In what feels like a familiar tale for AC Milan so far this season (and beyond), individual errors cost them in a big game, this time against the leaders Napoli.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) write this morning, ‘there are old rules of football that never go away’. You can attack (which Milan did with 62% possession and five corners to one) and try harder (13 shots to 9, 5 to 4 on target), but the details count.
Milan’s faults last night end with the sterility of the forward department, but evidently start from the weaknesses of the defence. The 1-0 goal comes from an error in build-up by Mike Maignan, on which McTominay gets there before a sliding Alvaro Morata. Anguissa’s through ball to Lukaku does the rest.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, during the presentation of Strahinja Pavlovic, called the centre-back ‘the animal’. The Serbian is used to using physical strength to prevail over his rivals, and yet in a shoulder-to-shoulder duel with Lukaku he ended up on the floor.
Of course, Malick Thiaw could also read the development of the play better by closing down the Belgian, and these are the details we are talking about. From that moment the game became exactly what Antonio Conte wanted, given his teams are masters of defending deep and countering.
The killer blow came at the end of the first half, when on Kvaratskhelia’s shot Maignan made a mistake in his reactivity and and the ball beat him into the corner, seeming to go under him. It was an uncharacteristic error given his recent form, yet it came in the biggest test.
The data shows that out of 12 games this season, the Rossoneri have conceded at least two goals in six. They have only three clean sheets – all at home – against Venezia, Lecce and Udinese.
When the opponents’ level rises, Fonseca’s team always concedes goals. Winning becomes so terribly complicated like that.
JAJAJAJA DE VERDAD!!! LA CULPA SIEMPRE FUE DE PAVLOVIK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA CLARO!!! ME ACORDE QUE EL DIRIGE Y MANEJA LA PLANTILLA🤦🏻♂️ 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤡🇵🇹
I keep refreshing the site in hopes of seeing a “Fonseca is fired” headline. Call me optimistic, but I think it’s just around the corner
Optimistic.
Lol
What the flip do you expect. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys they say. Most of our players are not up to standard – they can only do their limited best. 60% responsibility owner for not spending appropriately on good players, 20% fault management, 10% players, 10% coach.
Did you notice how after we won the last few games lord Pablo was nowhere to be seen..now.
He-he. Now lord Pablo is back.
Jajajajajja momomomo rarararara nnnnn… 🫏
Every party needs a pooper.
This problem was identified last season already. Everytime there is an attack on us it ends with a shot on target. Not good for a team who wish to be scudetto contenders. And the gap is going to get even bigger with a coach who still doesn’t know who his 1st eleven are. Too mush experimenting…
Imo, not that the subs were bad but I think Milan have played well before the substitutions. I really like the intensity which offensively has been Milans biggest issue for a long time. Have only seen flashes of good intensity by Milan every while and we may not see it again in the next match but with the missing players coming back, if we can keep up the team work and attacking aggression of the first half then at least our performances will improve.
Defensively Pavlovic was at fault for the first goal and Mike for the second but I didn’t see much more defensive mistakes as everyone here always seems to be seeing. Well even Real Madrid and Liverpool defenders do make mistakes or at least they do concede goals. I don’t get this “we must be perfect in the back”. A Napoli defender made the biggest individual mistake of the match by misplacing a pass to Musah inside their penalty box but doesn’t necessarily make that guy a bad defender. You defend with the whole team just like how 8 players pushes forward when attacking and Napoli did just that. Inter conceded more goals than Milan with our bad defenders! Yes our defenders are not great but are more than good enough to much our rivals. When/if Fonseca’s tactics and football are improved , the individual will and Milan will do much better.
Yes, how many mistakes does Pavlovic have in how many minutes? He has direct mistakes for goals conceded, and not only this on. Can you name on Real Madrid or Liverpool defender that made as many in that period? Sometimes doesn’t mean every 3 weeks.
on=one, my “e” is lagging 😀
Real Madrid has conceded 11 goals in the league, the same as Milan. I’ve only watched like a couple of their games, so I don’t really know how they have been conceding but they are as much as us. Now the issue is that, if you were a Madrid fan, I’m sure you would be blaming all of those goals on individual errors. Fact is ,some goals or moves are just well worked that you have to give more credit to the opponent than faulting a defender. Leaos dribble and powerful shot that was fingertip over by Meret was the great work of the attacker but you’d definitely blame it Rahmani or someone!. Kvaras run was not impossible to stop I agree, but the guy was sprinting so fast that he was difficult to really handle because the players were shifting from the left to the right of the Milan defence, with the attacker cutting in, going the opposite direction, so you are too flat-footed to stop the run individually even for equally fast defenders. If you don’t have many players in front of the box to block him from shooting, you’re in trouble. Only individual mistake on that goal was on Mike, for letting in a shot from that distance, with that low power and predictability from the move. But yet I’ve seen people blaming that goal on defenders. When you’re so focused on seeing perfect defending by defenders, you’ll find a lot of individual mistakes by them! There are some unacceptable defending by our defenders but I think it’s been exaggerated when you see how many goals other teams too are conceding – being collective or individual can be debated but others are also conceding.
I felt they rallied well after conceding the first goal. Problem is, Napoli sat back and countered and allowed Milan possession.
Even with our starters Milan keep the ball and hog possession but often don’t know what to do with it up front, just circulating side to side until they lose the ball and the other teams counters.
Same scenario here. Conte was happy to allow us possession, daring us to break through. Big surprise, we didn’t. Yea, we were lacking a lot of individual quality with our absentees, but it’s been a problem even outside of that.
It’s true that Napoli allowed us more freedom in possession but we’ve not been always able to move the ball that fast against teams allowing us time on the ball. But you’re probably right – we’ll likely see a frustrating pace of football in the next match!
Ibra’s ‘animal’ got ran over by Conte’s bulldozer
Never forget that Ibra approved Fonseca and Pavlovic.