AC Milan fell to defeat at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on Sunday night, eventually losing 2-1 against Napoli.
Napoli put themselves in a commanding position with goals from Matteo Politano and Romelu Lukaku in the first half, which gave Milan a mountain to climb as they so often have had under Sergio Conceicao.
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The Rossoneri squandered a big opportunity to get back into the game when Santiago Gimenez missed a penalty off the bench, meaning that Luka Jovic’s late goal ended up being just a consolation.
The result means that Milan remain in ninth position, and fourth spot is now nine points away. Champions League football has almost definitely vanished, with a Coppa Italia semi-final against Inter looming.
Conceicao made four changes to the starting line-up from the team that beat Como before the break, with Strahinja Pavlovic coming in at centre-back, Youssouf Fofana in the midfield, Joao Felix on the wing and Tammy Abraham up front.
It took Napoli just 60 seconds to take the lead, and the goal came from Politano. A long ball over the top from Di Lorenzo nestled between Theo Hernandez and Pavlovic and neither committed to making a challenge, allowing the winger to latch onto it and fire into the bottom right corner from just inside the area.
Milan then had a good spell of possession as they set about in search of an equaliser. A nice move down the right side ended with a cross from Kyle Walker in towards Abraham, that the English striker didn’t quite connect properly with and appeals for a corner fell on deaf ears.
Napoli came close to doubling their advantage in the 15th minute as Milan failed to clear a corner properly and a cross from the right flank was met by an audacious backheel from Anguissa that went just wide with Maignan rooted to the line.
In the 19th minute, it was 2-0 to the home side as Romelu Lukaku continued his trend of hurting Milan. Once again the defence parted like the red sea, allowing the Belgian striker to drop into a space around the penalty spot and finish past Maignan with a scuffed shot that seemed to wrong-foot him.
Milan’s attempts to get back into the game were futile and restricted to set pieces mostly, such as when Pavlovic glanced a header that flew past everyone and ultimately went out for a throw-in. A few minutes before the break, Lukaku got a yellow card for a rash challenge on Warren Bondo.
Conceicao’s theme of needing to make half-time changes persisted, as he opted to bring Rafael Leao on for Bondo, with Reijnders dropping into the midfield.
Moments after Theo went down appealing for a free-kick deep in the Napoli half, two more substitutes were brought on. Samuel Chukwueze and Santiago Gimenez came on, with Felix and Abraham coming off.
Just before the hour mark, the substitute Gimenez was presented with a big chance to halve the deficit. A nice move down the left side saw Leao and Reijnders link up well to find Chukwueze, who just about got the ball through to the Mexican striker. However, he laced his left-footed shot high and wide from about 18 yards out.
Milan were presented with a chance to get themselves back into the game with just over 20 minutes left when Billing brought down Theo inside the box for a penalty. Pulisic didn’t take the spot kick though and instead handed it to Gimenez, who saw his weak spot kick saved by Meret.
Just after Pavlovic had forced Meret to tip a rising shot over the bar, Luka Jovic and Alex Jimenez came on for Pulisic and Walker as the final two rolls of the dice.
In the 84th minute, Milan get up an exciting finish with a lovely team goal. A one-two between Leao and Theo saw the latter go through to the byline and cut back a ball to Jovic and Gimenez who were both waiting for a tap-in, which the Serbian got in the end.
The final chance for the Diavolo to get something from the game came in added time when Jovic received the ball with his back to goal, turned and unleashed a rocket of a shot that sailed wide of the top corner.
This coach needs to leave Milan Asap
Midtable players for mid table team
Defence is worse than with Pioli
Especially centre backs…
No midfield…
Still won’t give up giving the penalty to non-designated penalty taker. AC Midtable.
Pavlovic had half of our shots on target this game… HALF. From center back. How? And once again, you give Jovic 10min to play, he immediately links up the attack and scores a goal. Something nobody else did the entire match, yet he gets maybe 15min max once a month. Meanwhile Felix the traffic cone starts regularly… it makes no logical sense. We have Jovic and Gimenez, 2 strikers who excel at poaching inside the box, but we never play to those strengths. Why!?!? You have 2 guys proven to be deadly if you give them service in the box, so DO IT! Worthless ownership, cowardly management
Milan and logic aren’t compatible.
All of Milan’s strikers can score tap ins. Why don’t they play to those strengths? Because the other team is literally there to cut out easy opportunities.
It’s the same problem with a player like Vlahovic. He’s a good poacher, but at a club like Juve, you need to do more than just score tap ins.
And the funny thing is… Milan are already looking for a new striker!!! How fng insane is that?!!! Why is so incredibly hard to see/realize that the issue isn’t the striker(s) but the service to them. How many good chances did they create to Tammy & Santi last night? None. NONE!
The management (Z included) has zero understanding how to build a functional team. Hire the SD already and let him do his magic to fix this sh1t!
Yet another match where the manager gets his tactics all wrong until it’s too late and he has to throw on a bunch of attackers and chase the match. Honestly, it’s just getting pathetic. On both goals, the back line was so disorganized.
As for the second half, I was damn near yelling that they should make runs through the half space to try to attack the space in behind… and then square it or cut it back. But they almost never did… except when they scored! I don’t understand why they don’t do it more. You don’t have to do it every time, but to only do it once despite its effectiveness is baffling.
Milan is full of players who are not capable of playing 90 minutes. Last game we talked about Abraham mora in the first 11, now we will talk about Jovic and so on. It is important to have such players because they can change the rhythm, but the problem of not having the first 11 is obvious.
It’s not about first 11. It’s about organization. The team looks disorganized every first half and in the second half, while they are down, the opposition team lets them play because they are trying to defend the lead.
All Milan had to do was not collapse in the midfield and defense during the first half. They can’t seem to do that for some reason and are always forced to mount comebacks.
“It’s not about first 11. It’s about organization. The team looks disorganized every first half and in the second half, while they are down, the opposition team lets them play because they are trying to defend the lead.”
AMEN!
This is why I don’t like Mike as captain and think it should be a player outside of GK, because if say Leao, or Walker were captain then this bs that happens on penalties wouldn’t happen, the captain would shut players refusing to give the ball up, 3rd time this has happened. If our players were not selfish and we assume Pulisic made both penalties against Fiorentina causing 3 more points and had he taken and made the penalty today that’s 1 more point, 4 points that would of kept Milan in range of top 4. If you grab a penalty and refuse to let go of the ball breaking the instructions of your manager then that’s what you get Geminez and I hope Conceicao or the players bust your balls hard for doing that. At least now we know another player that isn’t taking anymore penalties. In fact, after he missed I could see Rafa mad that Pulisic didn’t take the penalty, but Rafa can stop Gemeniz and give the ball to Pulisic. Should Pulisic punch the next one that does it, what exactly can he do? Kinda tells me Conceicao doesn’t have control of the players, Gimeniz straight up disrespecting Sarges instructions. I think the individualism and selfishness all our players show is troubling, no chemistry. Shouldn’t of beat Como, midfield is non existent, every second ball always go to the opposition except when we play inter, this has been an unusually unlucky season for Milan, if it can go wrong it will
That head like “Rossoneri left to rue poor first-half display…” could be used on nearly every match under Conceicao.
And another missed penalty.
What is going on?
That headline*.
Stupid auto correct!