AC Milan bounced back from the defeat against Fiorentina with a heroic defensive performance against Udinese, prevailing 1-0 despite playing with ten men for most of the game. However, as highlighted by the papers, there was controversy involved.
Tijjani Reijnders was the ‘culprit’ as the referee deemed him to have stopped a clear-cut chance, thus dishing out the red card. However, as the replays showed, there was minimal contact and most would agree that it wasn’t worthy of a red card (perhaps not even a foul).
Then, in the final minutes of injury time, Udinese had a goal (correctly) disallowed for offside after the referee made an on-field VAR review. The away side also had a penalty shout earlier on, while the goalscorer Samuel Chukwueze was stamped by Isaak Touré for a few seconds with no consequence.
In short, there were many doubts regarding the refereeing but in the end, as Christian Pulisic also highlighted, Milan deservedly came away with all three points.
Today’s front pages
Gazzetta dello Sport
👀 “One man down and Leao doesn’t come on, Fonseca wins.”
⚽ “Chukwueze goal, Udinese defeated.”
Tuttosport
😅 “Milan celebrate with ten men, but what controversy!”
🧐 “Questionable red card for Reijnders, Toure let off easy. Udinese denied a penalty and two goals disallowed for millimetre offsides.”
I made an upscaled 4K 120fps video of the segment where Lovric fell down in front of Reijnders and uploaded it to youtube. You can find the video by searching for the title:
“Lovric trips himself to get Reijnders red carded”.