Stefano Pioli gave Malick Thiaw his first taste of Serie A action during last night’s win over Hellas Verona, and it was an encouraging start for the defender.
MilanNews write how it took Thiaw eight minutes to make his mark in Verona as he first of all made a crucial block to deny a fierce shot from De Paoli on the right side of the area and then he denied Djuric from a narrow angle, essentially preventing two goals and what would have been an equaliser.
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Thiaw showed some of the qualities that made him so strongly desired by the management, who waited for the right moment to launch their bid late in the window, eventually convincing Schalke 04 to sell him.
The gradual inclusion of Thiaw in the Rossoneri team had been in Pioli’s mind for some time, but based on the signs from last night – and admittedly more evidence is needed – the German U21 international could represent a concrete alternative in the centre of defence in the league, given he is not in the UEFA squad list.
Having another capable centre-back gives Pierre Kalulu the opportunity to play at right-back while Davide Calabria and Alessandro Florenzi recover, and it also lends credence to the hypothesis three-man defence.
In short, what Milan has on their hands is a defender with quality and potential, ready to fight for a spot while everyone harbours the hopes that it could be a repeat of the Kalulu operation.
Yes what a legend! Wow he played a little bit and already he’s better than tomori kalulu gabbia and everyone!!!!! Yaaay….
Settle down guys, give him time let him grow and we’ll see how he does. It’s this same overhyping that also leads to the same amount of intensity of insults if he doesn’t actually do well. Just cool it for now.
Bingo! Exactly this.
We got one Kalulu who is a phenomenon. Let Thiaw slowly integrate so he can acuybe great before we christen him the new coming
I was very happy with his performance and I think it’s more than fine for people to write about it that way. This article was implying that he’s better than Tomori and wasn’t overly excited. It was correctly pointed out that it was an encouraging first performance by Thiaw and honestly we all should be excited by it. Why not? Kjaer is old and injury prone and Gabbia isn’t great. So having Thiaw as a real option at CB would be very important for the team.
He missed one (easy) kick on the ball which he then a few seconds later covered as be blocked the crucial shot. So it wasn’t all perfect as some people seem to think.
Let’s see how handles a “normal game” when he’s not there to defend the last minutes only. We didn’t see him passing the ball, participating in build-ups or anything really yet. Just two blocks and that’s it. I wouldn’t buy him yet based on those two blocks. More displays is needed.