AC Milan produced probably their worst performance of the Champions League group stages so far as they were beaten 1-0 by Porto last night.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (via MilanNews) writes how Stefano Pioli certainly expected a different performance from his players last night against Porto as they seemed to suffered from the absences of Theo Hernandez, Maignan, Diaz, Rebic and Kessie, unable to find their usual tempo and rhythm.
At the end of the match, Pioli commented on the performance of his players and admitted that he was not happy with the levels that his side reached.
“The incidents can determine the result, but we went into difficulty, our performance was not the best, we did not play like Milan. A these levels, if you don’t play with clarity it becomes difficult. Porto did better: for clarity, technique, and for how he was on the pitch.”
Despite this, the game was only lost because of an evident referee error on Luis Diaz’s goal as Taremi pushed Bennacer over in the build-up, so Milan can feel hard done by again. Nonetheless, the three defeats in three games leave Milan bottom of the group and on zero points, but Pioli still believes in qualifying for the round of 16.
“Ibra says we have to believe? Of course, the second place is 4 points ahead of us.”
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I hope Ibra stay fit untill the end of the season. Start scoring again in next match Ibracadabra
Milan haven’t had much luck in the CL – not least with the ridiculously difficult group they landed in – but the result last night was cast-iron proof that the squad is nowhere near deep enough. Elliott’s “bargain basement” transfers strategy will never work at CL level; and to be honest, Milan are extremely lucky to remain unbeaten in Serie A. I trust the management, but more serious investment is needed!
I think we should give up UCL and focus on the league alone.
We have enough quality to win Scudetto this season..if we use the January Market well and have no distractions in Europe.
Guys, we have not won anything since the 2016 SuperCoppa. Is it not better to just give up on UCL progress this season….and focus on Serie A alone? We can win the Scudetto if we use our whole squad for just the league.
What if Pioli just uses the last 3 matches to give guys like Deplanches, Maldini, Kerkez, Capone and Gabbia UCL experience? Is there any point in qualifying for the last 16 only to torn apart anyway by Man City or Bayern? It is better for our Scudetto chances to have No European football next yr, like Inter last yr?
For me, Maldini and Massara MUST tell Pioli to just give up UCL..and focus on Scudetto alone…we can win it….we cannot win the UCL..so why waste energy?
I think Milan have already given up on CL. Atleast that is how it looked in the Porto game.
Now the only achievable way for them to qualify is getting 7 points from next 3 games, given that Liverpool wins the remaining games and Athletico-Porto ends in a draw. There only other option is wins in all the remaining games