AC Milan’s start to the season reads nicely on the league table: two games played, two wins, six goals scored and one goal conceded.
La Gazzetta dello Sport have published a piece outlining three reasons why Milan were particularly impressive during the 4-1 victory against Torino on Saturday night.
The first was the power. Torino are a physical, hard-working and battling team that beat the Rossoneri twice last season, in the first league meeting and in the Coppa Italia. This time Stefano Pioli’s side swept them away.
Milan now have Ruben Loftus-Cheek instead of Brahim Diaz as well as Tijjani Reijnders, who has run more than 12km in each game so far. Meanwhile, Christian Pulisic has the intensity and resistance to speed, typical of the Premier League and Bundesliga, rare in Serie A.
Having acknowledged their clear athletic inferiority in the four derbies lost in 2023, Milan bought physicality, athleticism and grit with an international mercato. Inter, on the contrary, lost Milan Skriniar’s aggressiveness in defensive ability, as well as Edin Dzeko and Romelu Lukaku up front.
Second reason: the style of play. The progress of the work that Pioli has managed to complete is almost surprising, despite so many new players and so many new ideas to put in place.
Here a comparison with Juve is fitting. Max Allegri too worked on new ideas, with the advantage of having fewer signings to embed, but yesterday against Bologna they took a step back against a Bologna side that Milan had comfortably beaten.
Milan, on the other hand, took two steps forward compared to Bologna. They confirmed the ease of build-up play and the ability to fill the opponent’s 18-yard box with each assault, while they allowed the visitors less in terms of dangerous chances compared to round one.
The third note of merit for Milan was the excitement because everyone was smiling at San Siro on Saturday. Leao and Theo celebrated their duo goal by bumping chests, Reijnders arrived smiling, then Pulisic was visibly buzzing to score his first goal at San Siro.
It is too early to make concrete judgments, but one can sense the collective spirit that characterised the Scudetto season. This is down to the merit of Pioli who immediately launched the new players and proposed new tactical solutions.
Pioli is on fire🔥
I’ve made my doubts about Pioli clear here. But credit where credit is due, after the first two games, I would likely get on the Pioli’s on fire 🔥 track 😄 . Hope he and the team continue, but early days yet though, early days
We have to be real here and the mention of Inter fails to mention there world class midfield.
The question mark for the derby exists but it will tough and i would be happy with a draw at this stage.
world class midfiled? Sure, they have Barella and Hakan but apart from that.?. Miki is old, fratesi is new, sensi is a log and asllani & agoume are nobodies.
I think we can take them this year
How can you describe Inter midfielders as world class while neither Hakan nor Frattesi and even Barella haven’t proven anything yet on international level. Just because they reached the final last year makes it world class? Yes you can say they have good prospects Don’t play with the words.
The three reasons are Pioli, Pioli and Pioli. You don’t just assemble a bunch of new players and have them playing like that in such a short space of time without the direction of the coach. It’s still early days, maybe we’ve been tested maybe we haven’t. Over the next 5-8 games we’re gonna know. But so far so good.
Yeah , montella fail to asemble 11 new player on yong hong li as owner ,making 200m euro wasted . Another reason i think because the team burden already out like rebic,bakayoko,salad,cdk and later maybe origi.
I think Pioli fixed his biggest problem area in terms of his team set-up, which is the AM position.
And the solution…. he got rid of it ..lol . Brilliant
its amazing what watching a who lot of man city games will do for you. But beyond grabbing a large part of the tartics from pep. The way he is allowing players freedom to pick and choose between 1-3 ideas on a given play against a given team is next level stuff.
He wants to get to that 3-2-2-wide wingers, Giroud target formation, but based on man marking vs high press vs midblock, he is giving the players the answers or at least a plan a,b,c…he plays the opponents more than a lot of coaches do. the more games, the more we will see how he answers different questions.
The main reason is Pioli doing a fckin great job gelling new and old players.
But some ungrateful fans in here downplaying the results ‘Meh. We only won against small team like Bologna and Torino’ and keeps asking for De Zerbi, who just got slaughtered 3-1 by West Ham and his team sit at 6th place, to replace Pioli. SMH.
Now look at Juve, they got draw against Bologna. Lazio had two lost against Lecce and Genoa. Roma had one lost and one draw against Verona and Salernitana. Atalanta had one lost against Frosinone. Never ever underestimates these small teams because they always bring surprise for the big teams.
Let’s put De Zerbi down just so we can praise Pioli.
“De Zerbi got slaughtered by west ham ” ?
Brighton had over 80% of the ball possession, more shots and more chances, but according to someone he got slaughtered.
He got 6 points thru 3 games even though in the last 6 months he lost his 3 best players and the GK.
You probably can’t name 1 player on Brighton but because you saw the result in a game where De Zerbi team totally dominated west ham but his players didn’t convert their chances, he is not a good coach.
He finished 6th in the top league in Europe even though he took over the team during the season.
Make sure you know what you talking about before you come in with biased ” let me show you how big of a Milan fan i am” opinions
Bla bla fkin bla
80% possession but his team still got mauled 3-1 and sit at 6th place lmao 🤣
Now go kiss De Zerbi ass and support Brighton you fake fans👎
As always, he never fails to come back with an even worse response.
6th place is an over achievement for that club. Based on the talent he has on the team he has no business being in the top half of that league, but because he is such a great coach he has them in the Europe spots.
What your brain doesn’t understand is that West Ham has better players that Brighton. You act like he is coaching ManCity, UTD, Liverpool and he is underperforming.
Thank God the rest of the Milan fans are not meatheads 🙄
So now your excuse for your boyfriend is West Ham have better players than his team? Lmao.
Fvck outta here and keeps sucking De Zerbi balls. I wish Milan have less ungrateful fans like you 👎
West Ham is a really good team. They just won the Conference league and got Alvarez, Kudos and Ward Prowse. De Zerbi did wonders with Brighton last season but if we were to replace Pioli. I would always prefer Arne Slot over him as he is a cheaper investment and his playstyle will suite us.
West Ham team is worth more than Bologna and Torino combined. And since when does one loss against a good team means you are a bad manager ?
News flash dude. Any EPL club worth more than any Serie A club. But last season that doesn’t stop Milan beating Tottenham right?
But we’re not talking about ‘how rich one club over the other’ here. We’re talking about replacing Pioli with a manager who have less experiences than him and how fvckin disgusting some Milan fans acts towards Pioli.
The negative squad mind before:
Yeap, they can’t get a single win in usa, too many signings.
The negative squad mind now:
Come on, it’s only against bologna and torino, don’t get too hyped.
Imagine if milan played bad or failed to win the first 2 matches like roma and lazio, those negative squad would screaming in joy telling everyone that they were right.
Bunch of hypocrites, when they were the crybabies during maldini and tonali saga
Milan biggest problem isn’t when they play against big teams, it’s always against the smaller teams.
When leao had an off day, milan simply could not attack. They could not unlock their opponent who sit back and park and the bus.
Too many unnecessary points dropped against smaller teams.
But now with a more balanced team, milan can do it.
But the negative squad will always have something to say.
I said some concerns about midfield. Like how they will adapt and all but some people take it too far. Torino is not that weak of a squad I mean compared to Bologna that is. They have a very good goalkeeper and they don’t even concede that many goals. We will most definitely batter Roma the same way we did Torino and Bologna.
Let’s not forget the benefit of offloading CDK. Everyone felt obligated to try and integrate him and get him some minutes despite knowing he is just not good enough for Serie A. That takes a mental toll on Everyone.
Pioli has rid himself of Bakayoko and CDK this mercato. He is emotionally flying high… if he can offload Origi then there won’t be anymore weighing him down.
Too Early to really tell. Important tests coming our way early into the season. Lets see how we fair against Mou’s negative tactics and Inzaghi’s strong midfield.