Yet another Serie A season got underway last night and AC Milan had a rather tough fixture as they travelled to face Bologna, who showed they could steal points from the top teams last season under Thiago Motta.
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It has also been a summer of revolution at Milan. The sale of Sandro Tonali meant that the midfield was heavily transformed with Tijjani Reijnders and Ruben Loftus-Cheek getting their first Serie A start alongside Rade Krunic.
Stefano Pioli also opted for a 4-3-3 formation with newcomer Christian Pulisic on the right wing alongside Olivier Giroud and Rafael Leao. With this many changes, it was hard to know what to expect from this side and there was pressure to perform.
Fortunately for Pioli, the Rossoneri took just 11 minutes to open the scoring through Giroud who fired in a feed from Reijnders. Ten minutes later Pulisic marked his Serie A debut with a lovely goal from outside the box after a one-two with the French striker.
After getting a two-goal cushion Milan decided to preserve some of their energy in the remaining 60 minutes and didn’t really do much in the second half, but kept an important clean sheet. Here are five things we learned…
1. New season, new signings, new threat
With Tonali sold, Reijnders came to Milan for a third or so of the Italian’s price and it was never going to be easy for him to replace the Italian, but the former AZ Alkmaar player is off to a good start.
He played the whole 90 minutes and looked fresher than his team-mates showing off his excellent athletic shape, which allowed him to play over 50 games last season.
On top of that, he also provided the assist for the opening goal and was constantly involved in his team’s attacking play, also not being shy to play that direct through ball.
Despite being bold with his passing he also racked up a 100% passing accuracy. Reijnders is the first Milan midfielder who has played an entire Serie A match without misplacing a pass since Opta began recording this data (2004-05).
A bit further up the pitch Pulisic also got his first Serie A start on the right wing and he couldn’t have done any better as he got the ‘hockey assist’ on the first goal with a lovely ball toward Reijnders, and then played off Giroud to open up space for himself before firing a rocket to double Milan’s lead.
With the arrival of Chukwueze, it will be interesting to see if the Nigerian is going to be the starting right winger as many expect in time or if Pulisic will put up a fight for the spot.
From what we saw it will most likely be the latter, but in any case healthy competition is something Milan have not have in years on that side of the pitch.
2. Like a fine wine
Giroud had his ups and downs in the second part of last season and it was always going to be the question of how many games will he actually be able to play going into this season considering he will soon turn 37.
Against Bologna, Giroud showed that he is nowhere near done as he scored the opener and then provided the assist for the second goal.
He also looked in good physical condition and his team-mates were able to play off him very well. What the former Arsenal and Chelsea man does provide is work rate off the ball, leading the pressing line.
Hopefully, with the arrival of Noah Okafor and the third striker – be that Lorenzo Colombo or a new arrival – Giroud will have enough time to rest when fatigue kicks in.
.@_OlivierGiroud_'s goal against Bologna is the first goal scored with his right foot of the 33 netted by the French player for #ACMilan in all competitions.
[via @OptaPaolo] pic.twitter.com/bLy9BliaWK
— MilanData📊 (@acmilandata) August 21, 2023
3. Leao-dependency gone?
Rafael Leao didn’t impress in the season opener as he failed with a lot of his dribble attempts and when he did beat his man the end product was not there. There’s no need to panic though – he will bounce back with a world-beating performance soon.
Usually, such down days from Leao result in points dropped for Milan, but this time out the Portuguese winger wasn’t the only threat on the pitch for Milan with Pulisic asking a lot of questions on the right and Reijnders running things from behind.
This highlights the good business the management have done in attack and Pioli also had Chukwueze, Okafor, and Colombo on the bench at his disposal if Pulisic wasn’t enough. The coach now has the depth he needed so badly, and now it’s his turn to integrate all of the new players.
4. Shaken but not broken
Whilst the attack did well it was not the airtight display hoped for at the back as Theo Hernandez, Malick Thiaw, Fikayo Tomori and Davide Calabria seemed tired midway through the game and also lacked focus, resulting in errors that may have been goals against better opposition.
Theoand Calabria weren’t all that efficient going forward and both were beaten defensively too in one-on-one situations or due to their positioning.
In fairness to them, there were tactical changes that need working on as seen throughout the game and Calabria in particular had to play with Loftus-Cheek and Pulisic on the right. Theo had Reijnders ahead who ventured forward and Leao who he didn’t combine with as well as usual.
Thiaw and Tomori weren’t all that good either with the German being the best defender on the night, but he too made a couple of mistakes. Tomori didn’t make an error leading to a goal, but he did look sloppier at times and misplaced passes.
Fortunately, Maignan was focused enough to compensate for his team-mates and manage to keep a clean sheet, but Pioli has work to do to get the balance right in transition as he himself admitted.
🚫 Clean sheet number 1⃣ of __ for @mmseize this season
📸 @MohanadACM pic.twitter.com/AYT7fiiyxS
— SempreMilan (@SempreMilanCom) August 22, 2023
5. The two phases
Milan’s midfield didn’t look bad when the team were attacking with Reijnders being the more attacking presence while Loftus-Cheek and Krunic sat a bit deeper.
The Dutchman got an assist and played very well, Loftus-Cheek also played well although in a more defensive and disruptive role, but showed his physicality on multiple occasions going forward.
However, in the defensive phase, the midfield looked all over the place which is perhaps to be expected because of the fact that the three players have barely played together. We have to mention the elephant in the room: there isn’t a defensive midfielder in the squad.
Despite Krunic being more than happy to play the role – and with all due respect to the Bosnian who has played a lot of games for Milan and has helped the team a lot – he is simply technically limited and not starting quality for this Milan side.
We saw that Loftus-Cheek and Reijnders are box-to-box midfielders who can make things happen in attack, but they need somebody to do the dirty work and do it well in order to free up space for the duo.
