Simon Kjaer will play from the first minute in the derby between AC Milan and Inter tomorrow evening, making his first start of the season. Based on last season, it’s certainly not a major cause for concern.
The Dane has only made a couple of cameos off the bench this season as Stefano Pioli has preferred the Thiaw-Tomori duo at the back. With the Englishman suspended, and Kalulu injured, the experienced centre-back will now get his chance.
Taking a look at last season, Kjaer played a total of 19 games from start. Milan came out on top in ten of these, drawing four of them and losing just five games. In short, the record of the 34-year-old is quite good.
Notable wins from those 19 games include the 1-0 win against Tottenham at San Siro, the 4-0 trashing of Napoli away from home and the 2-0 win against Lazio at the start of May. During today’s presser, Pioli also made it clear that Kjaer certainly is up for the job.
All this articles about Kjaer makes it look like he’s an average defender.
Kjaer is a world class defender, his only problem is he lacks pace, I don’t even think that’s a problem though because Thiago Silva is not a fast defender either.
Yep. And that lack of pace gives me some concern when he’s paired with a relatively inexperienced and also not fast CB like Thiaw.
I like the kid thiaw, as he’s solid with excellent positioning which makes him perfect to pair with pacey CB like Tomori or Kalulu.
Thiaw and kjaer combination might be too slow for rapid play strikers like latauro, except pupil worked out very specific tactics to address this.
Well, I would more say that the article shows he was average within the context of Milan’s performance. We played 38 games, going 20-10-8. He started half (19), and went 10-4-5. So basically the team didn’t perform above or below it’s average when he was in the lineup. So in a sense it’s good news, as Kjaer’s presence at least did not decrease the team’s quality when he played. The wildcard is: only two of those games were played next to Thiaw…
Well the article also left some stats out that actually show Milan is much better defensively when he starts.
In 19 games that Kjaer started.
9 clean sheets
only 15 goals allowed
average of 0.79 goals allowed per game
In 33 games Kjaer didn’t start
only 8 clean sheets
43 goals allowed
average of 1.31 goals allowed per game
Pretty clear that Milan plays better defensively when he is in there.
Exactly, the defense last season was better when Kjaer started. All these people bashing him now because he isn’t as fast as he used to be are ridiculous. Video game players who think speed is everything. Explain how Thiago Silva is still a world class defender at his age? It’s about positioning, anticipation and reading the game. Tomori needs speed because he is constantly getting caught out of position and needs to make it up. Kjaer is as solid as it gets and we are lucky to have him on the team for occasions like this.
It’s also about the tactics a club employs. If you’re pushing a high line with man to man marking, you have to be fast to recover ground in a throughball or ballover the top situation against pacey forwards. You can’t cite one of the best defenders of his generation as an example.
Kjaer’s long range passing is world class. So is Maignan’s. Having two long range passers out of the backfield will be interesting to see if Inter can adjust their press. If they choose to back off, then Milan can be patient in build-up and the score may be low (0-0) maybe. But if they press harder, then spaces will be open in further up the pitch for long passes to break the attacking stars and the score may be higher (3-3).
Kjaer is better than tomori.kjaer can be slow in pace but experienced.Lautaro wil feel happier to see tomori so as to use him to shine.Remember milan allowed pirlo to leave because they felt he was old and slow in pace.pirlo later went to to juventus and proved he is a world class player.