who tell us what to do.”

All the alibis and excuses in the world can be found and many are even quite valid, but that the ‘key’ players have betrayed Milan often in times of need cannot go unnoticed. So, as the title says, ‘players are abandoning the ship after having contributed to sinking it’.