Alessio Cerci Must Do His Talking on the Pitch for AC Milan

Nothing has gone right for Alessio Cerci this season. His move to Atletico Madrid did not amount to anything: He started just once and left for AC Milan on loan for 18 months.

His fortune has not changed in Italy. Coach Filippo Inzaghi does not call on him to play much. He is a substitute more than a starter. So Cerci is done with waiting. 

According to Sky journalist Sandro Sabatini (h/t Football Italia), the 27-year-old bit back at Inzaghi for playing him in garbage time the last two matches.

Sabatini claims that there was a screaming match between the two. “Don’t ever try to get me to play when the game is already over!” Cerci reportedly said. “The next time you send someone on [with four minutes left], don’t make it me.”

His girlfriend, Federica Riccardi, made similar exclamations days earlier, saying on RAI program Quelli Che Il Calcio (h/t Football Italia) that Cerci is “in good shape."

She continued: “It makes no sense to introduce him at the end of the match.”

Maurizio Lagana/Getty Images

But this happened at Atletico Madrid, too, and Cerci couldn’t convince Diego Simeone. It’s true that the Italian did not arrive until the last day of the summer transfer window, behind the rest of his teammates in training. But he didn’t fit into Atletico's dynamic in Spain: He is neither a good player on the counterattack or someone willing to go back and defend all game. Cerci, really, is just a quick-footed winger with a good left foot.

“I tried to get back to top form as soon as possible,” he told reporters (per Goal), “but when you’re at a club where things are going so well it's difficult to displace players.”

So what’s different at Milan? Once again he’s joined a team—albeit one much lower in the standings—that was not in need of him. Cerci happens to play in an overcrowded position at Milan. Inzaghi already favours Jeremy Menez and Giacomo Bonaventura—two of the standout players on the squad.  

Apparently Cerci thinks he’s done enough to displace those two already.

There is a big problem here: Milan may have acquired a player who considers himself bigger than the club. That’s very peculiar behaviour coming from someone whose career is based on a single good season with Torino. He was the Serie A assists leader last season with 10, and his girlfriend seemed to think he was better than the league when they left for Spain in the summer.

“Goodbye Serie A,” she wrote on Twitter (h/t Football Italia), “we’re going to the football that really matters.”

Now that he’s back in Italy, maybe Cerci thinks he deserves all the playing time in a league that, perhaps to him and his girlfriend, isn’t worth as much. Remember that he arrived at Milan just as he arrived at Atletico Madrid: in poor physical condition after a lack of training and proper game time.

Maybe he is just a provincial player, someone who can't cut it at big clubs. He failed early in his career at Roma, too: a sign of someone who works best when the team works for them. He was the man beside Ciro Immobile at Torino last year; over the past few months, that’s changed.

"

Alessio Cerci proving to be the kind of player that only works on provincial sides.

— Matteo Bonetti (@TheCalcioGuy) February 25, 2015"

Atletico still hold the right to sell Cerci in the summer to another club. It’s a possibility that he won’t be a Milan player next season. What looked like a great swap deal with Fernando Torres is now racking the Rossoneri like a headache.