AC Milan boss Stefano Pioli was happy with certain aspects of his team’s performance against Red Bull Salzburg, but wasn’t happy with them going behind again.
Milan struggled to get to grips with the speed of the game at first and trailed through Noah Okafor’s silky finish, but they hit back through Alexis Saelemaekers before the break and were ultimately good value for a draw.
Pioli spoke to Milan TV after the match to reflect on the performance from his side and the result against the Austrian champions, with MilanNews transcribing his comments.
“Ball possession doesn’t interest me that much. It’s a good result, but we had a decent performance both from a technical point of view and in terms of team compactness,” he said.
“On a mental level we were inside the game, we always believed and we have tried until the end. The predictions are easy, but then it is the pitch that speaks: we think about the next game with great attention and determination.”
On coming from behind again: “It is a characteristic of ours from a mental point of view, but we must learn to do it less in the future because then taking the lead is always important. We had the first scoring chance with Giroud… good result, decent performance.”
On Saelemaekers and Pobega: “The team is made up of 28 starters. Then for some there are the first choices and the second choices. I chose these because it seemed to me that everyone had recovered, but then I saw that for some it wasn’t like that. So maybe I’ll change something between Sampdoria, Dinamo Zagreb and Napoli.”
