AC Milan are excelling in two particular areas this season, a report has revealed, which Stefano Pioli can look to exploit in this season finale.
As Sky write, it was already clear that Milan were aiming to improve their style of play with the 10 signings that arrived during the last summer window, plus Pioli himself had reiterated the concept of dominance several times during the 90 minutes. Seven months later the numbers say exactly that.
The Rossoneri are second team in Serie A for successful dribbles, more than 9 per game (9.2 to be exact) also thanks to players who make beating a man a strong point of their repertoire.
Rafael Leao, third in Serie A behind Matias Soulè and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, but also Christian Pulisic and Theo Hernandez. Milan almost always aims to gain numerical superiority and get to the goal through being direct.
It is no coincidence that Milan are the team that score the most thanks to open play goals with 39 out of 55 goals scored in the league – therefore more than 70% of the total – coming thanks to build-up play rather than set pieces.
And when they get close to the opponent’s goal, Milan often manages to hurt them. The Rossoneri are second only to Roma, their next opponent in Europe, when it comes to outperforming their Expected Goals number. Milan have a goals scored tally which is 5.46 higher than their xG number.
Of course Milan is one of the teams with the most dribbles per game. That’s Pioli’s philosophy, go 1 v 1.
Notice Inter is nowhere to be found when it comes to dribbling. They don’t have players that can take someone 1v1 but offensively they are cooking. They don’t have a DM, or fast CBs and yet defensively they have the best defense.
Team concept of organized structured football vs playground, wave yard 1v1 football.
And then people will tell you Pioli should stay because players like Leao, Theo, Pulisic can go 1v1 and bail him out. They can do that under any coach.
The fact that the top 8 has teams like Udinese, Frosinone and Lecce pretty much show how irrelevant this dribbles per game is. Like what’s the point they’re trying to make ?
Lol 🤣🤣🤣
Udinese should be top of table haha
All those teams should have alot of goals but they don’t so the stat in isolation is meaningless.
They could have just used xGoal Creation Attempts 🤷♂️. It’s literally for such things
CHEERS !
Meaningless stats
We need to dribble becausr we do noy have anny game
Pioli needs other 5 years to teach his esquemes……
Ball is always quicker than any player. Why dribble when it’s far slower than passing the ball forward?