Alexis Saelemaekers is developing a trend of being the man to score goals in big occasions and his latest rescued a point for Milan against Roma.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (via PianetaMilan) speaks about the ‘unpredictable’ Saelemaekers who has become somewhat of a wild card for Stefano Pioli to throw into the fray when he needs something to happen.
Saelemaekers came off the bench at the Stadio Olimpico on Sunday and saw his team go 1-0 down to Tammy Abraham’s late goal, but he did not give up and got on the end of Rafael Leão’s cross to snatch a leveller in the 97th minute.
The Belgian is Pioli’s balancer, required to guarantee coverage with Theo Hernández and Leão himself on the opposite side, but he is now acquiring a reputation as a man who scores big goals such as against Napoli at the Maradona to make it 4-0.
Then there was that one against Rio Ave in October 2020 on the rainy night in Portugal during the Europa League play-off which Milan then won on penalties after an endless shootout. From there, he scored another eight goals in 130 matches for the Rossoneri.
Of those eight goals, seven brought points to Milan. One against Sassuolo in the league in 2020, another against Roma in the same year. He was decisive against Genoa in the Coppa Italia last year, and he has two goals scored in this edition of the Champions League against RB Salzburg and Dinamo Zagreb.
There is another curiosity too: when Saelemaekers scores, Milan never lose. In fact, the Diavolo are on seven wins and three draws in 10 games.
Milan needs on right flank as well on central forward position, players, who will score the same amount of goals per position like Rafael Leao.
Nothing against Alexis but 10 goals in 130 games as a winger (most of the time) is extremely low.
A prolific RW should be the very first priority for the next transfer window.
a lot of that was subs tho. Still, 10 goals in little less than 3 season is poor stats.. Next season he needs to step up or step off.
Em, messias did 11 goals in 61 games 4 example :/
His output is so poor, but it doesn’t say much about the way he is playing now, he looks like he has been working a lot on his finishing and actually looks like he is gonna put in more goals from the next season
Nice article Oliver! I honestly wouldn’t have noticed these stats if you hadn’t highlighted them, even though I’m a big fan of the kid. I also liked the term “Pioli’s balancer”. Saelemaekers was essentially brought in to add defensive stability and balance because, at that time, our left side was totally offensive, with Theo even lacking a bit on the defensive side. It made little to no sense to have both flanks vulnerable defensively. Couple that with the fact that we have ageing strikers, who aren’t able to give that much on the press. So he wasn’t seen by the coach as a definitive attacking outlet; that meant scoring goals weren’t his main duties. It’s one of the tactics that I give Pioli tremendous credit for because I’ve seen the success it brought. But we’ve now reached a stage where Theo is much better defensively than when he first got here, and Leao is starting to make greater contributions in the defensive phase. So maybe it’s time for a new type of balance on the right.