AC Milan went back top of the Serie A table by beating Fiorentina 2-1 at San Siro on Sunday night, but they were made to work hard for the win.
Milan went into the game battling an injury crisis with Christian Pulisic, Adrien Rabiot, Christopher Nkunku, Pervis Estupinan, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Ardon Jashari all out. This meant three changes from the draw with Juventus before the break, and only seven players on the bench (five outfield).
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The Rossoneri missed a couple of big chances in the first half, then Robin Gosens stunned the over 70,000 home fans as he scored early in the second half for the away side, but it was time for the Rafael Leao show to take centre-stage.
Firstly, the Portuguese forward found the bottom corner from 25 yards out to level things, then Fabiano Parisi brought down Santiago Gimenez inside the box and Leao converted from 12 yards, sending David De Gea the wrong way to complete the comeback.
The result means that Milan go back top of the summit after seven games, and it condemns Fiorentina to another round in the bottom three. What did we learn from the contest?
1. Defensive form continues
Milan have been superb at the back since the start of the season, with Roma the only team having conceded less (3) than the Rossoneri (4). Against Fiorentina, the Rossoneri didn’t manage to keep the clean sheet, sadly. But the goal was rather unlucky, with some unfortunate ricochets and a lack of communication.
Aside from that moment, Allegri’s men neutralised Fiorentina well, with Matteo Gabbia commanding the backline and Strahinja Pavlovic winning quite a few aerial duels. Luka Modric was another crucial player in the defensive performance, with his work rates making sure the Diavolo closed the game out.
Overall, it was yet another assertive performance at the back, and it seems that Allegri has found the answers that both Paulo Fonseca and Sergio Conceicao couldn’t find last season.
2. Leao steps up in Pulisic’s absence
The American was in red-hot form but picked up an injury during the international break, which was definitely worrying given that Leao and Nkunku are yet to be fully fit, whilst Santiago Gimenez hasn’t exactly hit the ground running this season either.
Fortunately for Allegri, Leao was up for the challenge, and after a shaky first half, he picked up the pace in the second half.
Following Fiorentina’s goal, the Portuguese fired a nice shot from long range that ended up in the back of the net to bring the score level. After that, the striker converted a penalty won by Gimenez to round off the comeback.
It’s definitely refreshing to see him making an impact again, especially after the two misses against Juventus a couple of weeks ago. The expectations will be high now that he seems fit enough to start the games.
3. Bartesaghi impresses
The Italian has been getting more minutes this season and is improving with each game, it seems, and he delivered another solid defensive performance against Fiorentina.
Aside from the defensive work rate, he is also improving in attack. The few crosses he launched into the penalty box were impressive; one of them found Gimenez, who was denied by De Gea, showing that he can do well in both aspects of the game.
The 19-year-old is gaining confidence fast and is probably more solid at the back compared to Estupinan, whilst he is also starting to become braver going forward too.
That being said, it won’t be a surprise if he manages to steal the starting spot from the Ecuadorian, who has been rather shaky, to say the least. Bartesaghi is making the most out of the situation, indeed.
4. Modric shines, Ricci picks up the pace
We mention Modric every week at this stage, but that’s only because he continues to impress week after week with his work rates and commanding performances.
Against Fiorentina, he was again pivotal in the middle, and this time, he was more involved defensively, leaving Youssouf Fofana and Samuele Ricci with more space to go forward. The Croat was full of energy in the defensive third, making it really hard for Fiorentina to create any chances, whilst his composure helped his side grab all three points in the end.
Then there’s Ricci, who finally got his start after Rabiot’s injury. He started the first half rather shakily, but he picked up the pace in the second half with better positioning and passing – he was the man to find Gimenez with a lovely outside-of-the-boot pass that resulted in the penalty kick.
Definitely some encouraging signs by the Italian, who will have time to improve whilst Rabiot is out of action.
5. Impact of the bench
The feeling was that Gimenez needed to come on at half-time, with Alexis Saelemaekers struggling to play behind Leao. However, Allegri waited until the 57th minute and after Fiorentina’s opener to introduce the Mexican.
The game changed drastically with Gimenez on the pitch as Leao dropped behind and got on the ball more often, resulting in the lovely goal he scored to equalise. Then, Gimenez was unlucky not to score himself, but he did manage to win the penalty that Leao scored for the winner.
It was evident that the Rossoneri played better with a clear-cut striker, and Gimenez certainly worked hard to open up spaces for his teammates. He was also unlucky not to get on the scoresheet himself.
Now, obviously, we like to judge the strikers by the goals they score, but let’s be crystal clear here – the Mexican has drastically improved since the start of the season and is making an impact on the pitch. All of this will eventually lead to a goal. For now, though, this will do, given he was almost as crucial for the win as was Leao, considering the Portuguese struggled before his introduction.
The most important thing is that the team is winning. Who scores or who assists is irrelevant.
Defensively, Milan are very good, but their weakness are long crosses in the penalty box. All 4 goals Milan have conceded this season came from long crosses, losing the aerial duels or just losing the opposing player. Need to fix that.
Luka Modric, even at 40, gets better. He was amazing defensively. Blocked shots, interceptions, recoveries, engaging in aerial duels throughout the pitch, things he was never known for at Madrid playing next to Kroos and especially Casemiro.
Milan has a rugby player in the midfield who doesn’t look to pass the ball forward.
Gimenez presence up top even without the goals is very important in this Allegri 352 setup. He has to play and hopefully starts scoring.
Allegri, unlike Pioli, holds Leao accountable and demands Leao take on responsibility instead of running away from it. A perfect example was the penalty situation. Leao didn’t take it upon himself to shoot the penalty. It was actually Fofana that picked the ball and was ready to take it until Allegri ordered Leao from the sidelines to step up and take it. Huge difference in the way he is handling him. Not babying and cuddling.
– Allegri made the team sit in a low block defensively and avoiding pressing players until they come to our own third. The 3-5-2 also puts a lot of pressure on the wingbacks and our aren’t exactly true wingbacks (with the exception of Saelemakers). All of that means that teams have an easier time crossing into our penalty box. So far we played mostly against teams who play with 3 at the back, but we have to be careful against 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 type of teams who might look to overload the wings.
– I was pessimistic about the hype around Modrić this summer considering his age and our recent experiment with older players, but man he made me ate all of my words so far. Happiest L I’ve taken in a while. Statistically he has the best interception rate in all of our team be in overall or per 90. He doesn’t tackle much, but so good at following opposing play that he knows where to stand to block a passing path.
– I assume the rugby player in your post is Ricci. I don’t know if it’s him previously being with Torino, or being generally in front of the defense, but he needs to ditch that shyness in passing and look to actually progress the play forward. Until he does, he’ll have to watch Rabiot from the bench.
I agree with you totally.
Ok, we started with “sell the lazy bastard”, now we are “Alegri handling him well”. Lets hope next is about “Leao first time heaving a top couch”.
1- Contrary to what 60+ articles during breaks claimed, Leão isn’t a striker. He is a left winger and that’s pretty much it.
2- So with that we actually have ONE (1) striker in the entire squad, which is Giménez and that’s verry worrying. Thanks management for bringing Nkunku, a THIRD second striker/winger and not getting a striker, while also selling/loaning our other strikers…
3- It’s interesting to note that we didn’t make any change in the midfield, yet that same midfield became much livelier once Saelemakers and Leão move to the side with Giménez up front. Just to show how systems work sometimes…
4- It begs being repeated, but Fofana should be forbidden from taking long shots.
5- We played this game in San Siro and while Fiorentina is in the relegation zone this season they’re still a big(ish) name, so why are we playing with our third kit ?
Totally agree with point 2. Nkunku could still have been valuable to the squad but we needed a genuine extra striker. Especially with Gimenez being more of a poacher 9 and less of a hold up Giroud like 9.
Point 5. Totally agree. Understand why they do it for marketing and driving 3rd kit sales. But I really had this wearling random 3rd kits at home stuff. It always makes me think of a few years ago when Theo scored an amazing goal at San Siro (I think v Lazio) on a sunny afternoon. Ran the length of the field, beating multiple players and will be in his career highlights real forever. But instead of being in a true Rossoneri kit, they were wearing some stupid olive green 3rd kit. The moment was robbed of the something as a result.
Here is a stadium saturated in red & black and your star player scores one of the goals of his career in some weird brownish green kit that has no meaning at all.
1- Contrary to what 60+ articles during breaks claimed, Leão isn’t a striker. He is a left winger and that’s pretty much it.
That’s the real farce of the international break isn’t it. So unbearable having to check back and it’s just daily, one article after another bashing of a player who had played less than a full game so far. FFS
This was when I realized many so called journalists never touched grass in their entire lives. Injuries happen, misses happen. He’s what he is at this point, why are we still talking about his defense. It’s insane to me.
Use what we have. We have two good players who still haven’t really yet played together in our new system. I’m really intrigued to see that tbh
I’ve never rated Nkunku, I think he’s a fraud, but the reason for not going for another striker is probably because Allegri plans on using Leao at CF and because they’re waiting on Camarda. With only one game a week, this is a gamble they can take.
These guys are playing as a team with grit. Makes a big difference. More confidence in each other.
So far so good. It’s still early but I am enjoying being proved wrong. I am not surprised by Modric but the rest of the team are looking much better than I expected. I see a lot of similarities with Conte’s first Juventus season. They had no European football, relied on a solid back three, and signed an experienced superstar in midfield (Pirlo) supported by two box to box players (Marchisio/Vidal). They also didn’t have a clear hierarchy of strikers at the start of the season, with Matri, Vucinic, Del Piero, Quagliarella all getting game time.
I know Allegri was short-handed but he needs to learn a few things quickly. Saleamakers is not an attacking player. This is the second time he has played him up as one of the top 2 in our 3-5-2 and it doesn’t work. He doesn’t make the correct runs or the correct passes and he usually holds the ball too long. The only position Saleamakers is suited to play is Wingback. His defense is not good enough to be a fullback and his end product is not good enough to be a forward.
Also I hope once Jashari is back we can see Fofana on the bench. If Allegri is counting on his midfielders to score goals, he is not the guy. But for some reason he thinks he can shoot the ball well, no matter how many times he send it flying 20 rows into the stands. And did he really think he was going to take that penalty?!! Talk about delusional.
I’m happy the team is in first and I’ll give Allegri credit for that but this is hard to watch football. I get that with this defensive approach we are going to be in every match and with an individual moment of brilliance from Pulisic or Leao we can get a win, but this is not any kind of offensive strategy. Can’t we be a little bit more attack minded when facing some of these mid to bottom table teams? That first half of football was one of the worst I’ve seen.
Our entire squad was decimated by injuries during this international break and we lost our best players because of !di!ot coaches and staff that started injured players.
Giménez and Leão were literally the only forwards available yesterday and even their fitness level was put in doubt sometimes, so what kind of “offensive strategy” and “attacking minded” were you hoping for ?
If you want to judge the coach’s tactics and I get they’re not perfect, there is a plethora of games, including games against top sides, to judge from, surely some of them are better than a game where our bench was almost empty.
It’s a miracle that we didn’t sustain more injuries yesterday while getting the win.
I’m not judging by this game alone. It’s basically been the same strategy every game whether facing the top team or the bottom table team. 10 men behind the ball and hit on the counter. Didn’t score against Juve. Honestly lucky to score yesterday. The only 2 games they really looked good was against Udinese and Napoli and that was pretty much Pulisic scoring or creating every goal by himself. I just don’t think that is sustainable and a slightly less conservative approach might help. At least from a watchability stand point.
Milan won! And are top of the table. Nothing else really matters. next game!
It is interesting that Bartesaghi’s crossing practice is only now getting notice in these articles. He has had this sort of quality of crosses since last season. The observation that he ventures forward more (now) is both true and likely why his cross quality is gaining more notice.
More on this kid. Note _where_ he is getting them in from. It’s not the final 6 (typical winger toolkit). He is dropping balls on our players heads from the final 30 and this makes him really dangerous.
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I have a different take on the “Impact of the Bench”. Leao, Ricci, Salemakers (in the SS role), Bartesaghi and Athekame are bench players.
While we were clearly not fluid, we still fought for each other and ultimately won with a … Pioli-like (?) … rotation.
We cannot fault the players or Allegri for looking like they have not played together before. They had not. However there was enough individual quality out there to hold on until Allegri figured out the right sub to make.
Very different from the years before.
On Bartesaghi, last season he was hardly noticed considering how all over the place all of our defense was and him coming in bad situations like against Parma and Feyenoord or playing in that poorly managed team that is Futuro.
But so far so good, considering that this is a natural CB/LCB that we forced to play more upfront and considering his age.
IMO he isn’t worse than Estupiñan and should be preferred to him.
Why does the article say Bartesaghi is ‘improving his attacking game’?
What’s the baseline for this since he’s barely played?
Maybe that’s just his attacking play. It might improve. Or not. Doesn’t really matter as long as he keeps doing what he’s doing.
The notion that he (and even Leao) must constantly ‘improve’ is designed to set them up for failure when they don’t reach the imagined ‘ceiling’.
As Allegri said we’ll find out if they’re world class after they retire.
Such a dumba.ss. So what you want ? Improvement or no improvement? Or just come here to argue for argument sake because Bartesaghi got mentioned and he’s Italian? Which is it?
Players improve, that’s what they’re supposed to do. And yes players, all of them have ceilings. It’s not imaginary, it’s real. Players should stay the same smh.. Ok Como fan
But hey, at least this time he didn’t criticize the fans like he usually does!! 😀
You used to agree with me before you lost your mind.
Now you have bb agreeing with you….
I think you understand what I’m saying.
Damn 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣
LMAO 😂 well your dum.bass went and support a whole other team last year and now you pretend you are high and mightier than other TRUE supporters here. I didn’t see bb saying “oh I was supporting Como against Milan” do I? It seems you don’t understand constructive discussions amongst REAL fans, me and bb, who have ALWAYS supported the team and not support another team because they’re “close by” or have “closer connection to the place”
Also, yes I was one of the few, probably the only one, who, on occasion , USED to have your back until I found out you were a hypocrite and a lame for rooting for the team’s downfall…no true fan does that in any circumstances.. things change when you learn about people.