Alvaro Morata has made a substantial impact at AC Milan already, and yet there are concerns about whether enough goals will come from him this season.
Calciomercato.com write how Morata is showing himself to be a leader on and off the pitch in his first few weeks and months at the club, one of the few players who has truly understood what it means to play for Milan, despite having just arrived.
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His charisma and experience is beyond discussion, after all you don’t become the captain of the European champions Spain by chance, nor do you end up at top clubs like Real Madrid, Chelsea and Atletico Madrid without having an elite mentality, and of course ability.
Morata only needed a few training sessions with the Rossoneri to understand what is missing at the moment and probably hasn’t been seen since the Scudetto win. His words after the 2-2 draw with Torino – a game in which he made his debut off the bench and scored – were striking.
“We need to take a step further mentally. We need to work hard, work, make more fouls, become a tougher team,” he said. In a way he said what we all know: Milan have a relatively young squad which is demonstrating that it does not have any real leaders within it.
From Mike Maignan to Theo Hernandez, Rafael Leao to Fikayo Tomori – no one has managed to take the decisive step to become a guide who shows the way to the rest of the team and does so consistently, and in the biggest games.
Morata helps this because he can be that player with his experience of winning and his leadership. Paradoxically, however, Morata has not yet managed to become Olivier Giroud’s heir in terms of goals, given he has so far scored twice in seven appearances (vs. Torino and Lecce).
His current average is one goal every 196 minutes, practically a goal every two games, too little for the one who should be the team’s top scorer, even though Tammy Abraham has played plenty too. After the break, Morata hopes to take off and become a leader with match-winning goals too.
The title of this piece is everything we expected
That’s cause he’s out there supporting our useless 90 million euro wasted midfield.
Ding ding ding!!! We have a winner 😁
Our poor centre forward has to play two roles after buying a pile of mids the last two seasons most of whom are not functional to the team.
My dude literally has to go sit deep, win the ball, start the build up the play and then go forward to be in a position to score….all game long 🥴
Bingo.
Our only creative midfielder is scoring for Viola now. Who needs creative midfielders when the strikers can drop deep and do the midfield’s job for them, right?
Doing better than Tammy. Two open play goals to Tammy’s goose egg. Bench Tammy and play Morata up top.
But Tammy has an amazing ratio of 50% for penalties. Such a superstar.
Why the surprise? He’s always been a bad goal scorer particularly big chances. You can’t deny his professionalism, work ethic and leadership (to a point as he was out of line handing the ball to Theo…you’ve been here 5 minutes schmuck) but we are impotent in the final third against decent teams in big matches
Abraham is the same, this is why Gerry signs these ‘nearly players’ you get an almost good player for peanuts…
By the way Oliver…SUPERB!!! podcast this week, you were bang on point on every single issue..great to hear. Enough of the settling for mediocrity and unprofessionalism. You speak for true fans.
Lack of goals. Still has more than Abraham who btw played more minutes
Well he offers even less….just another athlete trying to pass himself off as a footballer….Michael Owen was right….
He’s not amazing but he’s better than Tammy and works hard.
We need goals…
Okafor is a better supporting striker for Morata. Abraham sucks. That guy can’t kick a ball with his left foot even if his life depended on it.
Starting strikers should be Okafor/Morata. Starting CB should be Gabbia/Pavlovic. Barteseghi should be Theo’s backup.
Can’t kick a decent penalty either it seems…
I don’t have anything against Morata. He’s much better than Tamtam, and his work-rate has to be one of the highest on the squad. However, this line trolled me up: “… Morata is showing himself to be a leader on and off the pitch…” The guy who first defied to orders by taking the ball and giving it to Theo for the first missed penalty?
This is the problem: our “leaders” do whatever they heck they want. That’s not leadership, that’s sinking-a-ship.
He has shown what it takes to wear milan shirt in 2 games, which what leao failed to demonstrate in 5 years
We all knew he wouldn’t fill Giroud’s boots when it comes to scoring. He needs 10 great chances to score one goal. Always has, always will.