One game cannot form a definitive judgment, especially if it is a pre-season friendly. However, it can reveal a concern to investigate.
Read SempreMilan ad-free and get access to exclusive news. Click here for a free trial!
Milan’s first outing of the season against Celtic has left some collective indications and some individual question marks. The protagonist was Strahinja Pavlovic, involved in the mistakes that led to the Scots’ two goals.
The slip-ups at Celtic Park have brought to the surface what, since the arrival of Ruben Amorim, represents the elephant in the room of the new Milan. It would be superficial to reduce everything to 90 minutes on Saturday. While waiting for the next friendly, have a dabble using a wide variety of bonuses, all in one place.
The theme, however, goes beyond the mistakes made. It’s about the relationship between the characteristics of the Serbian defender and the football demands of Ruben Amorim, a coach who builds much of his game starting from the feet of his defenders.
Celtic’s first goal comes from a bad square pass by Pavlovic to Lorenzo Torriani, intercepted by Duran and slotted home. For the second goal, a back pass by Ricci generates a misunderstanding between the goalkeeper and Pavlovic, allowing Duran to recover the ball and serve Forrest for the finish.
These are mistakes that, inevitably, bring back to the fore a question that already emerged with the arrival of Amorim. Pavlovic has his own qualities, but the 3-4-2-1 of the Portuguese coach also demands defenders capable of building out from the back with composure under pressure.
It is precisely on this aspect that the Serbian continues to leave some question marks, and that naturally leads to the word ‘mercato’. Fresh from a positive season with Massimiliano Allegri, Pavlovic arrived in the summer with an important evaluation and with several admirers.
Perhaps that was the best time to cash in, especially considering that the change of coach has also modified the ideal profile of the defenders required by the new project. At the same time, it would be equally wrong to turn one summer game into a verdict. Pavlovic remains in fact one of the pillars.
He has margins to grow and qualities that can also prove valuable for Amorim, with his aggression and ability to play in a high line. The task of the coach will be to understand whether those limits in the construction of the game can be improved through daily work or represent a structural obstacle.
The first friendly does not offer a definitive answer, but a question: can Pavlovic be the ideal left centre-back of Amorim’s Milan, or should his future have taken another path already this summer?