AC Milan continued their good start to the 2023/24 Serie A season with an impressive and commanding 4-1 victory over Torino at San Siro on Saturday night.
The Rossoneri were positive from the outset and deservedly took the lead through Christian Pulisic, but Perr Schuurs pegged them back.
That mattered little as Olivier Giroud scored two penalties and Theo Hernandez grabbed a great goal en route to victory.
All of the early pressure was on the Torino goal with Rafael Leao proving particularly dangerous to Ivan Juric’s side.
The Portuguese forward was getting all over the pitch and he clearly didn’t want to wait long for his first goal of the new campaign. Olivier Giroud was also involved a lot early on, with Tijjani Reijnders showing a lot of willingness to get forward.
Despite Milan having all of the ball, it was a Torino attacker who got the first injury of the night. Main goal threat Antonio Sanabria suffered a muscle injury and had to be replaced after 21 minutes by former Milan player Pietro Pellegri.
In the 27th minute, there was a very impressive and powerful run from Christian Pulisic through the middle of the pitch but his attempt to release Leao through on goal was unsuccessful as Perr Schuurs defended well.
It became clear very early that Schuurs had been told by Juric to follow Leao around the pitch. The defender was never far from Leao’s side. Despite that, Leao was often able to isolate and evade Schuurs down the left wing.
Milan found the breakthrough that their play had deserved just after half an hour, as Christian Pulisic stormed through the middle again and found Ruben Loftus-Cheek to his right. He then beat the defender to get into the box and played it across the box, where Pulisic was waiting to score with ease.
That was when everything started happening. Just a minute later, Schuurs had moved away from his battle with Leao and he actually grabbed the equaliser with Torino’s first sight of goal. A shot came in from the edge which Schuurs turned into the back of Maignan’s net with a good finish.
Parity did not last long, as Milan were handed a controversial penalty. A cross came in which clipped Giroud and hit the hands of Riccardo Rodriguez, which were just in front of his chest and in close proximity to Giroud. A VAR review led to the penalty which Giroud tucked away.
That goal may have been dodgy, but the third goal that came just before the break was not dodgy at all. Leao and Hernandez linked up superbly on the left to get the latter into the box, who then lifted the ball over Vanja Milinkovic-Savic to make it 3-1.
The second half started with some of the floodlights at San Siro going down, which almost led to play being stopped. It remained bright enough though and the contest became fairly sloppy for a while. Milan still remained by far the more creative side though.
In the 65th minute, Milan were awarded another penalty and this one was certainly the correct decision. Rafael Leao received a stamp in the box after playing a cross and the ref did not need to look at the monitor for long.
Giroud stepped up again and finished superbly, making it 4-1. That prompted some changes from Stefano Pioli, as three new signings in Noah Okafor, Yunus Musah and Samuel Chukwueze came on for Leao, Loftus-Cheek and Giroud.
Having made a host of changes and with the three points in the bag, attention turned to Friday’s match against AS Roma and Milan started to conserve energy.
There was no need to chase every single ball anymore as Torino were showing no sign of getting back into the contest.
The victory means Milan have got six points from a possible six this season and have already scored six goals, conceding just once.
Aw Paldini fans in shambles again
Redbird are cartoon villains who plotting the downfall of Milan huh?
Players like chukuwueze and okafor came in as substitutions.
Let that sink in.
Up until last year milan would dream to have them as starters.
That’s how you know milan now have depth.
Juro having a meltdown right now…
Meanwhile, I’m quite pleased with the result. Surprising considering how defensive Torino is. A good start to the season is a great thing. Roma isn’t having a great time right now themselves… luckily we aren’t in that predicament.
Anyways, great game and a few things to work on in defense. Also I do think Chukwueze needs to get up to complete fitness.
Yeah. Good times, good times. While some of us were saying all along we are already stronger than last season, some people kept crying “we’ve changed too much” and “the owners only think about money” and the classic “we’re a feeder club”. Why are those guys so quiet these days? 😀
I always stated that we reinforced appropriately. Finally a right side that attacks. I’d still like a DM to be signed (Federico Redondo maybe?), but we didn’t “disrupt” like what some were screeching about on here.
Maldini’s Heir is nowhere to be found.
You cried when we sold Tonali and said management didn’t know what they were doing 👀👀👀
Because I liked Tonali and was sad he left so abruptly. But there was a clear reason for it and I saw that as they actually did invest what they made and then some beyond it.
We are at least 40 million pass what we made on him.
You’re another triggered troll.
Reijnders and Puli cannot stop running till the end. Superb stamina
right on
Okafor is not a central forward. Pioli should give a chance to Colombo. I believe he could do better in that position.
Schuurs worth keeping an eye on.. Solid cb in the making.
Jurić looked like he was gonna hurt someone tonight :/
Schuurs should have been shown a straight red card. FFS.
Pulisic is such a joy to watch. What a signing. And judging from these 2 matches, Okafor seemed in difficulties finding spaces on the centre. It won’t be surprising if we ended up signing a striker in this last few days. Moreover if Colombo’s loaned out.
“Pulisic is such a joy to watch. What a signing. ”
I think the super scouts on this site said he’s crap as he’s a Chelsea reject. Just like Giroud & RLC too. 😀
Thankfully I supported both moves so I don’t have to eat my own words lol. RLC, even from last season, I just thought his character would be suitable for Serie A.
It’s a fantastic start. Up until the fourth goal milan looked good. Pulisic has easily been our best player so far. Reijnders and loftus looks good, although reijnders seriously needs to work on his finishing everything else is great. Krunic did what needed to be done. Leao once he hits form this team will be rolling. Giroud I don’t doubt his goal contribution but besides the two goals today he wasn’t too involved. Imagine an osimhen type striker on this team.. We’d be dangerous.
Chukwueze came late and he looks rusty. Okafor was anonymous as the cf but the game completely died down by the time they were introduced. Musah had some good bursting runs.
All in all once we get to full fitness and everyone stays injury free I can seriously see us getting the scudetto. I doubted this 4 3 3 and the inverted wing backs so I must apologize to pioli. It’s working, and it’s looking really good. The new management really did a great job in finding players suited to this roll and if you can get us a top notch striker this team is complete. Defence looks a little shaky but it’s early.
as i predicted. everything was look like Milan can beat them with more than 1 goal difference.
Stefano Pioli gradually you will start benching leao because his no longer scoring like he did last season. I told you in 4-2-3-1 we defeated Torino 7-0 because we have a Good squad why don’t you Pioli give this 4-2-3-1 a good try like in the next match to see this outcomes I still told you that we need Kjaer and thiaw in our defence you still did your mind Pioli pay attention back to our old tactics so that there will be solidity last season we won some matches like 5-1 even can still do me we have the squad now why don’t we implement it
LOL What? Leao was heavily involved in the attack. Okay arm chair commander.
Leao has been very sloppy on the ball. Yes, there are moments of class but how many times he lost the ball seemed over half the time. MOTM- RLC, he bossed the midfield.
It’s so clear how much we have strengthened compared to last season. This right wing has been a problem for the last two years, not no more! Pulisic quality shows what we’ve been missing and why saelemaekers and messias weren’t good enough. Our bench too the players that come on. So much depth, it looks so good right now. Hoping for a great season!
Let’s hope this team continues to grow and play even better, the performance matched the result. A big positive takeaway today is that Pulisic is dangerous on either wing and that will help greatly for minutes for Chukwueze and other players. We’ll done Redbird, management , Pioli , and the team.
Stop criticising Olivier Giroud…He was involved very much in the first half …I said he would score again tonight and he did its 3 goals in two games .
Also said pulisic would be a great signing,and indeed he is ..yes I am a huge fan of Olivier Giroud as you all know …We are a better team when he starts the matches ..I also said that we will challenge for the scuddeto this season ,are you listening..
I also said Olivier will score 20 goals for us this season in all competitions…so please don’t start ..
Just watch his link up play ..
A great win I also predicted would would win tonight .
We have a great team and a great squad and manager in pioli ..
Krunic is becoming a solid DM, keeping it quiet and tidy. He even had some good final third passes. Funny, we were told he’s a backpasser only…
Anyway, the team clicked, props to Pioli for gelling them together. Two solid wins to build momentum, keep it up.
Forza Milan!
True, in all fairness it’s Pulisic time to start with good form for us. Chukwueze still not up to the task, lacking match fitness as he joined the team fairly late. Hopefully he started to get his mojo soon, we need him.
Meanwhile Roma and Atalanta lost today, Ndicka not played again. A good time to play Roma next week I guess as they are a bit in shambles. Dunno if getting Azmoun (and Lukaku?) will give them the push? I believe we can get three goals and the win at Olimpico next week.
Pulisic again. Captain Hussle. He and Reinjders ran the whole 90 min.
Back line looked less shaky and the FB inversion looked well covered against a weaker team
Giroud got the assist on PC goal? Excellent. Great to see him come off at 65. Alas Okafur looked lost again. Chuk not much better but quite a bit more hussle.
Mousah looked fit and like he had an idea where he was supposed to be. I was bummed not to see him play centrally.
And Krunic … He’s proven so far we need that striker more than we need a
DM.
Roma come angry next week and The Special One will be bringing all the dark arts. Should be a test of our grit.
Krunic had a solid game, workman like effort as did Pulisc and a few others. Reindjers keeps on impressing. Bench players showed little but with game already in hand wasnt expecting much. Overall solid game and good start to season. Take care of Roma and we go into the break rested and undefeated ready for Inter. Forza Milan.
I can’t believe either of those were penalties, neither of them should have been.
Still the team did a great job to keep going and then some more game management towards the end, mid table sides were the sort of fixtures we struggled with last year so it’s nice to be off to a decent start before the next two games.
Lol first one was 50/50, but the foot stomp which could have broke Leao’s foot was a clear penalty. What was strange for me is that Schuur didn’t get at least a yellow for it. In my book, it would have been a straight red card.
“Parity did not last long, as Milan were handed a controversial penalty. A cross came in which clipped Giroud and hit the hands of Riccardo Rodriguez, which were just in front of his chest and in close proximity to Giroud. A VAR review led to the penalty which Giroud tucked away.”
It’s not Riccardo Rodriguez’s hand-ball. It was Alessandro Buongiorno’s hand-ball. And it really was a hand-ball. The ball did hit his finger, even not made the ball change direction.
The ball hit his finger because Buongiorno want to use his hand to made Giroud unbalanced (a little bit dirty trick), but Giroud surprisingly duck evading the ball, so Buongiorno have no time to put his hand down.
So it’s like trick vs trick. Buongiorno’s trick get countered by Giroud’s trick. So it was a deserved tactical hand-ball for penalty. Very usual view in modern football.