AC Milan had a mountain to climb in the second leg of the Champions League fixture against Inter after losing the first game 2-0, and they failed to do so.
The spotlight was on Rafael Leao to be the game-changer this time, but he wasn’t enough for the Rossoneri who lost 1-0 on the night and therefore 3-0 on aggregate against their city rivals over the two legs.
The game started off well for Milan, who looked much better than the previous game as they were more aggressive and compact. However, it must be remembered that Inter had a two-goal cushion and were not as aggressive as they were last time out, because they simply didn’t need to be.
Brahim Diaz and Leao each missed chances in the first half to halve the deficit and really reopen the contest, but in the end it was Lautaro Martinez who buried a feed from Romelu Lukaku with 16 minutes to go and killed the tie. Here are five things we learned…
1. Anti-climactic return
Whilst Milan looked like a different team with Rafael Leao on the pitch, he wasn’t enough for the Rossoneri to turn the tie around.
Leao didn’t look fit enough to be more of a menace for Inter excluding a couple of bursts he had, and we do have to acknowledge that Simone Inzaghi’s side did well to mark him out of the game leaving little for him to work with.
Despite his not-so-brilliant performance, it was obvious that Inter’s attention was on him and that left a lot of space on the opposite flank.
Unfortunately for Milan the quality there was subpar as Junior Messias had plenty of chances to make something happen and manage to actually cut inside, but every time his end product was dreadful highlighting how dependent Milan are on Leao and how one-sided the team is.
This underwhelming attacking performance highlights the need for investment in that area if Milan wants to improve and the investments need to be ones that solve the issue immediately, not players like Charles De Ketelaere who need time and patience to grow.
#ACMilan have failed to score against Inter in their lat four competitive games. It is the first time in the club's history that they have gone this many games without a goal against the Nerazzurri. pic.twitter.com/FBpBf7aS6a
— MilanData📊 (@acmilandata) May 16, 2023
2. Improved, but not enough
The defensive display was much better this time around and the decision Pioli took to play Malick Thiaw instead of Simon Kjaer seemed to have paid off as the German handled Edin Dzeko much better and understandably so, as he has the athleticism and physicality.
Fikayo Tomori also did a better job and the gaps were more on the flanks this time around as Inter had no trouble getting the ball wide and then crossing it low, with Davide Calabria and Theo Hernandes giving too much space to Dimarco and Dumfries.
The Frenchman did much better in attack compared to Calabria, but at this stage of the tournament the devil is in the details and everyone in the back four have room for improvement.
Thiaw also picked up an injury in the second half and was replaced by Kalulu, who gave Lautaro all the space he needed for Inter’s goal as he chose to get close to Lukaku even though there were four players already there and the Argentine was left all alone.
3. Urgency becomes emergency
Olivier Giroud has had an underwhelming few months after the World Cup to say the least, and a lot of that might be due to fatigue as Pioli plays him every single game purely because of the fact that there is nobody on the bench that can take his place.
Even if there was a striker on the bench the management should be thinking of a striker that can slot in the starting XI since Giroud just doesn’t provide the team with enough quality at this point, at least not at this level and not every single game.
With Leao being the main threat, Milan need more firepower up front and a striker that is more mobile and can actually dribble and create for himself.
This would be a massive reinforcement which would allow the 36-year-old to rest and would then allow Pioli to play the former Chelsea man when the time is right and when he can make a difference.
📊 The stats from the loss against Inter… pic.twitter.com/B3XVWJ5kjX
— MilanData📊 (@acmilandata) May 16, 2023
4. To stay or not to stay
Brahim Diaz has always divided the fans and has continued to do so this season. A couple of amazing games against Napoli really made the fans love him, but despite that he has been very poor throughout the whole season generally and he offers little to nothing in most games.
Against Inter he tried to dribble a bit too much a lost the ball on multiple occasions, something which usually is not the issue with him as the issue is usually his decision-making in the final third.
He hit a new low to be honest, and one might think that Milan would be crazy to spend €20m or more on a permanent signing, especially with the rumours that Kamada might be very close to joining on a free transfer and has proved to be more consistent than the Spaniard.
Time will tell, but Diaz isn’t showing anything to make the management pay what is needed excluding the occasional super performance, and it just might be that Italian football isn’t for him after all due to the physicality.
5. Three bright spots
We finish off with the positives. Mike Maignan was the reason that Milan lost just by two goals in the first game and he continued to keep his team in the game with spectacular saves in the second leg. It was a really good performance from the Frenchman, but the players in front of him were not up to the task.
Thiaw was another one that had a great night and had no issues taking care of either Dzeko or Lautaro. Unfortunately, he was subbed off and shortly after Milan conceded, highlighting how good he was on the night. A really impressive showing and he should be starting every game at this point.
The third positive was Tonali, who really tried to make things happen as he fought a lot and ran a lot, and provided some very good balls for his team-mates in attack which were all wasted.
The Italian has shown throughout the two matches that he isn’t afraid of the big games and even likes taking on the responsibility and excluding a couple of mistakes, one of which on the second goal in the first leg, he has nothing to be ashamed of as he played wonderfully.
So main problems for club is focusing on decreasing expences and gaining more revenue. In last couple of years we lost a lot in attacking department. We lost ibrahimovic impact, who, when he arrived was best scorer, than we lost 10 goals per season from Rebic, then we lost Kessies impact in attack, who scorer 5 or 6 goals at least, and than, we bring Origi who scored just 2. De Keteleare impact was zero.
On the other hand messias and Saelemaekers combined scored something and Diaz had positive flashes.
This can’t be changed easily in next season. Only if Maldini and Massara got lucky in next mercato which is never easy.
So pioli must focus always on compact defence. We could finish 0 – 0 against Inter, but our defence lost concentration in that time goal.
So in next season Milan must stop conciede a lot of goals, like in this season to compensate bad attacking department.
Like mourinho said: it is better to win 4 games 1 0, than one game 4 0.
Agreed defence is key. And for defence to work we need consistency in our line ups.
We should rotate between 3 CBs (Kjaer, Tomori and Thiaw) and 3 FBs (Calabria, Kalulu and Theo) with Gabbia and Florenzi extra cover.
Same in midfield with Tonali, Bennacer and Krunic competing for 2 positions + Mega-Signing-Midfielder with Pobega and Vranckx as cover.
Same in attack with Saelemaekers offering cover on both flanks behind Leao plus Mega-Signing-Attacker-Who-Can-Also-Play-CF with Giroud plus backing CDK and Origi for one more season.
Anyone not mentioned above should be let go to get the squad down to around 23 an a core of 16-17.
That is key to building consistency not rotating 7-8 players at once.
I would agree with you. The team has over-performed up to this point. What they should do, is sign two or three players of good quality and integrate them into the squad, then try and do so again the following year, depending on requirements. Whether the funds to do so exist, remains to be seen, but fans need to have some patience. We can’t just go out and buy a whole new team every year like City or PSG. This needs to be a process.
We can forget about Bennacer next season. He’ll be out until November/December and will gain match fitness in January/February.
Therefore I say: Bring in SMS. Everyone knows what he’d bring. He’d be a reinforcement for sure. Worth the money. Especially if Lazio would accept the fee spread over 2-3 years.
Do we sign a new player every time someone gets injured?
We do – see Dest – but does not strike you as being, well, a total waste of time given we’re supposed to have a squad precisely for this reason?
Anyway in my list we sign a Mega-Signing-Midfielder with Pobega and Vranckx as cover.
I personally think Mega-Signing-Midfielder has to be our number one priority so whatever money we have should mainly focus on that.
I am not sure about SMS. I think we need someone more next level.
“Do we sign a new player every time someone gets injured?”
When the player is out for half a year and is a regular starter, we should. Any team should.
“I am not sure about SMS. I think we need someone more next level.”
And who’s going to fund the transfer?
In all fairness, RedBird completed the acquisition of the club on August 31, 2022 and by that time the summer transfer market was technically over except for desperate last-minute deals (CDK’s deal felt like one of them). Paperwork was completed on August 31, 2022 and it is understandable that RedBird did not want to put down money in advance for the club to go shopping while they had not legally own the entity (ie. things could still go wrong). It is like you do not want to spend money on upgrading a car or a house you have not yet owned legally (I hope this is simple enough to wrap head around). So the point is the poor reinforcement last summer was due to a lack of fundings from the owner, not that they had no ambitions or intentions to invest in the club, the timing was just off. Maldini & Massara were also in the process of renewing their contracts and the negotiations also dragged on which also did not help with the transfer market. Lastly, going all in on CDK was 100% the mistake of M&M. They had 35m and little time to work with and they had had their eyes on CDK for the whole time so it was also understandable for them to spend the money on a player they thought they had researched well enough. We will see if RedBird are indeed an ambitious owner this summer. Cardinale and M&M never really had the resources (time and money) to work with last summer.
Must always praise Tonali. Must always praise Tonali.
It’s getting ridiculous. Inter passed thru our midfield like it wasn’t even there and yet he gets praised. Our midfield gets bossed every game even by the bottom table teams, yet somehow Tonali is doing a good job. He cost us a goal in the first leg by jogging back and letting an old Mkhitaryan run by him for the goal, and they give him MOTM on here. Stop with the Tonali bias. I know you desperately want him to be the next great Italian player, but he just is not. He is a mediocre player at best.
Lol….you’re kidding right?
What did I say that was untrue? Our midfield has been our weak point all season. He’s not up to the task.
Bro he’s correct lol. Check the goal again and you’d see it’s Tonali’s original fault that costed us the goal.. he’s the double pivot, what’s he doing all the way upfield? Krunic then covers for him leading to a wide exposed defence and that’s how the goal got scored. Tonali simply didn’t track back…..but oh he did well according to the raters and even MOTM. Unbelievable!
Well… Let’s be honest. Tonali isn’t world-class. He’s a player that would be good to have on the bench but if we want to win scudetti and reach UCL-finals again, we need better midfielders. Same applies to Benny & Krunic too. The midfield isn’t good enough. Compare our midfield against ANY TOP7 team in Serie A and you’ll see we’ll lose.
Sad but true.
lol
The sale of the club sent us 4yrs backwards, because we could all see the delay, the back and forth in the whole process and the unavailability of funds that came with it….
I could attempt to absolve Pioli from blame because he didn’t get reinforcement, but at same time he didn’t work well with what he had and so he takes a major blame too.
In all I feel Pioli isn’t a technically divers coach, he is too one dimensional or no dimension at all.. We have players who can play multiple positions but Pioli doesn’t like to try new things.
I hope juventus gets penalize and we make it to champions League next season. Forza Milan
4 years backwards?????
We won the title, returned to the champions league for the first time in 10 years and made it to the semis.
Read to understand. Is the sale to Red rabbits not a problem to the team ? Were we not expecting 100mil for transfers before the takeover ? After the takeover did you not see how many excursions Maldini had to go on before signing CDK ? After the takeover did the new owners not say there’s no money to invest in the squad ? How is all of this not taking us 4yrs back?
We were expecting 100m transfer kitty? When was this? Lol 😂
Oh sorry you weren’t talking about actual football.
You were talking about money and transfers.
Since I don’t care about either it’s not a major concern.
Intensity without creativity brings nothing. We can’t make 3 consecutive passes towards goal. All up to leao, theo or maignan and rarely diaz to make something happen. A team should have a rhythm like inter, how well they pass run and anticipate and receive the ball. We don’t have that cohesion between players. Always missed passes and bad runs. 3 years of same coach and his staffs.
Too much freedom on the ball is given to the players.. They always take 2-3 touches too much or try to dribble past 3 players when they could just pass the ball and stretch their defence, but no lets hog the ball first then turn into defenders and try to beat them and that goes for all of the playes not just Diaz but he is the worst offender for sure.. While Inter did 3 simple quick passes no dribbling no trickery, and they got past our midfield like there is no tomorrow same shit happend yesterday to Real they got destroyed by simple but accurate passes while they tried to beat even their pressing attackers with dribles and trickery and that just gives other team time to adjust their defence moving ball is way faster than anyone can sprint than is why Inter are playing like that because they have to, they don’t have the speed in their legs as our team does but by moving the ball fast and not taking unnecessary dribbles they get that tempo of the game that brakes down oponents.
This you have said is 90% of our problem the other 10% I’d leave to positioning and our movement off the ball which is so poor. This is a coaching deficiency and I’m so bewildered how it hasn’t been addressed since. Let’s not even talk about defending set-pieces or corner kicks or even attacking them
I’d call it 50/50, because it’s like they both go hand in hand. The team isn’t well drilled at all. I’ve often wondered what exactly is being taught to the players at training sessions. It obviously isn’t any of the things you or Andraz mentioned.
We are almost at end of the season and its clear we are incomplete side starting from attacker to wingers to midfielder there are many holes to plug. How did we manage to pull this far is a miracle…..why defense leaked because we lost a proper dm thats was covering defence back…..our attack is in shambles no ibra to pinch in goals over reliant on leao…right side is much worst…all and all serious investment is required or we wont be even challenging for champions league spot….now we have come to this point as football fans where we have to rely on juv point penalty to make us sneak in lol..I dont know what M&M were thinking but this team has weakened since last year…they lost too many players without cashing on it…I sincerely hope leao stays…when cardinale says champions league is must then Mr american better spend some to get some returns….
It was clear from the beginning of the season our summer transfer did not help strengthen the team. To me the issue has always been the midfield. We don’t have creative players that can support the attack. We brought the best attackers with proven track record only to be isolated up front demanding from them to score goals. Even if you put Harland in our team he will be frustrated from the lack of support.
For years we’ve been without a true RW, yet the attention is elsewhere. We don’t even have a playmaker.
This is starting to remind me of the Zaccheroni era, and to be honest it’s not a good memory.
Milan’s downfall goes to the poor recruitment in the summer. In football now, you have to invest well in your squad so as to compete with other big teams in Europe. Making champions league semi is still a good effort from the team but the owners needs to release funds for serious investment ahead of the new season. A new young and quality striker is needed, new wingers both left and right, attacking midfielder, leftback, defensive midfielder and a centreback to replace kjaer if he leaves. Also, diaz should be let go. He doesn’t perform consistently enough for a big team like Milan.
Not the best article this time. 99 times out of 100 Theo is far better than Calabria in attack yet not this game. He did literally nothing and Calabria actually delivered a few of our most dangerous crosses. Theo looked sluggish and lethargic which is hard when he’s one of our best players. You analysis is pretty off this article.
No body is prone to criticism pioli have done miracle with the team we appreciate it……champions league run is one such example….he has his flaws suppose not able to unblock low block sides…..but he has done enough with avaliable resources…the point is we are disjointed team with no depth and even the starters are not worst off ….cdk is young he had his flaws but its his first season lets hold our knives for some other time….but diaz and messias a big no they should be shipped out…..please Mr cardinale invest or we will be mid table team…..we are milan we should be fighting for title rather than relying on others for champions league spot like juv point penalty….can any one explain me suppose if juve drops out of top 4 and roma or juve wins europa league where will this make us stand?