AC Milan may have dominated the game against Napoli in terms of statistics, but they scored zero goals and thus emerged with nothing from the game.
La Gazzetta dello Sport recall that Milan-Napoli ended at 22:40 local time, with the impression that Milan would not have scored even if they had played until midnight. The Rossoneri did very well from area to area, but the result in football is usually decided in the last 16 metres.
In one area Strahinja Pavlovic, Malick Thiaw and especially Mike Maignan made some big mistakes, in the other box Milan missed all the opportunities they created.
A phrase by Fonseca explains a lot: “They scored two goals from two chances, we have no one with more chances. We missed the opportunities we created. They scored, we did not.”
Milan did not score at home in the league for the first time in almost a year: the last time was on November 4, 2023. In between, 18 games with at least one goal.
Milan on this Tuesday evening had 61% possession, shot 11 times and had an average line height of 59 metres from their own goal, which is very high.
It was enough to see a game take place with Milan camped in Napoli’s half of the field and yet the xG (Expected Goals) number was under one. That tells us the story: Fonseca’s side kept the ball but created very little in terms of clear-cut chances, and didn’t take what they did generate.
Talking about individuals, some issues arise. Alvaro Morata got involved but often dropped deep to help build-up, leaving the area unoccupied. Samuel Chukwueze played a good game, but he has dribbling and acceleration, and is certainly not clinical in front of goal.
Noah Okafor was chosen by Fonseca but in his best moment he shot very badly after dribbling into the box. Ruben Loftus-Cheek confirmed that he is very far from the player who strolled through PSG at will and scored 10 times last season.
Fonseca was very positive in the press conference: “I haven’t seen any team that has put the offensive quality we put on the field today.” He went a bit too far, because other teams score more (Atalanta have scored 10 more goals for example) and quality also includes finishing.
Milan played the first half without Theo Hernandez, Reijnders, Pulisic and Leao – simply the four most creative players on the team.
“If you take away the four most representative artists from a museum, what’s left? A few interesting paintings and a short queue at the entrance,” the report ends.
