AC Milan fell to a 1-0 defeat in the Netherlands on Wednesday night, and their Champions League hopes rest on a good performance at San Siro.
As a (painful) recap, Milan suffered a heavy defeat in Zagreb to Dinamo which prevented them from finishing in the top 8 spots in the Champions League thus forcing them to play in the play-off round before advancing to the knockout stages.
Ironically or not the opponents they had to face in the playoffs were Feyenoord, the former team of the Rossoneri’s big winter signing – Santiago Gimenez.
The Dutch side were in the middle of a bad moment before the game but acted swiftly and sacked their coach with Pascal Bosschaart taking over as an interim, and this decision gave them the needed impulse as they played brilliantly against the Diavolo, winning 1-0 albeit with a bit of luck on the goal but more on that later.
Following the goal, Milan had little to offer going forward and when they did have a chance to equalise the efficiency was just not there with the players struggling to get going.
It’s all up in the air as things stand and with the reverse fixture in Italy, Milan are still the favourites to go through.
However, they will need to pick up the pace and be clinical in front of goal if they wish to continue their Champions League campaign.
Here are five things we learned:
1. A familiar mistake
Milan played poorly and Feyenoord certainly had more than one chance to score, but it’s fair to say that the goal they did score was a gift from Mike Maignan. A goalkeeper of his class should’ve saved Paixao’s shot 100 out of 100 times, but the Frenchman failed to do so.
If it were his first time fluffing an easy shot like that, we could’ve been more lenient towards him, but the unfortunate reality is that Maignan is making mistakes like this a little too often for our liking and it’s only fair to criticise him.
Obviously, there’s no denying his abilities, but he needs to be more consistent and eliminate these mistakes from his game.
2. Leao not up to the challenge
Leao also did not perform on the night and he had more than enough chances to turn the game around.
The Portuguese struggled to get going in the opening minutes, but eventually improved as the game progressed, even finding himself in some dangerous spaces in the second half of the opening 45 minutes.
Unfortunately, on all of these occasions, he was too slow to get a shot off or simply sloppy. For example, the big chance where he was essentially 1 vs 1 with the goalkeeper but didn’t even manage to get a shot off, allowing the defender to catch up after initially beating him for pace, is a perfect showing.
Then in the second half, he had a few nice moments where he beat his man easily, but then his end product was dreadful, if we’re being honest.
The winger needs to react well next week as he keeps being labelled as this phenomenon by everybody, Conceicao included, but we haven’t seen anything phenomenal in a while.
3. Gimenez a ghost
The Mexican was handed his first start after arriving a couple of weeks ago and was pretty much invisible through a game filled with mixed emotions for him having to face his old side just two weeks after joining Milan.
In hindsight, one can argue that Conceicao could’ve opted for Tammy Abraham instead given that the Englishman is in good form now and the fact that Feyenoord are familiar with Santiago Gimenez and know how to neutralise him well. But one can only speculate the outcome if Tammy was indeed preferred for this game.
Nevertheless, focusing on Gimenez, he was simply not good enough and wasn’t able to influence the game at all, but he’ll have his chances next Tuesday and hopefully this time he can punish the old club.
4. Centre-back duo the only positive
Malick Thiaw and Strahinja Pavlovic are probably the only ones who could hold their heads high following that performance and more specifically Pavlovic, who won the MOTM in our post-game ratings.
The Serb has been outstanding since Conceicao gave him his chance, following rumours that Milan might be inclined to sell him.
In the last few games though, he’s managed to be a pillar at the back, whilst also carrying the ball forward down the left flank, acting as a striker in multiple games where Milan needed a goal and against Feyenoord it was no different – he made multiple interceptions and blocks as well as impressive recoveries showcasing his pace and determination.
Towards the end, he also made a shot or two on goal which really encapsulates how a player wearing the Milan shirt should play. Unfortunately for him, his teammates were not up for a fight.
5. Walker found his match
The Englishman has been very good since joining from Manchester City and brought some much-needed leadership at the back, as well as composure and pace that was missing with Emerson Royal and Davide Calabria.
Against Feyenoord, however, he finally found his match in the face of Igor Paixao. The Brazilian scored the opening goal, with a bit of help from Maignan, which then seemingly helped his confidence as he was unplayable on the night making life hard for Kyle Walker and Milan as a whole as he earned Thiaw a yellow card too.
Walker was thus forced to focus a lot on his defensive duties and even then struggled to keep up, although the winger was contained for most of it with the Rossoneri doubling down on him in the second half.
However, this limited Walker in terms of his attacking contribution and that also affected Pulisic who struggled to get going too.
In the reverse fixture, Conceicao needs to figure out how to limit Paixao since he is by far their most dangerous player.
Multiple coaches and the same issues… there’s something arrogant about the way Milan plays these “smaller” teams – swaggering or more like sauntering around because “we’re AC Milan”… while our opponents are running around like it’s a World Cup final – and so guess who wins… Hopefully we’ll manage to muster some enthusiasm in front of our home fans in the return leg…
What I’ve learned is that this “Fantastic Four” thing is actually even worse than the movies, which is quite telling considering how bad some of these movies were.
couple of points on your comment.
1. Whenever people talked about “balance” this game is what they mean. There is no point in having 11 forwards if the team is unable to give them the ball. We had no midfield to transition or recover balls.
2. These guys up front need chemistry. First game in and you expect them to just click? Even “mighty” Mbappe took some time at madrid. Heck conceicao knew it, he was hesitant on putting all 4 in this game. BUT he had his hand dealt. Terracianno was our only other mid and he was never going be up to the task. Had Musah or RLC been available, I’m sure they would’ve started.
To your second point, I understand that this “Fantastic Four” thing isn’t going to stick right away, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad. But aside from that, I’m afraid that this idea is never going to work but I could be wrong. 3 of them might be able to start together but not the 4 of them. The problem with a 4-2-4 is the tremendous pressure it puts on the 2 and neither Reijnders (who is all offense and no defense) and Fofana (who is only good at ball carrying) can deal with that, we need another midfielder.
Also in this type of system, the LM and RM are essentially required to balance attack and defense to counterbalance the lack of a 3rd midfielder. We know that Leão is bad at defense but also requiring both Pulisic and Leão to track back more often than they already do is undermining their offensive contribution, so should we pursue this path, don’t expect as much goals or assists from both of them. And if we’re gonna say it’s up to Félix to drop deep and track back, then aren’t we essentially asking him to do what Morata did ? The same Morata whom we dropped because he drops too deep and doesn’t score enough ?
I think there’s a reason why the 4-4-2 or 4-2-4 isn’t as used anymore and our team isn’t built for it in my opinion.
But even if we’re gonna say it’s just a matter of time, how much time do we actually have ? Mbappé came to a side that just won la Liga and the UCL and still has some of the best in the worlds like Bellingham and Vinicius Jr and coached by a man who is adept at making the most out of the players at his disposal and yet it still took months with preseason, preparation and stuff for all of this to start looking like a decent side.
Agree with you on our Pivot. Fofana and Reijnder is not as good as Kessie – Tonali as these two are not strong at ball recover/interception. I think we still need a real DM/Anchor man to pair with Fofana or Reijnder depends on opponent. Tjiani used we need to attack more and Fofana when we need to defense more
1. The kit manager mistakenly washed the squads socks with Theo’s hair dye.
2. If this gig doesn’t work out for Conceição he can always become a jacket model, he changed his a couple of times during the match.
3. João Felix might perform better in the UFC, he had a devastating right knee to the head of Feyenoord’s keeper.
4. The weather gods blessed Mike with a shower because his performance stunk.
5. Santiago Gimenez thought he still played for Feyenoord because he was excellent in blunting our attack.
I think the last two coaches have had their doubts about Laeo. Both have sent him to the bench…but the players are a different story. Pass left pass left pass left. They give Laeo so much deference! Who are the two leading scorers for Milan? Tiji and Pulisic. Yet the ball is played down the left hand side the whole game? I can think of only one instance when Felix passed right and not one where he found Tiji in space. Fofana hardly connected on any forward passes but the ones I remember went left. Wake up! This team is loaded with talent. If one way is not working try something else.
Other teams WANT the ball played down the left! Yes, in THEORY, Theo and Leao are physical monsters with a Scudetto history, but in reality, numbers don’t lie, and the right side is FAR, FAR more dangerous.
I don’t doubt that Conceicao instructs the team to play down the left, but anyone with a brain, or statistics, knows that the right is more effective.
Agreed. I thought bringing Kyle Walker in would start to shift the attack to more balance. But the ball still goes left nearly every time. Pulisic will typically pass the ball back 3 times for every time he takes his defender on, sort of to set up his defender not to expect it. If he only gets the ball 8 times in a half, he’s only going to take on his defender twice. We should shift more to 50-50 left and right attacks.
I learned one thing. We need to stop making drastic conclusions off any one match or 30 minutes performance. We can be good, can be bad and there’s no way to predict which. But this site will publish 10 articles per day based on how the sky is falling in (if we lost the last game) or how a corner has been turned (if we won the last game).
Did we play well? No. Is Feyenoord away a tough gig? Yes. Did we basically get identical xG to a team that finished close to us in the group stage? Yes. Do we have a chance to go through if home support shows up? Yes. Is it the end of the world? No.
Sorry guys, but you learn too late. MM16 often gets 6 here although his near post has been constantly week. This game though, as well as Dinamo, it is on the couch. No need to force Felix in the lineup, plus sure we could have avoided playing the guy who was with them a week ago. Time runs fast. We all know what we need to do.
What? Sleep on couch until Tuesday?
I think this was a game where we could have used Musah to deal with that quick son of a b!tch on the left that was giving us all sorts of problems. Having Pulisic dropping all the way back into his own box is not ideal. He can also use his dribbling to break lines and sometimes even knows what to do with it when he does.
I also think Abraham would have been the better option against this team to start as he is better at hold up play and linking up with his teammates and creating a little more, where Giminez may be a better finisher, seems to be totally reliant on service from others.
I’m also not as impressed with Felix as others are.
4-3-3 with Musah in there with Tiji and Fofana with Leao, Abrahm and Puli up top to start next match s the way to go. You can bring in Felix and giminez later if you need to.
Musa was disqualified due to his red card in Zagreb.
I understand why people are always thinking about what lineup tweaks might have changed the outcome of these matches, but if the team doesn’t put any effort in and the other team runs around like their jobs depend on it, the result will always be the same.
The team culture is rotten. Only Pulisic and Pavlovic show any obvious signs of really trying. Tomori as well, but possibly too much lol
Fofana and Reinders also seem to be, but can’t put 100% effort in as they know they need to play 90 minutes every single match.
feyenord simply ask a difficult question that milan had no answer of. because milan players learn nothing from their past experiences. the past couple years, there’s nobody showing progress. they are all the same player as when they come and join the team. some even become worth less as time goes. they keep talking about we got the best player, better team, bla bla bla…but reality is we got good player maybe decent, but nobody seems striving to improve their game. honestly i have doubt of them as athletes, they are more of an actor than athletes. they should have playing in theater not a pitch.
I would like to even explore having Joao Felix as a deep-lying playmaker. I think he has good qualities to launch good passes from deep positions which we have been missing for quite some time. And fofana and tiji can be our box to box
For the return leg Musah can play on the right to bring balance to the team and also help contain Paixao.
Leao or Pulisic can play on the left, and then the other one will come in as a substitute.
Just need a more solid 433 with Reijnders at the 10.
1. Agreed Mike is liable for the loss.
2. Leao did things. It’s just that he wasn’t as effective. I’m not sure if the slippery conditions played a part, he wasn’t able to run at full speed. He could do more as can his fellow winger.
3. Giminez was lacking service. I made mention of this with his transfer. It could have been Haaland and it would have been the same outcome.
4. Centre back dou was fine. Even with Tomori. It’s the least “problematic” area of the pitch.
5. Walker needs to realize as he gets older he does have a very small decline in pace and so, needs to position himself differently against faster players. Father time is undefeated. I know this because as I got older I had to sit deeper to prevent being out run by faster younger players. It is what it is but be wise to changes to the body. Otherwise absolutely like his ability to marshall the defence. He did get quite a few blocks in
Again with this…five thing we learned…
We never learn anything and this is obvious after every game, this team don’t develop, don’t evolve. Same problems persist .
Any good coach will handle Milan
Leao and Theo can’t exist in the wing except leao change his attitude and game
And the coach needs to no that
Keep leao on the bench and
Switch to 4 4 2 and u will see this team perform
And play leao among the front two ss
1. Overreaction: People overreacted when we beat Roma and Empoli, and people are overreacting now. It was a poor performance, hardly the first one we’ve seen this season, but we are only a goal down.
2. No magic fixes: This team was poorly built last season and is very unbalanced. This will will not be fixed this season. It will take time to find the right group of players, the right system, and the right playing style.The job now is to finish in the top four. After that, many of these players will be gone.
I noticed that Walker doesn’t pass to Pulisic, for a reason. Most time when Walker has the ball, Pulisic doesn’t make himself open or isn’t in a promising position. In last game, Walker started to pass to the right wing after Chukwueze came on, who positioned himself well and showed courage of taking on defenders.
With addition of Joao, we should be seeing 4 ball holding and attacking options, Leo, Joao, Tijjani and Pulisic. With such line up, our defenders shouldn’t have to keep probing them on who is willing to take the ball. I am just frustrated and wonder why the quality (at least on paper) doesn’t show up consistently during the games.
5 things I learned:
1. Maignan is past his prime and needs to be sold.
2. Leao is not making any progress since we won the scudetto and he needs to be sold. He is limiting the team and he is very predictable.
3. Theo should be sold. Another player like Maignan who Milan should not renew on a higher salary.
4. With sale of Tomori, Maignan, Theo, Chukwueze and Leao Milan can rebuild the team and strengthen the bench with quality players.
5. Conceição is not the problem. This Milan team is poorly built and the top players are inconsistent and always under performing.
What I learned :
– Felix should play more attacking position.
– Leao is good as a sprinter (He can join Hussein Bolt) , but with the ball, he’s a headless chicken.
– Maybe we were wrong selling Bennacer (even tough he wanted to leave), Bennacer was good in launching the midfield into the action of the attack.
– We need at least one good Winger
Boban pretty much says it here; https://sempremilan.com/boban-bennacer-sale-milan-inconsistency-conceicao
Most Milan fans know that this is a poorly constructed team. There is individual quality but as a unit these players don’t fit together in any system, at least not one that we can play sustainably. One injury or even a substitution and we have to change system. I can’t remember the time Musah played three games in a row in the same position. Heck, sometimes he plays multiple positions in the same match. This happens to Reijnders and Fofana as well, albeit their role changes are more subtle. How do you expect this team to be consistent?
This is and always was a management issue. You can scapegoat Leao, Bennacer, Krunic, Calabria, Theo, but the bottom line is these players delivered when there was a clear plan, system, and professional environment in place.
There is a lot to fix and it will take time.
Boban pretty much said it after the game.
Most Milan fans know that this is a poorly constructed team. There is individual quality but as a unit these players don’t fit together in any system, at least not one that we can play sustainably. One injury or even a substitution and we have to change system. I can’t remember the time Musah played three games in a row in the same position. Heck, sometimes he plays multiple positions in the same match. This happens to Reijnders and Fofana as well, albeit their role changes are more subtle. How do you expect this team to be consistent? This is and always was a management issue. You can scapegoat Leao, Bennacer, Krunic, Calabria, Theo, but the bottom line is these players delivered when there was a clear plan, system, and professional environment in place. There is a lot to fix and it will take time.
Actually if I play Camarda it must be prime.team
Guys Mike just made one mistake. Stop acting like we have to sell him straight away. Forza Milan
1. Our green kit is terrible
2. Our left side is seriously overrated
3. We won’t get far in the knockout stages because we don’t have midfield depth.
4. Sarge has no plan B
5. Theo is standing outside the exit door..
But, but, but… the left side is Portugese so they have flair.
This is such a simplistic analysis of the front four. Giminez was lacking service. Watched Gab and Jules podcast Youtube short on ACM. Gab was spot on in his analysis. Oh, and Gabe is Italian in case people want to make that argument. Pulisic was available all game. The problem was there were no support players on that side to work with. Everything was loaded to the left side. And, Walker couldn’t go forward as he was worried about defending.
I don’t think Felix helps. Conceicao likes him, but he does a lot of me ball stuff. I think Felix as second striker and Pulisic and Leao staying wide leads to midfield struggles. They are just outnumbered. It did not work. Felix’s selfish behavior begets more selfish behavior in other players. Leao should have just squared the ball to Gimenez.