AC Milan have entrusted the starting centre-forward spot to Alvaro Morata but have already run into a problem: he is not scoring regularly enough.
La Gazzetta dello Sport talk about the Morata case, stating that the expectations were – and remain – high. He has never been a 30+ scorer, but he landed at Milanello after a season at Atletico Madrid that was his most prolific ever (21 goals in 2023-24) and has plenty of experience.
The game against Juventus paints a picture of sorts. As a striker you can make all the movements in the world, dictate the most intelligent passes, but if your team-mates move the ball in slow motion you will always be a hostage of your marker.
The role can become quite uncomfortable if you have to put your own effort into it, which in Alvaro’s case means going to pick up balls within a radius of 60 metres, partly by nature and partly because sometimes you have to help yourself if others don’t.
Morata’s enormous amount of work in the build-up phase would be an added value in a team where the understanding of movements is almost telepathic, so he can find the runs of players and engage in link-up play.
However, it can also become a problem that adds to a problem. Juve at San Siro did not have a centre-forward, Milan did: did anyone notice the difference? Both attacks did not generate anything and the Spaniard was complicit in that.
His numbers tell a story: 25 touches, only one shot towards the Bianconeri goal, which ended up wide. His heat map shows a few ‘yellow’ traces in the area and then many spots scattered around the rest of the pitch.
It was a dispersion of forces, especially in light of the fact that in total the Rossoneri shot towards Di Gregorio five times in the entire match, and only once on target. Fonseca has expressly asked the 32-year-old to increase the rate at which he occupies the box, so his instructions haven’t got through yet.
Morata loves to go to meet his team-mates away from goal, it has always been his game and at 31 years old it is difficult to expect anything else from him. The Spain captain has exemplary attitude and professionalism, but after 16 games and 879 minutes on the pitch, he also has just three goals and one assist.
Against Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League he will not be able to play because he is suspended. Instead, he will return to the spotlight on Saturday at San Siro against Empoli, perhaps looking to put the coach’s instructions into action.
He or leao didn’t get any traffic vs juve.
What do people expect? Them to solo dribble 4-5 players and score?
Only Messi could do that or maybe dinho in his day.
It’s a team sport. When morata is busy playing midfielder (and that happens 2/3 of the match) someone needs to step up for ST (that’susually rafa) . And someone must step up for whoever steps up for morata. (That should be theo imao)
Or get a fcking midfielder that works instead of our striker having to do their job
Simple!
Put him as acm and Abraham as striker as we played against Inter. Put Loftus on the transfer list.
Pulisic should play right winger and sometimes migrate into the box.
We can’t get better than that right now… unfortunately.
2 man pivot leaves us open to counters. Morata dropping deeper is not defensive enough to counter that.
He work rate was special, yesterday he play like DM. While Leao only walking in the park and wheres RLC ?? Haha.. no use..
“he is not scoring regularly enough.”
That’s what we kept saying during the summer. He’s not the #9 we needed. He MIGHT be the #10 we didn’t know we needed but the goal scoring #9 he’s not.
I always hated his guts before joining us but his work ethics and leadership skills has at least sorta won me over but if he also can stop with diving as much as he does I’ll like him even more.
I nevertheless agree that he was never a prolific forward which also makes the pre Mercato comments from Ibra about making great investment for the replacement of Giroud even more ridiculous as we got a 13 mil non scoring forward and a free loan of Tammy who doesn’t seem to be able to score either. I had at least expected us to sign an upcoming talent like or in the vein of Sesko, foolish me.
“I always hated his guts before joining us but his work ethics and leadership skills has at least sorta won me over but if he also can stop with diving as much as he does I’ll like him even more.”
I swear you took the words out of my mouth (or keyboard)! EXACTLY how I feel too. Now I somehow tolerate his dives and theatrical shows but before joining Milan… To put it mildly, they drove me furious.
Griezmann went from striker to midfielder. From what i see from Morata this season so far, i believe he could make similar shift.
Another big fail from the great scout Moncada. Anyone who has watched Morata before knew that he is not a profilic striker. He can’t play as a solo striker, he failed in that in every team that he was tried. He is best as a SS.
It’s actually a midfield issue. Morata
should really never have to travel back to midfield every game in order to cover for the deficiencies in that department.
Morata works in that role for Spain, because they have the speed and the talent to play off his hold up and passing option.
Milan isn’t set up the same way still. Which is mind blowing, because that’s why he was brought in: to be a better hold up player than Giroud was to allown the wingers to bomb forward.
And neither is happening so far…
Morata was never a prolific goal-scorer to begin with. In his best season he scored about 15-20 goals in all competitions with club, which isn’t that bad, but not terrific either. He also needs a lot of opportunity to score one of them.
And right now he is made to drop so deep that he barely has 2 or 3 goalscoring opportunities per game. In some games I think he didn’t receive a single pass inside the opposition’s box, and he sometimes wins balls as deep as our own box.
The problem with that type of play is that it requires some other player to step up, and none of our forwards is doing that, but that’s more tactical rather than an issue with the players themselves.
Also, him dropping so deep is a bit of a testimony that our midfield isn’t reliable enough to allow him to just focus on his striking duties or, in other words, that most of our players are just average.
Morata is terrible. Every offensive possession he gets results in him losing the ball trying to dribble or making a poor pass/decision. I’m tired of hearing about his work rate. He does not need to drop that deep. In fact, he just clogs it up. His flopping is unbearable. Why don’t his teammates tell him how ridiculous he looks?
Having him help in build up just covers for our lack of an offensive midfielder to link up with Reijnders. We wind up having to play Pulisic there because Ruben Soft’nWeak aint up for the task. That leaves the totally predictable one footed Chucky on the right.
If we had a 10 then Pulisic could just play on the right and continue to devastate. We still need a real 9 because, of course, Tammy and Morata suck.
I say let Camarda play. Maybe try Musah at attacking mid. He is good in possession and could link up with Reijnders. At least he can beat people off the dribble and maybe open up a defense. Not ideal as his decision making is often suspect but it has to be better than playing Ruben Soft’nWeak. It’s like he’s not even on the field. He’s never involved in the play.