There was a mixed bag of performances during last night’s 2-2 draw between Napoli and AC Milan, according to this morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport.
The paper (seen below) has published their ratings from the game, starting with the team’s overall performance and Stefano Pioli’s score, both of which earned a 6 out of 10.
Olivier Giroud netted a brace which probably should have been match-winning and thus got a 7 which made him Milan’s best performer, while a wasteful Tijjani Reijnders was the worst at a 5.
Mike Maignan got a 5.5 as there were question marks over his handling of the ball and if he might have been able to save both goals.
Davide Calabria (7) and Fikayo Tomori (6.5) held the defence together at times, while Pierre Kalulu (6) had to come off early but was doing ok. Theo Hernandez (5) was criticised for his defensive work.
In midfield, Yunus Musah stood out as the most impressive – getting a 6.5 – while Rade Krunic only scored a 5.5.
Christian Pulisic was the best source of creativity, earning a 6.5, but Rafael Leao again struggled on the other flank and scored one point less.
In terms of the substitutions, Marco Pellegrino (5) and Luka Romero (5) both struggled to make a good impression, with the former struggling on Napoli’s first goal and coming off injured in his debut.
We know the players rating for Napoli game
What was Pioli’s rating?
Zero. A BIG FAT ZERO.
It says in the article.
That’s probably the last we’ll see of Pellegrino and Luka as Pioli will ‘trust’ them even less now. Even though it was he who threw them to the lions last night.
I know he had to because of injuries, but this is why you give squad players 10 mins here and 10 mins there – so when you need them, they’re ready.
We need a B team and (I’m going off topic now but) Italy needs to reform the very uninteresting Coppa Italia to something like the FA cup, so that that there are games of less jeopardy early in the season where the fringe players can get minutes.
Pellegrino was awful, shaky and was beaten easily, not worthy of a Milan player, Luka was crap, played like a school boy, I blame the scouts and management, buying craps
Dude chill out. Those are theirs first minutes in Milan most important match of the season. Each of them got 7 times less salary than Leao, who in contrary didn’t managed to show anything better then both of them in 90 minutes.
Cool down it is just sports game
So a young player should immediately be outstanding the first time he plays ? (especially in la Maradona).
Guess we should have sold Tonali by 2020, Bennacer by 2019 and Leao by 2019.
We had a certain homegrown, quiet hardworking defender in the roster, who always delivered when called upon. But opted for inexperienced kid from Argentina for few bucks and possible capital gainzz. Well there goes his first impression. Should’ve go with Bartesaghi. And we’re left only with Tomori and Thiaw now.
And what’s with RLC? A part time player with high wages. Another great buy for our below standard infirmary.
The assessment of Reijnders is quite fair – and someone had to dare to say it. He had the most negative impact yesterday overall.
There has been a lot of enthusiasm with him which masked his arguably bad performances the past month (or so). In fact he has not been good without RLC next to him. And certainly, he is not an upgrade to Tonali or Bennacer at the moment. He might reach that level but right now he is not there.
Weirdly, Musah (being much yournger) feels more ready and he offers already more.
The fact that he moves a lot, played almost every international break and pretty much always regular and never subbed, has certainly taken a toll on him.
With that said, it’s easy to look great against sitting ducks like Bologna and Torino, and I guess that overhyped him. His true level is in the games after that.
Also, until he practices shooting 100x every day after training, he should NEVER be allowed to shoot or ever near the box again.
Musah has already been an international starter for the last 3 years for the USMNT, an entire World Cup qualifying cycle and also started all four matches for the USMNT at the 2022 World Cup. His most memorable performance was the match against England where everybody noticed how he stuffed Jude Bellingham, now tearing it up in La Liga.
Reinjders on the other hand, was mostly just an Eredivisie player and the first time he got called up by the Dutch National team was after Milan got him and he started getting noticed.
So, despite being younger, and not having been a regular starter for his club team, Musah has had a far greater experience at playing against top international players in high stakes matches