AC Milan do not regret signing Brahim Diaz on a permanent basis thanks to the excellent form that Christian Pulisic has produced in his first season with the club.
As reported by La Gazzetta dello Sport, Brahim’s form at Real Madrid this season does not suggest that Milan made the wrong call by putting their money elsewhere.
Pulisic is technically classed as a midfielder by Milan but he has the numbers of an excellent forward player.
He has got 15 goals and 10 assists in all competitions this season and has played a roll in 26.3% of the goals that the team has scored this season.
Considering he arrived after a poor spell at Chelsea where many thought he was not cut out for a high level, despite Chelsea spending €60m on him from Borussia Dortmund.
Milan had an option to keep Real Madrid loanee Brahim at the club for this season but they opted not to do that. The money was instead spent on other attacking options, Pulisic being one of them.
In the 2022/23 season, Brahim scored seven goals and eight assists for Milan which is a good return and made the decision a tough one. Pulisic’s numbers show that the correct decision was made.
Good first season. Now he has to be better in big games. He only scored once in UCL (Newcastle), with no assist in six games. Against Inter, Juventus, Napoli, Roma, Atalanta in Serie A he has 2 assists in ten games. Hopefully he can improve.
Yep Puli has good stats overall. But also goes missing in big games. I don’t mind him taking care of the small teams (we need that) but at some point hopefully he can do more against the bigger teams
Which player during this season did well against big teams ? We barely even score in big games.
Overall the team played badly vs big teams. The only person to show up somewhat was Leao (against PSG, Inter, Roma X2, Lazio, Atalanta)
Well we also didn’t play with a real 10 all season basically
Why would we have regrets. He was here for 3 seasons and never looked convincing.
^THIS is exactly what we’ve been saying the whole time he was here. Inconsistent.
Yeah right. He never looked convincing during the restart??? Never looked convincing during the UCL run. You are delusional buddy.
Diaz is good with counter attacking football and Milan are not doing that anymore. Need good passers and holders of the ball all over the pitch. A player like Puli is much more suitable without having to look at goals and assists.
how, Pulisic has been great but 95% of the time he was playing RW, Diaz played 95% as a 10, we definitely regret letting Diaz go, we have no speed in the midfield, Diaz used to come up with the ball from deep in our midfield, we dont have that anymore, we also regret losing Tonali more coz all our midfielders cant defend even if their lives depended on it
First sentence says,”AC Milan do not regret signing Brahim Diaz on a permanent basis.”
Oh…. we signed him? 🙂 Where has he been?
It’s fair to say Pulisic hasn’t shined in the big games. But no one else on this team has either. And I would argue that he makes fewer mistakes in the big games than some of the people who are suggested as his replacement. That’s not good enough for a team like Milan, of course. But he is still the best choice and our most consistent player. He improved incrementally in several areas this year. Let’s hope he continues that upward trajectory
They played two different positions though. Puli played majority at RW, Diaz last year was CAM. If anything, the comparison should be RLC vs Diaz, in which case they’re about the same, being generous.
We’re also forgetting that Diaz was going to be the backup to Hakan, the better quality AM. But Hakan left and we were stuck with Diaz as a starter for that season unfortunately even though it worked out ok. Real already has a quality Attacking mid, Diaz is a good backup for him just as he would have been for Hakan.
I think the point they are trying to make is that the goal contributions improved with Puli. Diaz was never convincing.
“They played two different positions though. Puli played majority at RW, Diaz last year was CAM.”
And my point was that the comparison was not apt because theyre comparing the two in the article, who played different positions. We generate our goals through wing play. RLC, the current “CAM” doesn’t have many assists is evidence of this
The fact that we’re trying to compare Diaz to RLC, who is not even a true CAM, says more about Diaz than RLC.
I personally second the opinions that we don’t regret Diaz, regardless of his position. He was way too inconsistent, is a good dribbler and passer sure, but with us he wasn’t a good shooter and was easily overwhelmed by stronger opponents.
That’s why I said “CAM”. RLC is more a SS if anything. But yes Diaz was supposed to be the backup, not a starter. I wouldn’t have liked of we were going to lay over 20m for him too
I’m a fan of Pulisic and have watched his career develop at Dortmund, then Chelsea, now Milan. His finishing is much improved and he has benefited from the lower level of athleticism in Serie A and the additional space available the middle third, so he doesn’t get hacked down as often.
Historically, he always played the best in the big games, like Champion’s League and against the best teams in the Premier League — many of his games in a Chelsea shirt were against the best of the best, e.g. scoring vs Man City, brace off the bench against Liverpool, 1 goal in champion’s league semi vs Madrid in their UCL winning season, carrying the team against Porto in another UCL game, carrying the team into UCL qualifying during project restart, etc. I’m worried more about Milan not playing well in the big games this year as a group, with UCL and games against top of Serie A both being disappointing. At the same time, their UCL group was strong this year, as proven by PSG and Dortmund both making the semis.
If we look at how he/we produced against top 5, the team had a rough go:
Inter: Disaster. Team scored 2 goals total, no goal contributions from Pulisic.
Juventus: Not great. Team scored 0 goals over 2 games. Defensive work was good.
Bologna: Solid. Team scored 4 goals, one scored by Puli.
Atalanta: Not good. Team scored 3 goals, one assisted by Puli.
Going forward, my opinion is that Milan’s forwards need to run harder and get rotated more. With 5 subs, there’s not a great reason not to sub more. While Puli has been very strong this season, I think he has looked tired at times, which shows up as the lack of the cutting edge in 1v1s or the lack of the lung busting run on the counter, etc. He’s adapted and played the most minutes by far of his career, but he has been conserving energy more of the time. Leao does the same to a greater extent.