AC Milan suffered a disappointing defeat away at Atalanta on Friday evening, conceding a late winner at Gewiss Stadium. Taking a look at the stats from the game, it’s clear that the Rossoneri weren’t good enough.
Paulo Fonseca was eager to focus on the performance of the referee in his post-match comments, though perhaps he should have focused on his team instead. Indeed, it wasn’t a good second half and Atalanta deservedly clinched the win.
Atalanta dominate proceedings
The overall stats show that Atalanta dominated most of the proceedings, winning every single stat possible, at least of the ones we highlighted on MilanData. 4 against 1 in big chances and 7 against 0 in corners says a whole lot about the game.
Indeed, as mentioned, Milan seemingly switched off for the second half and decided to play for the draw. It came back to bite them and Fonseca should seriously evaluate his own role in this, failing to make the necessary changes.
📊 The stats from the loss against Atalanta pic.twitter.com/W6hLE6yZIE
— MilanData📊 (@acmilandata) December 6, 2024
Toothless in attack
Related to the above, having just two shots on target is far from good enough. The first came inside the first 15 seconds, courtesy of Christian Pulisic, and the other was Alvaro Morata’s strike on the equaliser. In other words, they both came in the first half.
In the second half, therefore, Milan were absolutely toothless and this is also shown by 7-0 in corners. The Rossoneri may have looked a lot more solid defensively, at least in open play, but it’s clear that the attack suffered and that was also due to Pulisic’s injury.
Big-team struggles continue
Milan have faced the top six sides once this season and in those games, they have clinched just five points. That’s out of a possible 18, which is far from good enough especially if your goal is to compete for the Scudetto.
- Lazio 2-2 Milan
- Inter 1-2 Milan
- Fiorentina 2-1 Milan
- Milan 0-2 Napoli
- Milan 0-0 Juventus
- Atalanta 2-1 Milan
Something needs to change in January, that’s for sure, and it likely won’t be a managerial change as Milan still have faith in Fonseca. The question is if it will be too late in January, with the Champions League slipping out of sight.
We don’t experience “top 6 struggles”, but “struggles” in general.
Milan – Torino 2:2
Parma – Milan 2:1
Cagliari – Milan 3:3
And the wins vs Udine and Monza were two of the luckiest Milan wins I have ever seen.
But but but we beat Inter and Real smh 🤦♂️
drama. Fonseca and Ibra out. drama, drama and only drama…
Fonseca takes too long make substitutions. He is terrible at reading a game in real time. His adoration for RLC is ridiculous at this point. He was happy with a draw against Atalanta and the team played accordingly.
After losing Pulisic, insert Chuku and let Musah hold for Tiji, pushing Tiji into the CAM role. Musah can be a 2nd man for both Theo and Royal. Very simple and balanced.