AC Milan head coach Stefano Pioli once again got the better of Luciano Spalletti by repeating a ploy from last season’s win at the Maradona, a report claims.
As Corriere della Sera (via MilanNews) report this morning, yesterday evening Pioli once again got the better of his counterpart Spalletti, marking the second game in a row in Naples where the Rossoneri have won without conceding.
He repeated a tactical intuition too. Last season, Franck Kessie was pushed forward to be the attacking midfielder and add some physicality in the forward line in the 4-2-3-1 formation.
Last night, Pioli chose to deploy Rade Krunic and Sandro Tonali as the defensive midfielders with Bennacer pushed up field, and he had the task of disrupting Stanislav Lobotka’s ability to control the game.
It certainly worked, as the three central midfield players were among the best on the pitch and recovered the ball in the middle of the park plenty.
I have been saying this, Bennacer is not being used in his best position considering his qualities.
But the ultimate reason we won yesterday was because Leao played well.
Take it or leave it, Leao’s performance sets the morale for all the players, I’m yet to remember a match when Leao played well and we performed badly. Once Leao is in his element, all the soldiers rally behind him and give maximum support. Even Salaemakers played like Messi yesterday. The problem was never formation or anything, it was just Leao being uninterested, probably the contract saga, but he’s got that quality to request 7m, he just showed everyone that when he’s interested, we ain’t loosing.
We just need to keep him motivated enough. If Leao had been interested, he would have won at least 6 more matches for us, imagine adding 18 points to our tally and we would definitely still be in the title race.