Alessandro Costacurta has talked through the errors made by AC Milan in the two goals they conceded against Napoli, while speaking about Rafael Leao’s situation.
Milan suffered a big blow to any Scudetto hopes they might have as they were beaten 2-0 by Antonio Conte’s side at San Siro on Tuesday night. Both goals came in the first half for the visitors as Romelu Lukaku got the opener early on and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia doubled the advantage.
Milan fall 11 points behind the Partenopei as a result of the defeat and although they have a game in hand, the feeling is that the title train has left the station without them.
Costacurta was part of the Sky team covering the game and he was asked for his thoughts on the two goals that Milan conceded, as well as the decision to bench Leao again. MilanNews relayed his comments.
Napoli’s first goal: “That’s the big problem. When the ball is intercepted, the two central defenders never work together: on the goal, they are one ahead of the other.
“If Thiaw had moved earlier… That was my role for 30 years… This is a serious mistake. It’s impossible to put Lukaku offside, you’re not alone. If you see that your teammate is slightly behind. In my opinion, Fonseca must train this thing.”
Napoli’s second goal: “If you go to double team then you have to do it, not half do it. When Fofana comes out he doesn’t go to double up, never concede a shot on goal in that situation. He doesn’t go with the right determination, he doesn’t go with that determination.”
Is Okafor stronger than Leao? “I don’t think so. I think Leao is much stronger than Okafor. But I think Fonseca would prefer to start with Okafor at the moment. Today Leao came on and did very well, maybe it’s better to come on and face someone who has 75 minutes under his belt.”
So it’s Thiaw’s fault for attempting to leave Lukaku offside, but not Pavlovic who doesn’t stay in his line and covers the offside? How does that make sense?
Costacurta has lots of trophies to prove his know-how on defending. What are your merits? And to be accurate, he didn’t exactly blame Thiaw for the goal.
Are former players’ opinions supposed to be the universal truth? Not to mention that guy (an Inter fan, by the way) had Maldini, Baresi and Nesta save his ass countless times.
No one said anything about universal truth but frankly speaking his words have way more weight than random keyboard warrior’s (with limited internet time).
Bro, this criticism of one of the best defenders of his generation, who won countless trophies with us, is f-ing r3t@rded. Don’t embarrass yourself.
Pavlovic was shrugged of by Lukaku, like a child. The “big” guy that isn’t even big and strong. That was his only quality in defense, let’s be honest. He is better at passing than defending.
But after that first 5 minutes Lukaku was shepherded well by the two CBs IN COMBINATION.
If they had done that for the first goal, then maybe we wouldn’t even have been talking about a goal.
One gotta listen to experience, to the high qualified input of champions like Billy and Ambro… Wake up, Fonseca…
Hold up.
Costacurta, a man who played defense for 30 years and was part of the greatest defense ever, looks at Fofana on the Kvara goal, but “geniuses” in here that have never kicked a ball in their life by default go and blame the designated scapegoat Emerson for the goal.
You can stare at the TV, but that doesn’t mean you understand what you are watching.
Emerson isn’t a good RB, but he did good vs Kvara yesterday. Milan didn’t lose the game because of him. But he was going to be blamed even if he didn’t play in the game.
Emerson being useless in an almost literal way any time he tries to attack has a lot more to do with the criticism than his defensive performance, he is doing alright in that deparment so far.
The point is Thiaw and Pavlo started together when they aren’t regular starters. Add to that Terra and Emerson and it’s an adventure back there.
Having said that, I felt they sort of grew into the game more and didn’t allow Lukaku to bully them around further into the game. But at that point he had already scored against us. So …
We are at the end of October and outside of Gabbia, our CB’s are still question marks.
“Having said that, I felt they sort of grew into the game more and didn’t allow Lukaku to bully them around further into the game. But at that point he had already scored against us. So …”
Well that’s kind of the thing with Conte, he doesn’t make this teams push for more. They scored early against us, they we managed to get most of the occasions and then what happened ? When they pressed us again, they scored and that was it ?
I don’t think we can consider a pair to be working when the opposition was essentially focused on maintaining their win rather than push for more.
I think THIS is the real point. A CB pairing that has how many minutes together? Whether it’s Thiaw stepping up when he shouldn’t have, or Pavlovic falling back when he shouldn’t have, the lack of coordination between the two is due to the fact that they’ve barely played together. The CB pairing for this match should have been Pavlovic-Tomori or Tomori-Thiaw. That is on Fonseca. End of story.
Never should have let Kalulu go.