AC Milan are still looking for their first win of the season after they went ahead, fell behind and eventually battled back to earn a 2-2 draw against Lazio last night.
Strahinja Pavlovic opened the scoring with a header from a corner early on, getting his first goal for the club in the process. However, Taty Castellanos and Boulaye Dia scored in quick succession to turn the game on its head in the second half.
Substitutes came to Milan’s rescue again, with Tammy Abraham setting up Rafael Leao just moments after both came on to make it level once again, and that would be how it remained. Below are the key stats from the game…
Tale of the tape
For the first time this season, the stats do not really favour Milan. They had more possession (58%), but their Expected Goals (xG) was substantially less at 1.08 to Lazio’s 2.05. They also had less big chances (2 to 5) and less shots on target (3 to 5).
The Rossoneri did shoot more in total and had more corner kicks, while they were better from a discipline perspective, but the balance of play and the quality of chances created suggests that the second half could have quickly got away from Paulo Fonseca’s side.
📊 The stats from the draw against Lazio pic.twitter.com/ETs1k4shRw
— MilanData📊 (@acmilandata) August 31, 2024
Making history in a bad way
Points are what make prizes, and it would be fair to say that Fonseca is not in a queue to collect any prizes at the moment given the stuttering start that his team have made.
Milan have not started a season this poorly since 1938-39 and 1930-31. In both of these, they clinched just one point in the first three games, whereas this season they have two.
Not only that, but the defensive record is an absolute shambles with six goals conceded after three games. The new boss pledged to defend differently, yet things seem to be getting worse compared to the end of the Stefano Pioli era.
The Diavolo have conceded at least two goals in each of their first three games of a Serie A season for the first time since 1983-84, when Ilario Castagner was in charge during a very turbulent time.
The individual positives
In the last two seasons, Rafael Leão is the only player to have scored at least ten goals and provided at least ten assists in Serie A (10G, 10A).
Since the start of the 2023-24 season, Rafael Leão is the only player to have reached double figures in goals (10) and assists (10) in Serie A.
[via @OptaPaolo] pic.twitter.com/otb1wqgQIv
— MilanData📊 (@acmilandata) September 1, 2024
Pavlović is the second Serbian defender to score in Serie A with AC Milan; the previous one was Jan-Carlo Simić against Monza on 17 December 2023.
Adding to the aura of his set-piece threat, Pavlovic has scored all five of his goals for Red Bull Salzburg (four between 2022 and 2024 in the Austrian Bundesliga) and Milan (vs. Lazio in Serie A) and with headers.
Christian Pulisic has provided two assists in his last four Serie A games, as many as in his previous 18 matches in the competition. His assist last night is his first from a set-piece in the league after his eight assists in 2023-24 all came from open play.
this is a few things we learned from lazio
1. chuk isnt a starter he may have a good preseason against b or c teams but definatly not in serie a
2.fonseca is a mistake buying 1 game ok 2 game fairs 3 game and still no win? if he dosent win against inter or liverpool he should get sacked
3. emerson is probaly the worst rb milan has bought and eweryone in the premier league knows that royal is trash and i belive spurs fans are celebrating we wanted a better rb than calabria not a player that is 10x worse
Well you kind of deserve Emerson for wanting an upgrade on your club captain.
And others deserve Fonseca for wanting an upgrade on Pioli.
Maybe show some loyalty to the players and team you allegedly support.
My impression is that deep down Fonseca is ALREADY fired – unless a true miracle occurs. Of course the board won’t do anything NOW, that is to say, in the next few days, but it seems clear to me that this outcome is practically unavoidable. It’s clear as the purest of waters: it didn’t work well, simple as that.
The worst season start since the 30’s… Heck, we’re talking about 90 years! This is definitely something that cannot be taken lightly…
Don’t worry it will get even worse – maybe we beat Venezia but we will be run over by Inter and Liverpool
That’s my dreadful feeling too, that we’ll be simply butchered… God forbidden.
I am amazed that right now the Liverpool game is a day after the Venezia game. Come on.
Milan is in great condition.
The management and owner of milan is wise, they chose fonseca because he can make history. The worst season start since 1939.
Leao and theo did’t huddle because there are already star, they didn’t want to hear fonseca instruction, the have their own strategies.
When we need support at olimpico againts lazio, our self proclaim king of milan, the great director of ibra is on vacation, he upload selfie picture, what a great example.
With that midfield that we have, loss is the mostlikely scenario unfortunately. Sad to see honestly. 2 seasons ago we had a great team to build on. Instead of doing that, we downgraded significantly.
So it’s another banter era with even more drama and a sustainable budget. Feels much better.
Very exciting milan bartho. A lot of drama already. This season will be fantastic. Please fonseca use your zorro mask make fans more exciting
this is gonna be a long season i dont think i will sleep well against liverpool and inter i will be suprised if we concead less than 5 goals. and the fact is that ewery fan wanted pioli out and fired and look now we got an even worse manager even pioli didnt have this bad start when he started at this club .
We actually did pioli a favor by firing him. Because with these players, midfield mostly, even pep will have hard time achieving something.
Is it the midfield or the strategy? First, can our defenders make a pass to the two holding midfielders? Can the middielders if the get the ball either turn or make a play to switch the ball? We never make the defense collapse to cover a midfielder going forward to open of play for the wingers. The only time I saw it was Pulisic going back, turning, driving forward to make a pass to Tammy.
the problem is the managment pep would want players over 50 million wihile milan struggles to get mid player like fofana for 25 million so we say i am peop and i want trent say no trent is to much money but how about emerson the problem is that this managment buy playern that are trash or that no one has ever heard of
from Zoro to Zero,
only jerinista here who think it’s ok, it’s normal Milan as long as we’ve better finance & more marketing,
some clubs they known cz they are winner & other some cz they are clown, both is marketable
We have to deal with the right back,they shouldn’t overlap, that’s were the two goals came from,and the midfield should help that side together with right wing atacker, this is our main weakness. We shouldn’t sell Benacer, we can buy Rabiot since two midfielders departed on loan .Our attackers are goid enough,the likes of Morata and Tammy Abram.This time the left wing played well
Thanks.
You say the worst start since WWII🤣🤣🤣. How we started the first three rounds in the 2011-2012 season. And like champions. And that under Allegri, whom you are now summoning.
3 matches in the league and Fonseca already breaking records lmao