AC Milan claimed another three points this evening but just like against Hellas Verona, it wasn’t easy. Despite being one man up, they lost a two-goal lead. Down below are the player ratings for the Rossoneri.
Starting XI
Tatarusanu (5.5): You can’t blame him on the goals but he looked shaky this evening. There was one Roma-esque incident where he completely mistimed the corner and that could have cost Milan dearly.
Calabria (7): He managed to get on the scoresheet once again and his performance was very solid in both phases of the game. Did everything right and it was a shame that Kjaer didn’t hold the line on Bologna’s second goal.
Kjaer (6): As said, his positioning was off on Bologna’s second goal and that ended up costing Milan a lot. He made up for that with his leadership on the pitch and he also provided the long ball for Krunic’s one-on-one.
Tomori (6): A solid display from the Englishman and not much more than that. Of course, it always reflects poorly on the defence when two goals are conceded but he couldn’t do much about that.
Ballo-Toure (6.5): One of Milan’s best players tonight. Sure, he had some shaky moments but he also added a lot on the left flank. His work got Soriano sent off and he was also involved in both the first and second goal.
Bennacer (7 – MOTM): He was decisive for Milan this evening as he stepped up with an absolute rocket. As always, he also covered a lot of ground and he got the assist for Ibrahimovic’s goal. You can’t ask much more from him.
Tonali (6): He looked very good but he was subbed off ahead of the second half, hence the rating. He got booked and that was probably the cause of the sub.
Castillejo (6): The Spaniard had some good moments, including a lovely pass for Leao, and we can only hope that his injury isn’t serious. Lately, he has looked a lot better and that bodes well.
Krunic (6): It was a very average performance from the Bosnian but also a decisive one as his run resulted in Bologna’s first red card. He was subbed off after 60 minutes.
Leao (6.5): The Portuguese winger got the opener (albeit with a bit of luck) and he remained active for the rest of the game. Perhaps we would’ve liked to see more when Milan were two men up, but all in all, positive.
Ibrahimovic (6): Such a roller coaster of a performance. Frankly, he was extremely poor for most of the game with several lost balls and poor controls. And then there was the own-goal. He was saved by his late goal and getting the assist for Leao.
Substitutes
Saelemaekers (5.5): Not his best outing unfortunately. Came on and got himself booked, while also adding little to the attacking phase ultimately. His quality shines through with some nice flicks but he needs to be more consistent.
Bakayoko (6): He was decent off the bench and his rating above all is the result of the third goal. The midfielder helped set up the sequence with a nice move to fool the defender.
Giroud (6): He would’ve got a lower rating if it wasn’t for a great header that Skorupski managed to get a hand to. We didn’t see much of him other than that.
Kalulu (N/A): He didn’t play enough to get a rating.
READ MORE: Ibrahimovic adds gloss on the scoreline with exceptional curling strike
Far too good grades for a team that almost lost against nine men. This was a disgrace. No player should be graded above 6.
Absolutely correct.. A very super poor performance..
For once, I didn’t want to be a Milan fan
i totally agree with you, yesterday performance was awful
Ibrahimovic needs to be an impact sub if he can’t press. He let Bologna into the game by just strolling about.
Ibra should get a 4 if anything. I could score the goal he did, and his ball control, passes were terrible. With him Milan play differently, worse mostly. For every miss pass we lose time and momentum. He hovers over free kicks & penalties with kore capable people there. I hope Rebic gets well soon and Pioli grows some balls to sub Ibra if he’s that pathetic. Also, Leao & others seemed to lack energy which is probably being frustrated with poor distribution from Ibra. I’m sure fans love Milan more than Ibra, and I’m on a rant about it cuz this is not the acmilan we are used to seeing.
Ibra made more impact on the game than a 22year old Lazy Rafael Leao. Show off players. Infact in the beginning, these guys cldnt spread the ball round and Ibra had to drop deep to do the Playmakers job
Without Brahim, Theo and Rebic it was only Ibra who could do that. Ideally, he should have just stayed at the top and waited for the passes/crosses. That is when you would have seen the impact Ibra actually had. Milan are struggling because of unavailability of top players.
I don’t think he even deserved 4.
I have no idea how he stayed on the pitch for the entire game.
By far the worst performance I have ever seen from him. I am sure he will get better with match play.
Well said Asle.
I was ashamed as a milan fan tonight.
After the first red card, I expected that milan will pack the midfield solidly, and I expected more goals to keep us well standing on the table log.
However, we were lackadaisical with our decisions, playing too many back passes, and that was abysmal.
Apart from the fact that Bennacer scored, his decision making were poor. Often times, he had bad passes aswell.
Lastly, I feel pioli needs to read the game well before making substitutes. We almost lost this game against a nine man Bologna team.
I’m not impressed.
True, it’s never appeared that we had 2 extra players on the field. Maybe Milan should have approached the Athletico game in a similar way.
I’ve said it a thousand times. saelemakers is terrible, these grades are far too good for the way we played. We’ve been terrible since the international break. We look like we looked before Ibra came back. Everyone was awful especially in the non-existent midfield. I hope they gave Saelemakers that contract so they can sell him. And take Krunic and Tatarasanu with them. Worst performance by far even worse than the Porto game. If these people don’t want to invest money we will stay a mediocre team
Yes, today wasn’t good, but today we are at the top of the table (hopefully Roma will make Napoli drop points tomorrow), so, I wouldn’t call us so mediocre. We have 10 players out! Yes, we are not Champions League caliber this season, but our team is the youngest in the entire Champions League. Our players will improve with time. I don’t see this team so negatively. We have phenomenal youngsters like Tonali, Calabria, Leão, Brahim… and Maignan is also out which makes the defense nervous.
Overall it was a very very bad performance. 11 vs 9 and yet Milan are luck to win the matches.
Krunic can’t player 10 role and Saelemaekers, comon, he is just like a lost person on the field, running around but yet no meaningful impact or contribution. Zlatan is just out of it and neither did Giroud did anything worth noticing.
Pioli made mistake to me, why have 4 man defence or two defensive midfielder when you are paying against 9men team.
Well said @Lahiri. I was equally ashamed tonight. Pioli and Ibra were the worst players in tonight’s game. Ibra should remain an impact sub while Giroud should be starting games for now until Rebic is back or we get a new Striker. A 9-man Bologna would’ve defeated us. Quite shameful
Too many unnecessary crosses.. Put the ball down and play. 11 against 9 and we are doing cross and node in other to score. Why should that be…??? That’s absolutely a joker tactics. It is really telling that we need a creative play maker. All rating should have stopped at 5. We’ve lost that burning energy. We looked like a third tier team playing against a super league team. We better not carry this kind of vibez to San siro against Porto. Or we are totally doomed in the champions league.
Team played badly..you cannot give away 2 goals to 10 men in 3 mins….WTF? The attack is alright but that defence is too shaky
It seems there is such a thing as not playing for too long and being too old to recover from that quickly. Milan was a lesser team for having Ibrahimovic play all 90 minutes.
It is painfully obvious that he is slow, his legs aren’t doing what his head wants them to. He still doesn’t quite understand how his teammates move. Sadly he isn’t even capable of keeping possession for longer than a few seconds.
He should play for 30 minutes tops, and he should never, ever be playmaker.
If you notice, Pioli several times tell ibra to move. Nothing much to add about him
And for Leao, he is gonna wasting all his talent if he gonna keep playing like that. Even 30 years old Henry was better and have more energy than him
Ibrahimovic was trying not to get injured. The Bologna players were aggressive and he had to walk a fine line. Defenders gravitate towards him so I won’t blame him for trying to earn his keep. He needs a penetrating playmaker to work with not long passes.
Leao is lazy defensively. He doesn’t track back fast enough and he allows the opposition build up from the back by giving them space to control the ball. He’s also become too predictable in his style.
Tatasuranu is jittery and his positioning is poor, so the backline players cannot trust him enough to pass back. This denies us of the extra man that Maignan and Donarumma offer in the build up play.
Castillejo doesn’t offer much going forward. He passes back too often instead of taking his chances at going into the box.
Krunic is too ordinary.
Perfectly explained.
At least Ballo showed signs of comfort in the team – he as adapting steadily. He was quite active and confident today.
Zlatan deserved a 3 in overall play at best. He ended up making an assist and scoring a late goal and if even give 1 point for each he should still have a 5.
He was a nightmare to watch. I literally lost count of how many balls he lost.
Our worst game of the season. We look exhausted. Too many injuries too many games. Need to recover before Sunday when we start with Roma, Porto, Inter, Atletico, Fiorentina and Liverpool….
Awdul ratings, team was poor and almost lost to 9 men… additionally we got lucky with an amazing Bennacer goal. You could probably have him shoot 50 times and he’d never make that shot again but I’ll take it bc he played well overall. Calabria and Bennacer are the only ones who should be proud. Tonali was solid and subbing him off was the wrong move as we sorely miss the vision he has. Krunic invisible, Saele, poor. Samu poor, etc.
It’s just lucky we got win the end ….that’s disgusting play…this fellows can’t control a match when opposite team is down to 09 men….and how f…. lazy cab you be that you don’t even come back to help in the defence …actually I wish we would have draw the match…atleast this people would have started thinking about how they played…they played like headless chick’s…if we play like this we don’t win any thing
on the bright side, we won & we have created a fine gap between us and others (inter and juventus) so we probably gonna lose to inter and roma if we play like we did today but still will be in the top 4
Bennacer (7 – MOTM) ? he was the worst Milan player in the first half. yes he was motm from 70-finish
We all shouldnt be expecting good games everytime. Even the best teams play bad at times but they grind out result
Seriously who are these crybabies? What exactly do you want? We lose you complain; we win you still complain. What do you want? No one is looking at the positives, just the negatives. I’d rather we played this way and won against Liverpool and Atletico than play good football and lose. In the end, the three point is all that counts. 🤦🏾♂️
It is pretty clear what people want. Convincing, structured, intelligent, combinational play. Sometimes just a win is not enough.
Good football always leads to wins and trophies eventually. You could lose a few but ultimately it will do you good.
Grinding out results is also a must but do it twice or more on a row and there’s a problem.
Incredibly negative comments here, disregarding that the team had 10 players out, and that the last time we won 8 of the first 9 Serie A games was in 1954/5. I think that given the circumstances, we’re doing exceptionally well in Serie A. Not in the Champions League but we’re the youngest team in the Champions League by average age of the players. Several Liverpool players have more Champion League matches under their belt than the sum of all Milan players. What did you all expect? This is not a winning year for us in the Champions League but we’ll get better next time. As for Serie A, great campaign so far. Despite all the injuries and Covid, we keep winning even when it’s not pretty.
Yes, pointwise we are doing exceptionally well. And I have been impressed with our game-approach several times this season. But when Bologna went down to 10, and then finally to 9, this game went all wrong; from Pioli and his game management to several individual players who just lost their concentration and enthusiasm completely. For me, this is unacceptable, no matter how well you have played up until now, and no matter how many injured players we have…