After the 4-2 win against Slavia Praha at San Siro, AC Milan manager Stefano Pioli spoke to the media and shared his thoughts on the performance. As you would expect, given that they played with one more man for most of the game, he wasn’t pleased.
Slavia Praha certainly made life difficult for Milan this evening, despite playing with ten men from the 26th minute, and they even had chances to make it 3-3. Fortunately for Pioli, Rafael Leao and Christian Pulisic combined to make it 4-2, but it was far from a good performance.
Speaking to Sky Italia after the game, as cited by MilanNews, Pioli admitted that the Rossoneri could have done several things better. While he praised Slavia Praha, he also stated that the Czech side played with a very low line which made things difficult.
On the performance…
“We could have done more. I expected a second half with more pace. It’s a good victory against a solid opponent. But we are not through to the next round yet, even if the aggregate lead is good.”
On Slavia…
“They are a good team. I expect a different match in the second leg, given that they have to recover two goals and will not be able to spend the whole match waiting for us. They are fast and dangerous on set pieces. They have shown that they are a serious team.”
On the goals conceded…
“The second goal? The height of the line is established by the goalkeeper. Usually in those situations, we make two lines. We weren’t lucky due to Tomori’s deflection, Theo narrowed, but we got the initial positions wrong for me. We were ready. On the first goal, we gave up too much space even though we were three against two outside the area.
“Their second goal took something away from us, luckily we then scored the fourth. In the return leg, they will try to play the game of their lives. Also in Rennes, we made a similar mistake on the occasion of Jovic’s penalty. We were too high with only one line. We will have to analyze this situation.”
On the difficulties in the build-up…
“Gabbia and Kjaer have technical qualities. We filled the spaces too much, the full-backs were too high, they should have been more central to give space to Leao and Pulisic. We had some difficulties, but it’s normal when the opponents play low and close in.”
Most of us who saw the game will know that Pioli, tactically speaking, didn’t do enough this evening. Slavia Praha managed to get forward on several occasions, even with ten men, and Milan didn’t do enough to exploit the spaces either. In short, the manager did not get a good score in our ratings.
