Why Riccardo Montolivo Is Under Most Pressure for AC Milan After Chievo Game

After 45 minutes, Riccardo Montolivo left the match between Chievo and AC Milan with an injury. He could have easily left humiliated.

Simply put, the Milan captain has not played like one. 

On Saturday, Montolivo was particularly bad. If he was injured, he was only saved from further embarrassment. His passes were off, his body language was shaky, and his overall performance was dismal. He was slow and indecisive. 

When Montolivo gets the ball, he hesitates. There is nothing smooth about the way he plays. He turns over possession, which sometimes leads to scoring opportunities. Worst of all, as the primary creator of the team, the 30-year-old has zero ideas. A lack of invention from the team’s most important midfield supplier and captain? Inexcusable.

So of course Montolivo is under pressure. He has not been fully healthy for about year now—breaking his leg before the World Cup did not help—but he has not been convincing since joining Milan on a free transfer in 2012. None of the man who pulled the strings for Fiorentina has shown up. Instead, Milan have a captain by default who does not lead by example.

Keisuke Honda replaced Montolivo at the beginning of the second half against Chievo. It said a lot. Not three minutes later, Honda had hit the crossbar, sparking new life into a game Montolivo could not seize. 

Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images

Milan have a lot of problems, but leadership may be the biggest of all. That starts with Montolivo. He is not the type of player to stand up and take ownership of a situation. Nor is he the kind of midfielder to take control of every game. When you look at Milan, you see a rocky, inconsistent team, and it’s no coincidence that Montolivo is the same way.

“Our problem is mental,” Montolivo told La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Rossoneri Blog) in January. “We’ve failed to stay switched on and focused for 90 minutes.”

That much is true, but Montolivo himself has a hard time playing a full game. His stats this season, via WhoScored.com, are mediocre at best: 80.2 percent pass-completion average, less than a shot per game, not a single assist.

No wonder fans on social media criticize him whenever they can; they don’t see a commander-in-chief. If anything, that’s Nigel de Jong, whose contract expires in the summer and future is likely elsewhere. De Jong has emerged as the de facto marshal of this squad, making key tackles, scoring the odd goa and distributing the ball.

"

Good to see Montolivo off, still don't understand how he's our captain.

— Rossoneri TV (@RossoneriTV) February 28, 2015"

Montolivo likes to play in front of the defence, but De Jong has taken over those duties too. Montolivo’s shortcomings have only added to De Jong’s workload. A captain who cannot even cement his own position in the team is not a captain.

The extent of his latest injury is not yet known. Another long spell out of the game would do him greater harm. Montolivo needs to find some consistency or else he may no longer find himself in Milan.