AC Milan eased to victory against Monza on Tuesday night, and there were several impressive performances to take away from the game, but there were also some poorer performances.
It is fair to suggest that the game against Monza is in between a pre-season game and something else, given both managers elected to deploy strong teams, and with the season starting this weekend, it is less a case of raising fitness, but making final tweaks.
With this in mind, we can, perhaps, be more critical of performances, and Calciomercato.com have highlighted some Milan performances from the game which deserve attention.
Starting with the positives, Alexis Saelemaekers was fantastic again, and perhaps, he has earned Fonseca’s ‘full confidence’ as is stated, his goal shows how high his confidence currently is, and there is a chance he could start against Torino.
Elsewhere, Noah Okafor and Lorenzo Torriani were very good. The Swiss winger looked very good and did well for Luka Jovic’s goal, and Torriani again showed why he is rightfully going to be Mike Maignan’s deputy. Tijjani Reijnders and Strahinja Pavlovic were also impressive, with the Dutchman scoring a beauty.
Fonseca will take note of another sub-par performance from Filippo Terracciano, who does not look comfortable at left-back, but he applies himself. In front of a ‘stadium that already loves him’, Alvaro Morata was not brilliant, even if he was full of enthusiasm, and Jovic could start this weekend.
I worry about morata splitting with his wife of 4 kids a few days ago. Have they followed him to Italy? I think outside of 90minutes on the pitch he’s gonna have a lot of baggage mentally or he could be reborn with hunger but I worry until we can see where he’s at
Bro, situations like this never happen overnight. This has been brewing for a while if you read his post. doubt it’s weighing as much on him as you think.
Terraciano doesn’t look comfortable anywhere….
Terraciano doesn’t look like he’s got what it takes to play with the first team. Sure, he is young and maybe he will improve with more playing time with Milan Futuro, but I somehow doubt it and think it is more likely that he has a low ceiling and should be sold (well, his disastrous performances in this pre-season will make it more difficult; what club would want him after what he showed???). I have nothing against keeping him with Milan Futuro for another year to see how it goes, but my expectation of positive developments is low.
In any case, I hope Fonseca has concluded that Terraciano should not be Theo’s deputy. Jimenez is better than him (while still not that good defensively; but at least, he is better offensively; I hope he hasn’t collected a serious injury), and Bartesaghi is clearly also better.
Terraciano should be deployed to the futuro team to get his act together… He doesn’t look like a big team material