GdS: Pioli believes in making the last 16 despite abject performance against Porto

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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