AC Milan were left with a very familiar feeling after last night’s draw against Genoa. Once again, they have stumbled against a side much below them in the rankings.
It seems growingly obvious that this Milan team has a kryptonite, and it is teams below them in the league, within reason. The promoted sides each ended their games with the Rossoneri with a result, but the theme has extended to the bottom-half teams generally.
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A familiar feeling
As Corriere della Serea write, via MilanNews, the recent wins against Hellas and Cagliari may have offered a slight bit of comfort. However, as they returned to San Siro, the woes were highlighted once again.
Of course, they could have ended the game without points after the last-minute penalty incident, but a bit of fortune meant they evaded a second loss of the season.
Their run of unbeaten games, as a result, now stands at 17 games, which is a first since 2004. However, there is ‘little to celebrate’, due to the continued missteps against the ‘smaller’ teams in the division.
If it were not so frequent, it would not be so troubling, but these games add up, and they have done. There is now a three-point gap to the top spot, and many may already feel like the Diavolo have relegated themselves to the Champions League dogfight.
At home.
It’s lower team + at home = draw or defeat.
The reasons are:
– Milan under pressure/lower team no pressure
– Milan less hungry/lower more hungry
– Milan technically “superior”/lower team has many players who were once considered technically “superior”.
Every lower team has players who have played for the top clubs. Top clubs for some unknown reason lend some players to lower clubs and allow them to play against them (I’ll never forget Milan lending Juve, their direct rivals for the Scudetto, Abbiati after Buffon got injured….)
I’m not sure what the solution is.
Clearly it’s not straightforward given Allegri and many before have struggled.
But for Milan to win the Scudetto they need to figure it out.
My guess is that Allegri is seeking to take the edge out of the game in the first half. That’s why all the first half’s are slow.
The lesser teams turns up all hungry and pressure free and then nothing happens in the first half. Then in the second half Milan strike as complacency and tiredness begins to effect the lesser side.
And it’s actually worked in a way as Milan are second and unbeaten in 17 games.
I don’t know. Genoa was probably the worst performance since Cremonese so it’ll be interesting to see if there’s changes.
Leao and Pulisic need more time to gel.
With few exceptions we have weak mentality players. This is the true. They don’t have champions ambition, they don’t bother to be no1, the best. Low level mindset.