AC Milan came away with three huge points from their encounter with Hellas Verona last night. Santiago Gimenez was decisive for the Rossoneri, but the issues in attack remain and Sergio Conceicao must make changes.
As highlighted by today’s edition of Gazzetta dello Sport (see photo below), despite Verona having conceded the most goals in the league, Milan struggled to create chances. In many ways, they are playing like Alvaro Morata is still at the club.
Gimenez does his job
That is what a centre-forward is for, resolving complicated names by appearing at the right time in front of goal, thus transforming opportunities into goals. Santiago Gimenez is indeed what Milan needed and he confirmed it with the goal against Verona.
Of course, Rafael Leao deserves a lot of praise for the goal as well. The Portuguese winger came off the bench for the second half and combined with Alex Jimenez, another sub, to break through the Verona defence.
It was an easy goal for Gimenez, it must be said, but to be in the right place is a different question. Can we be sure that Morata would have been found in the same way? The Mexican sensed the opportunity and was able to free himself from the defence, which requires skill.
As a strong centre-forward, he understood beforehand what would happen. And perhaps Milan should understand some things too, because the victory over the Gialloblu leaves a very valuable lesson.
Attack continues to struggle
For large parts of the game, Conceicao’s team played as if Morata was still in attack and not the Mexican, who guarantees a presence in the area which must be taken advantage of. Indeed, the striker only had two passes to exploit and both were goals, even if the first was offside.
In short, the striker needs vertical balls to attack the depth or crosses to make use of his aerial abilities inside the box. At Feyenoord, the wingers played for him and even the full-backs, when they came forward, looked for him with crosses.
Milan, on the other hand, never knew how to serve him with the right timing and didn’t even try. Conceicao changed the battery of attacking midfielders three times, but no formula was convincing: he started with Musah-Joao-Sottil, switched to Jimenez-Joao-Leao and ended with Pulisic-Joao-Leao.
The ‘Fantastic Four’ were used in the final parts of the game as Verona never really threatened, but Milan still didn’t create enough.
The full-backs didn’t participate enough from behind: Kyle Walker never pushed forward properly and was also replaced for this reason, Theo Hernandez seemed apathetic as so often this season and only Jimenez, who had the lovely dink for Leao, was able to open up the yellow-blue defence.
The difficulty in creating chances against one of the five most beaten defences in Europe was surprising. In the top European leagues, only Leicester and Southampton in the Premier League, Holstein Kiel in the Bundesliga and St.Etienne in Ligue 1 have done worse than Verona.
And yet yesterday, at a certain point, it seemed that the Rossoneri were destined for a disappointing 0-0.
Calling a spade a spade here.. first half there was no penetration without puli or Leao against a Verona side intent on getting to halftime at 0-0. Once Leao and Jimenez came on things started happening but Verona dropped even further back and frustrated us. Once puli came on it gave them a few things to think about it and we unlocked them.
Not the worst performance considering we played a tough, tiring champions league tie only a few days ago away from home. Especially because not starting with Leao and/or Puli here kinda meant you already miss some creativity from minute 1. Musah should’ve buried that chance just before halftime as well.
Important thing was the 3 points and clean sheet in a game where, under Fonseca, we’d usually draw or lose. Onto Feyenoord where the intensity must be 100% from minute 1. It’s a work in progress but we must get a result here. Forza Milan
you meant Leao been the creative genius not “and/or”
3-3-4 is still a good option for us…
Midfield is our biggest concern atm
Only Filippo Inzaghi will always be there at the right time…. I’d like to see Giminez do the same
On paper we have one of the deadliest attackers in serie a but we can only beat verona with the worst defensive record in the league by one goal…. Milan look lost in what to do when they get into oppositions defense right now. They also need to practice shooting from outside of the box. So frustrating watching milan right now. Gimenez is managing to get goals but really should be getting more with the right service. You look at our best team and it should be right up there with the top 5 in europe. Really embarrassing. Camarda wouldve scored in the champions league and serie a if we actually played to our potential too. Rant over haha
Not sure why this is news or needs to be pointed out again.
Milan always struggles against the low block and doesn’t have the players with good ball control in tight spaces. Felix was brought in for this but he will need time to gel with others.
Most our players need space to run into. We’re built as a counterattacking team due to poor planning. Mostly our players are having to pass side to side because they don’t have the skill to penetrate and frankly the spaces aren’t there to exploit in a low block – that’s why team do it as damage limitation.
And in the times we do push the ball into the box, the forward players often take an extra step and lose possession instead of just firing a shot.
Conceicao doesn’t have time to reinvent the wheel here. Just has to get the points however ugly they come.
You’re absolutely right ✅️.
Our midfield has gone down in quality.
Kessie, Tonali,Bennacer, Salemaekers and even Krunic was a much reliable midfield in terms of goals contribution and defensive duties. Only Reindjers in my opinion meets up to that quality
The problem was wastefulness ,Not our quality of tactics. Their defense was unlocked, Musah and Fofana must learn to shoot on target atleast. The likes of Kessie, Tonali or Bennacer or even the much maligned Krunic will score some of those balls these guys keep “ballooning” to the stands. We create, but not clinical as other season’s,that’s largely the problem.