AC Milan ensured that they will take a two-goal first leg lead with them to Prague next week, but that far from tells the story of what was a dramatic game and perhaps a missed opportunity.
Slavia Praha went down to ten men inside the opening 30 minutes and Olivier Giroud opened the scoring, but the visitors equalised. Tijjani Reijnders and Ruben Loftus-Cheek made it 3-1 going into the break but the Czech side hit back again, before Christian Pulisic added a fourth late on.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) has their ratings from the game, starting with the overall team performance and Stefano Pioli’s management which both earned a 6 out of 10.
Rafael Leao was the best player on the pitch for Milan and he was given a 6.5, while Theo Hernandez really struggled at both ends and got the lowest score with a 5.
Christian Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Tijjani Reijnders were all given the same mark against Leao with each of the three getting on the scoresheet as mentioned.
Alessandro Florenzi, Simon Kjaer, Yacine Adli and Olivier Giroud got half a point less, while Mike Maignan and Matteo Gabbia were scored a 5.5.
Davide Calabria and Fikayo Tomori got a 6 off the bench, with Luka Jovic receiving a 5.5 having failed to assert himself in the contest much.
I don’t get those ratings. The amount of times Pulisic could’ve at least tried to beat his man and get to the byline… Kjaer was horrible and gets the same score as Florenzi??
Anyway, overall that performance would’ve made much more sense to me if it was the second leg and we we’d already won the first leg. I’ve defended Pioli for years on here but we really should’ve put this tie to bed last night – especially being at home and against 10 Czech men. Instead we looked like this was the first time we’d ever been asked to play football – apart from a strange 10 minutes at the end of the first half when we decided to turn into that OTHER Milan that just played Atalanta off the park.
Yes, we should always celebrate a win, but we haven’t won anything yet. We’re basically 2-0 up going into next week’s game – and we all know how well we’ve defended those scorelines recently…
This team is completely out of balance as many of us were pointing in the summer and that is largely due to lack of proper cover in the middle. Media is focused on defense when in reality it’s midfield that is losing it every single match. Go and rewatch our games and focus on midfield area. Both in build up phase and defensive phase there’s a hole left and space for opposition to easily conquer whether it’s Inter, Monza or Slavia.
Revamped midfield with all players coming from different foreign leagues (Eredivisie, La Liga, Premier) wasn’t much of a help either, so it’s a big factor they need to take into consideration for next time when they decide to dismantle a working project.
100% agree
I would also add that if we had a good DM who has leadership qualities (as those type of hard working players often do) we would have someone to drive the team forward, galvanise those around him and inspire more hunger and work rate.
Imagine we had a Keane/Viera/De Rossi/Gattuso
What we need is a Mark van Bommel 2.0.
Indeed, good example
We all knew this. Even Management; That’s why they tried to sell Krunic to get Gonzalez (a more DM). But Pioli insisted on Krunic which backfired and Adli recently. I like Adli but he isnt a DM. We havent have a DM since Kessie. Tonali and Bennacer kinda know how and they did but they arent DMs. Now Bennacer is just getting back, Adli is learning the craft, Rejnders and RLC are more box to box CMs or AMs. Couple that with Injuries at the back and there you have it. Even before injuries we struggle a bit but the speed of Theo and Tomori and even Thiaw covered some of the gaps. Kjaer and Gabbia are good enough CBs, but if you put them on a 1-1 foot race with a winger, they are bound to lose a lot of those duels.
I think I’ve made my views about the summer clear but do we really need to keep going back there?
Other than to note we shouldn’t do that sort of the thing again?
We see where we are. Pioli gets an extra mark for dealing with it. He gets a marked down if we asked for all of those changes. But again we are where we are.
And we are 1 point behind 2nd in Serie A and 2 up going into the second leg.
Things really aren’t that bad considering.
If you take your own logic of how bad last summer was, surely we are above expectations?
We certainly are for me.
I agree with everything in the first paragraph. As to the second, I think it’s fundamentally correct, but also a consequence of the circumstances. Kessie was never properly replaced, and then the offer for Tonali arrived and it was decided to cash in and organize a squad overhaul, which needed improvement and/or depth in many areas. No other player would have fetched that amount outside of the “immovable” Leao and Theo. I think the calculation was that Tonali was ultimately more replaceable (and thus expendable) than Leao and Theo. And they were not technically wrong. The problem was too much change in one area, as you said, plus maybe not bringing in at least one true DM among the three midfielders they did bring in. Hopefully the midfield will perform better next season with the addition of a DM and one season in Italy under their belts. I think the lesson is that you can’t change too many players in a single department at the same time and expect not to have issues. We saw a micro version of this the other day when Pioli changed the entire attack for Monza.
Pioli 6 – this a really good joke.
The only midfielders i would keep would be Loftus-Cheek & Reijnders. Adli ………. GONE!! (Too Casual ) Bennacer …….GONE!! ( Too Slow ) Both of these players never pick their heads up for better vision and to see players making timed runs !!!! We need better vision and more aggression !!!!!!