GdS: Absences and decline of individuals – the key reasons behind Milan’s recent issues

By Oliver Fisher -

There is no hiding that AC Milan have suffered a slowdown since they won 10 of their first 11 games to begin the 2021-22 Serie A campaign.

This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (via MilanNews) takes a look at the reasons that Milan have had a decline in performances and results, which is seen through the worrying date when comparing rounds 1-11 to rounds 12-22.

First are the problems that the team sustained in attack when at one point Olivier Giroud, Rafael Leao and Ante Rebic were all out due to injury meaning Rade Krunic was used as a winger and Zlatan Ibrahimovic had to work overtime, with even solutions such as Alexis Saelemaekers switching wings and Franck Kessie being used as an attacking midfielder.

Now the emergency is in defence and in midfield and Stefano Pioli has asked certain players to go above and beyond their anticipated workload, which has resulted in a decline in the performance of several individuals. Despite this, the management have decided not to intervene on the market, not even to cover for the injured Simon Kjaer.

At the present moment, the absences in midfield of Kessie and Bennacer – who are both involved in the African Cup of Nations – is certainly weighing heavily, but also in this case Milan did not feel the need to seek reinforcements in the mercato.

There has been a notable decline in performance from several players compared to the start of the season too and the most striking example is certainly Brahim Diaz, who scored 4 goals in the first 9 games of the season including three match-winners, but since he had Covid in October he has been poor.

The fact Milan are out of Europe and will play only one game a week could be useful in this sense.

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