Davide Calabria has admitted that AC Milan were far from their best during last night’s defeat against Inter, and made an interesting statement on the first goal.
It was eight minutes into the game when Inter got the early breakthrough and it came via Edin Dzeko, who Simone Inzaghi had chosen to start over Romelu Lukaku. Hakan Calhanoglu’s delivery from the right was volleyed in first time by the Bosnian into the top corner as he beat Calabria to it.
Less than three minutes later they had doubled their lead, and this time it was poor concentration from open play that was Milan’s undoing. A ball from Federico Dimarco on the left was wisely left by Lautaro Martinez, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan strode into the box to finish past Maignan unopposed.
Calabria was interviewed by Sky Italia after the game to try and pick apart what was a very disappointing night for his side, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.
“It had already happened several times that their attacking moves put us in difficulty. The second goal came like this, the first too. Dzeko is clearly bigger than me, there’s not much we can do. We need to be more careful and improve because we’ve always struggled with them,” he said.
“The second leg? We have to be more clinical in front of goal. If you score a goal, it can change the game in the second leg. It’s not lost, we’ll give it our all, but they’re a great team and we’re aware that we have to approach in the best possible way and also finish better, which is a problem we also had in the league.”
“Dzeko is clearly bigger than me, there’s not much we can do.”
I can already see Pioli at set piece training:
“They have Dzeko who is a tall and strong guy….hmmm….Davide, you look tall and strong to me, go mark him. There’s nothing else we can do”
LMAO 5’9 marking 6’4 player
This is exactly how I imagined it too. Maybe Diaz should mark him next week?
This is not a good comment from a captain and a defender. This means he has already given up against Dzeco. I would prefer Calabria sit on d bench next march.. Let’s try incorporate Thiaw into the defence. This Calibra is a clown…
Bigger, stronger, hungrier, more technically gifted, better prepared tactically and mentally, pound for pound just a completely different class of player.
It was obvious even last season that we don’t just need a new right sided forward, we need an entirely new right flank.
Calabria deserves eternal gratitude for being there when we were average and needed hope but at the level we now need to be, he is cover at best.
Spot on
I 200% agree with your comments.
“Dzeko is clearly bigger than me, there’s not much we can do.”
Sit on the bench and do nothing then !!!
Calabria realised that Dzeko was taller and bigger AFTER Dzeko scored. It could have made me laugh … but not even.
The captain is just talking BS.
Men! We miss Ibra. Probably he can help and slap some sense into this Calabria guy.
A dwarf calabria cannot mark a giant dzeko.this details decide games like this
He is 5’10” Which country are you from? Where 5’10” is dwarf? What is the average height, in your country? 6’11”?
Calabria is 1.76M (5’9) was no match against dzeko. Should be Thiaw marking him
He is 5’10” actually..
This Calabria guy is not only a moron he is completely brainless. Maldini and co should terminate his contract and buy a defender with some sense.
Man’s just being realistic… Have u ever been in that situation playing street football, then u’ll know what he’s talking about. We could say his positioning should’ve been different to overcome that challenge. I think only Kjaer would’ve been able to handle him at that particular time with his experience, height and all …. He looked like a giant beside him… Like playing against his son in terms of height and physique…
But what’s really wrong with our players?! Non is physically strong. Our players are just too light compared to Inter, Udinese and more.
My problem ain’t so much that Calabria is shorter than Dzeko but moreso how the heck did he end up marking him. We play a combo of zonal and man mark on the corners. I’m probably giving away too much here but seemingly we man mark just outside the six yard box and zone inside there for Maignan to catch so he has space. If you look at Dzeko’s movement for that corner he was quite clever. Either he knew this or had strikers instincts but he evaded the taller defenders to specifically end up with the shorter Calabria. Why we don’t outright man mark Dzeko who is very good in the air I really don’t know 🤷♂️. Even if we front him, he has to move to get his shit off which is harder to do but to just stand there and have a shot, come on bro. Tactically we were outplayed on that corner.