Brahim Diaz might not have got himself a goal or an assist during the 4-0 dismantling of Lazio at San Siro last night, but few could argue that he looked back to his best.
After the sensational impact he made in the derby off the bench, La Gazzetta dello Sport (via MilanNews) writes how the Spaniard also left his mark in the Coppa Italia match against Lazio. He had a big impact in the No.10 role, literally splitting Sarri’s core in half on multiple occasions.
The paper hypothesises that the 22-year-old might have actually found a more useful role, one that allows him to waste less energy and to punch effectively between the lines, winning the ball and throwing himself into often tight spaces, beating opponents with quick dribbling and a low centre of gravity.
Of course there has been strong suggestions that Covid certainly had an impact on his condition, but now the feeling is that tactically something might have clicked. Pioli will be hoping that Brahim has returned the player who, at the beginning of the season, had enchanted everyone with his class and his ability to create numerical superiority.
He is still looking for his first goal since September but he does so without urgency or particular pressures, because if he is giving Milan some creativity and spark inside the final third and in transition then he is doing his job.
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He has to move smarter and to pass the ball better in the right time to the right person to avoid to many physical contact. He also sometime trying to shoot, but may be it would be better if he passes to others. The last, he also needs to improve his shooting skill.
He has improved and I hope he can have more performances like that. But we could have got Coutinho on loan to really upgrade that position and give Diaz someone to learn from. For anyone who was saying Coutinho is finished you can watch his performances in the PL, world class players sometimes just need a change of clubs.
Coutinho salary are 12m euro/years . Thats why AC Milan don’t want to Loan him either dry Loan or with option. Brahim salary just 1m euro / years. Just give him more time ,he is not yet 1 years become starter,if this club can give time lord Hakan 3 years starter,why not do the same
Please don’t bring back the painful memories of having to watch that mediocre #10 for 3 years… Luckily he’s where he belongs now.
He gets 8M at Aston Villa so it will cost them under 5M to have a player like that for the second part of the season. Less than the whole Messias operation. So, what is expensive? I understand they wouldn’t buy a player with those demands, but a shot term loan to get us into CL and go for the title would be reasonable and Coutinho wouldn’t deny it. Anyway, missed chance, we still don’t have a replacement, so if Diaz can’t play or is in bad shape, you can only pray.
And I wouldn’t really focus on Diaz that much. Good player but he has a buyback clause from Real and his dream is to play there. So, we will develop a player and if he is good enough he will go back for a few M profit. If there was no buyback clause it makes sense to play him as much as possible, even when he is bad. But this way, suffer to develop a player for another club?
Diaz is great (O.K. “decent) in transition, it is when he gets where he is going that problems arise, as his speed and quickness are neutralized and he is easily forced/pushed off the ball.Back to goal is definately no his strength, Leao and Saele. just need to keep up.