AC Milan managed to engineer another comeback victory against Frosinone last night at the Stadio Benito Stirpe, but a report has outlined the evident problems.
This morning’s edition of Corriere della Sera (via MilanNews) has a section dedicated to last night’s game titled: ‘Frosinone tamed, but the problems are there’.
It is true that the Rossoneri managed to bring home the three points, but the victory does not mask the problems of the team who conceded too many chances to Eusebio Di Francesco’s team.
The philosophy of scoring one more goal than an opponent sounds good, and Milan have scored the second-most goals in the league, but against better teams it is an approach that could fall apart.
Stefano Pioli’s words to Milan TV after the match said a lot, commenting on his team’s performance as follows:”All victories are important, this one was important for our journey, which is still long and difficult, but we are happy, maybe sometimes we complicate our lives a little, but that’s okay.
“We had a good first half but not an excellent one, we created but conceded too much in the first minutes, it will be important to work on our defects.”
Risky approach when relying on Adli to cover the spaces and then having Maignan do his best Tatarusanu impression yeah
The risky approach is that we have no respect or consideration for the opposition’s style of play or attacking capabilities and always try this overextended, overeliance on man oriented pressing and marking which pretty much leaves acres behind.
This might work against sitting ducks who don’t know how to attack, or can’t defend but against a decent team who knows what they’re doing we can’t just afford to do this. We have conceided 2 goals per game in 4 of our last 5 games, conceiding 1 in the other game. We can’t just expect to score 3 goals in every game, so we have to find a way to stop conceiding so many.
This approach might win us some games but it surely won’t win us a championship. Until Pioli put the real DM / breaker / anchor / etc on his 4231 / 433 system, we’ll still be easily conceding goals.
That’s not even it. Towards the end of the game Pioli seems to go 4-2-4 to secure a result. Against Frosinone it worked, but imagine what Inter will do to us, AGAIN…
There are issues on the pitch with this team. But the reason the team is conceding so many goals isn’t down to only tactics and personnel. Sure Milan needs a CDM and Maignan isn’t performing at his usual best. But in the last three games the issues are a bit more. The players weren’t concentrating against Bologna, which in my opinion Milan had won but gave away the game through lack of concentration. The last game was a mix of bad luck and Maignan being a poor goalkeeper. These aren’t issues that can be fixed by tactics. Nothing wrong with man marking press and sure against Inter these issues will be exploited. The brave thing to do is switch tactics against Inter and play a double pivot and play only counter attacking football. Its a big ask.
We don’t have the players to man mark opposition. That’s why Inter destroyed us (and will do it again).
The goals we are conceding are a combination of improper marking, limited CB options, only one proper CDM that has been injured up until now and Mike’s form recently.
These are valid points. It seems that since few games ago, we score a goal, w then sleep on the wheel until we conceide 2 goals until we remember how to play. I hope this is just us underestimating small teams because this is not a good trend.
meant to be a reply to @Sammy
I think Pioli’s aggressive tactics are fine when fielding quick athletic players like Tomori Thiaw and Theo but with Kjear Gabbia and Calabria who all struggle for pace it leaves them exposed. I feel this is an example of Pioli’s fatal flaw. He doesn’t adjust his tactics to the strengths of his players or to the weaknesses of opponents. It makes him predictable and this is why it seems Milan are so reliant individual brilliance.
Well put, sir, and I fully agree!!
We ask two offensive-minded players to shield a defense that has It’s third & 4th, and sometimes emergency option starting so it’s kinda expected. Frustrating, YES very but surprising? No!