When AC Milan walked off the field at half-time last night 3-1 up and with a man advantage the opportunity was there to seal qualification in the first leg, and yet they allowed Slavia Praha back into it.
As Calciomercato.com recall, several Milan players and Stefano Pioli himself have publicly stated that they want to get to the Europa League final in Dublin, but to get there they must do much better than what was seen last night.
In the victory against Slavia there are few positives, but the two-goal advantage in view of the return leg is one, as is Tijjani Reijnders returning to scoring and the fact that the team netted four goals on the night.
Slavia Prague took to the pitch at San Siro without awe and with a tactical organisation that was for long stretches better than that of Milan. It cannot be a coincidence that the first shot towards the goal came in the 33rd minute, Olivier Giroud’s goal.
Leading by one goal and one man due to Diouf’s silly challenge with his studs, Milan conceded two goals and many chances to Slavia Praha. The Rossoneri are a team that just can’t find a balance between the departments despite the overall quality of the players on the field being sufficient.
The feeling that remains after every Milan match is that this is a team that does not know how to kill matches. The choice to always build out fromith the two central defenders combined with that of deploying the double pivot in the midfield makes the team’s tactical system vulnerable.
Then we must not forget the many individual errors that have characterised the season: against the Czech side it was Theo Hernandez’s turn, and he has been one of the best players in 2024 for Milan so far.
Winning the Europa League is a target that the entire club has set for itself to try and salvage a season that could well become very forgettable, but it risks remaining a dream without a concert and sudden leap in quality.
Sad to say, the team balance was significantly disturbed since we lost Kessie (primarily) and then Tonali. Put it simple, ACM don’t dictate anymore the game in the mid of the park and we don’t work collectively as a team anymore.
Yesterday’s performance was all about a toothless and passive play against a 10men team. I was watching closely especially Adli, it was shocking the fact that for our midfielders there is almost NO game plan, NO direction, NO intention to push forward and open up spaces and ultimately create scoring opportunities.
We’ve lost or drawn against small teams even when Kessie was here. This is about attacking firepower, first it was Calhanoglu, then it was the decline of Ibra and Rebic and all were not substituted properly. Despite some goals, Okafor doesn’t do half of the job that Rebic did even when he didn’t score. We also need a proper dribbling player as a sub to Loftus Cheek, if Chukwueze was doing better, a Leao-Pulisic-Chukwueze would work.
Also our defenders score very few goals from headers, and we don’t have a free kick specialist
In short..new coach needed with fresh ideas
Conceding 2 goals against the Lions of Slavia is inexcusable and left a sour taste even in the face of 4 goals scored…
It’s these inconsistent displays that make me nervous for the return leg. We’ve already seen how shaky the team can get in the Rennes return tie. And in games where we should be properly motivated, we looked anything but…
Pioli has had the locker room throughout the entire 5 years, and it would be tragic of he started losing it now, when it matters more.
So yeah, a lot of unease ahead of the return leg in Prague.