Christian Pulisic is the man that AC Milan have to thank for the three points against Sassuolo to cap off 2023 after the team but in an odd performance overall.
As has been highlighted by Corriere dello Sport (via Milan News), the American winger getting his sixth league goal of the season was the shining light in what was a tepid display.
It can be argued that the most important thing on Saturday was to get three points given there was mounting pressure on Stefano Pioli following the 2-2 draw against Salernitana.
Whilst those points are very welcome, Milan fans want to see a coherent attacking display when they face teams like Sassuolo at home.
From an attacking standpoint, injuries cannot be used as an explanation for registering just two shots on target during the whole match.
It is a game that will not live long in the memory, and will be quickly forgiven if Milan manage to go on a winning run and really cement their place in the top four of Serie A over the next couple of months.
Rafael Leao had a particularly disappointing game and was even whistled off the pitch by some fans when he was taken off.
Ouch. Looking at the linked post from Milan News (with some help from Google Translate), Cor del Sport coined a new term for Pulisic: “salvapioli” (Pioli saver).
Injuroes can’t be an explanation for the lock of coherence in tge attacking phase of the game?
When there is no continuity in your line up, the build up play and defense takes the biggest hit.
What you can do in attack is contigent on everyone being perfectly synchronized when opponrtunities arrise. The attack depends on the 2 other phases. We have a team with primavera players, defenders out of position or that had little playing time eith their teammates over the last few seasons, including this one. Again due to transfer policies.
Upper management preferred to risk the contiuity of our team’s staffing to save money. Last year’s 5th place finish, and this season’s struggles are a direct result of certain management figures in our club not being decisive and gambling instead of biting the bullet to insure we kept our team together. They never replaced our outgoing players with healthy, proven, reliable players that were familiar with our league. It is the culmination of poor preparation and execution, a hodge podge of taking whatever scraps they could land at the last minute. This team had to be fully built come the beginning of training camp. It wasn’t. So we have players being overworked for several seasons going down like flies with the new ones succumbing as well because they are not used to the physical ardour of our league. We play in a league where defensive discipline and coordination is the difference between wins and losses, split seconds won are the result of chemistry being built with an organized upper management. They haven’t been that. Our ownership and previous owners have been holding back this team for 3 seasons. We had a strong foundation they weakened instead of reinforcing. They obstructed our sporting directors ability to keep our team together to attaint sustainable success.