On Saturday evening, AC Milan suffered a tough defeat against Juventus and as confirmed by the stats, the Bianconeri deserved to win. Indeed, the Rossoneri were outplayed above all in the second half.
It was Sergio Conceicao’s first defeat with Milan, which we will get to below, and there were many reasons for the outcome. From struggling with Juve’s high press to lacking a proper striker, the stats are clear. So let’s take a look at the key stats from the game.
Juve domination from start to finish
It was clear to everyone who watched the game, but the stats confirm that Juventus dominated the clash from start to finish. Milan perhaps had the better chances in the first half but in the second half, there was no doubt as the Bianconeri created several big chances.
The XG, as such, is perhaps not the best metric for this game even if Milan certainly could have scored one of their counter-attacking chances. Not to mention that Mike Maignan made several crucial saves, while Michele Di Gregorio only made one really good stop (on Rafael Leao).
📊 The stats from the loss against Juventus pic.twitter.com/SPJMWByI6T
— MilanData📊 (@acmilandata) January 18, 2025
Abraham struggles up front
As highlighted by Gazzetta dello Sport’s ratings this morning, Abraham really struggled to impose himself in the No.9 role. He was often available and dropped down to help his teammates, but the quality was certainly lacking in the final third.
The Englishman had zero shots all game, not even one off target, and he didn’t attempt any dribbles either. With 25 touches, it’s clear he wasn’t really involved and that also says a lot about Milan’s inability to break through Juve’s press last night.
First defeat for Conceicao
After three wins and one draw, Conceicao registered his first defeat as the head coach of Milan. It was a very disappointing display indeed and it’s clear that the Rossoneri cannot continue like this, otherwise they will miss out on top four.
The manager questioned the players and their supposed fatigue after the game, but perhaps he needs to dial down the negativity for a moment. It cannot always be the fault of the players, clearly something didn’t work tactically yesterday as well.
Juventus set clean-sheet record vs. Milan
With three consecutive clean sheets against Milan in the league prior to yesterday’s game, Juventus set a new record as they had never kept four consecutive ones before. Not even during their dominant nine-league-titles-run did that happen.
Clearly, Milan have big struggles in attack and it’s haunting them in the big games the most. The Supercoppa Italiana was some sort of exception, and with a bit of luck as well, but now the Milan directors must face the music.
The club and current squad simply need to come to terms with who we are. And what we are is a poorly constructed counterattacking side. Forget trying to play some kind of possession game and forget the high press that the last three managers have all tried to implement.
We need to learn to play in a low block, and then make lightening counterattacks. This is what we’re built for. Leao is useless in tight spaces, always unable to dribble and unable to keep the ball. He needs 20m of open field in front of him to be effective. Puli is also great in space (and in tight spaces), and we’ve got Theo as further speed. We need to get two speedy forwards, one to play as a 9 (who?) and the other a second striker (Joao Felix), we need to get a real DM (Frendrup) to play next to Fofana/Reijnders, and a high quality fast RB (Walker I guess🙄). And then we need to learn how to defend deep, keep a clean sheet and hit teams on the counter. At the end of the day we were perfect for Conte. Let’s see if Conceicao can do what Pioli and Fonseca couldn’t, and come to this realization. The alternative is selling Leao and using the money to rebuild the attack as Conceicao sees fit for “his style” of football.
I agree 100%. You can’t press high with Leao, Pulisic and Rejnders on the field because they lack the aggression. You can’t keep the ball because the quality of our defenders in the build up is poor or average, with the exception of Thiaw. All we have is players able to run with the ball vertically.
Having said that, this is still a team that with a too striker gets confortable in top 4.
You mean Conceicao’s strategy of playing absolutely terrible in the first half, falling behind in every match, then making subs and throwing everybody forward to try and come from behind is not a sustainable strategy?
We had a new coach bump for a couple games, where even then the performances weren’t great. Should’ve just let Fonseca finish out the season and see where that would’ve ended up.
Several issues to iron out. Sacking Maldini was a serious error of judgement – but then what would you expect with the arrogance of this American ownership model.
Let start by making Gabbia captain.