AC Milan have rediscovered some of their defensive resilience but now they must try and find a balance by generating more threatening attacking play, a report claims.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (as seen below) has a section titled: ‘Champions League round of 16: We can do it. Milan: more solid at the back, but now they must find goals’. After the 1-0 win against Spurs in the first leg, Milan have given themselves something to defend in London.
Antonio Conte was without Lloris, Hojbjerg, Bentancur and Bissouma for the first leg but Stefano Pioli was without Maignan, Tomori and Bennacer. The decision was made to switch to a three-man defence after conceding three against Inter (in the Super Cup), four against Lazio and five against Sassuolo.
The inclusion of Malick Thiaw as a starter was decisive with the German U21 captain now above Matteo Gabbia in the pecking order after months of adapting to a new club with high expectations in a new country.
However, while Pioli’s side might now be keeping the goals out, the style of play is drawing some scrutiny as they have had less possession that Torino, Spurs and Monza in each of their last three 1-0 wins.
Against Palladino’s side on Saturday in particular it was obvious that the Rossoneri were waiting for the opponent to play their game to sting them at the other end on the counter, an approach that might also be wise in London for the second leg.
However, the attacking play is still not close to the best it has been under Pioli, Charles De Ketelaere’s goal drought continues, Rafael Leao has also gone a while without scoring and the goals are having to come from other sources.
their goal drought not entirely tactical fault. maybe they are still getting used to the formation or else…but they wasted a lot of chance to either create dangerous situation by miss the final pass or wasted a ccc by themselves. that’s not a tactical fault. either way, we win as long as we score one out of ten chance and keep a clean sheets. sacchi might not be happy with this approach. but rocco would agree with this approach.