AC Milan suffered a pretty big defeat in their final friendly clash of the pre-season, conceding four goals against Chelsea. Below are the player ratings for the Rossoneri.
If you haven’t already, make sure to check out how we decide the player ratings. From the scale to what affects the rating, we have compiled everything there.
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Starting XI
Maignan (6): He was left for dead on the goals. The positioning was questionable a few times, but he also made some good saves at the end of the day. One on Neto, at the end of the first half, was especially good.
Coubis (2): A very strange performance, to say the least. First the own-goal when he got caught in two minds, about leaving the cross or not (very poor defending there), and then the red card. It was a clear red card if you ask me, even if it perhaps wasn’t necessary to hand it out in a friendly game. Still, an incredibly tough afternoon for the 21-year-old.
Tomori (4.5): I could try to come up with an answer, but his actions on the second goal are tough to understand. He kept his eye on the Chelsea forward the whole time and still didn’t close him down when the cross came in.
He should’ve commanded the defence today but just didn’t, and the passing wasn’t all that convincing either. On the final goal, he was caught sleeping once again. It’s very difficult to assess this pre-season as a whole for him.
Terracciano (6): Unlike his colleagues, he wasn’t at fault for any goal. It wasn’t spectacular defending by any means, don’t get me wrong, but he did his duties at the back. He also had a nice cross for Leao but the goal was ruled out for offside.
Musah (5): He was beaten quite often on the right flank, also committing a few fouls in dangerous positions. Things weren’t much better in attack with a lack of directness in crossing situations.
He caused a penalty too but let’s be honest, that wasn’t really a foul at all. The referee blew his whistle several seconds later, presumably based on the Chelsea reactions, so I won’t take that into too much consideration here.
Ricci (6): A few fouls committed, and only 45 minutes played, but at least he managed to create some sort of control when Milan had possession with his movement and passing.
Fofana (5.5): It was an incredibly sloppy start from him passing-wise, but that at least improved a little. He had a great one-two with Leao in the second half but tried to round the keeper and thus missed the 1v1. Doesn’t get much worse than that, to be honest. At least he got a good goal to bump up the rating, but it could’ve been a 5 depending on how you value the miss.
Bartesaghi (6): After Coubis’ red card, he was moved to the three-man backline and it did look a lot better for Milan with him there. He wasn’t too bad in possession and when moving forward, relatively speaking anyway.
Loftus-Cheek (5.5): He used his body a lot to shield the ball and drive forward with the ball, but while he did cover some ground, nothing really came out of it. There was one good run and cross in the second half that comes to mind, but that’s about it.
Saelemaekers (6.5): It wasn’t easy after the red card, but he managed to get into a couple of decent chances, even if the shots could have been better. Still, he was very creative and got a great assist for Fofana. He can be a very important wildcard this upcoming season.
Leao (6.5): Like Saelemaekers, it was a very difficult task but he managed to create chances from long balls. The passing in the final third perhaps lacked a little composure at times, but he should’ve had an assist for Fofana after a nice one-two.
Substitutes
Modric (6): Considering just how comfortable he is in possession, it helped to have him on the pitch as he attracted the opponents and opened up space for his teammates. The passing was also decent and he made sure to make himself available.
Dutu (N/A): I didn’t see enough to give him a rating.
Eletu (N/A): I didn’t see enough to give him a rating.
Sia (N/A): I didn’t see enough to give him a rating.
Fitness game with basically no defenders – expecting Tomori to do the work of three or four was never going to end in amazing results and I would blame whoever booked friendlies on back to back days more than any players. Money banked, back to pre-season prep.
It clear that Allegri planned or this to let management know that urgent defensive signing are important or to show his unhappiness for the sale of Thiaw.
Anyway. MILAN will get better this year
Well he was using 3 at the back and we sold Thiaw yesterday, I don’t think he had much choice TBH
I understand it’s just a friendly, but why not use this defensive lineup against Leeds? I mean what the heck is Coubis doing on the field if he won’t play for the first team. Strange choice from Allegri. Otherwise, it was a decent display even in 10 men. Btw, Tomori should be sold asap, this guy doesn’t care about marking.
honestly if this was a competitive match we have a great chance at winning , and to top it off chelsea have like an unlimited budget for world class players. I wouldnt talk to much about this loss. the defenders however were awful . but maybe we could get back to the top with a world class defender or a young one and a decent potential striker
Considering we were playing a man down most of the match with a nonstarter of Tomori and Coubis, we did fine. We did fine the second half.
This does indicate we need to get a much better defender. I look more at individual performances in this game.
Tomori is very terrible in everything at this moment, it will be a magic is we could somehow sell him in this transfer window, from position to awareness to communication to play, everything is awful from him.
RCL may have the physicality but he is a liability on the defending and marking phase, we can’t have him shadow marking when Leao isn’t doing defence work too.
The balance is lacking, we just need to let Tomori go.
Coubis tomori arę two great handicap clowns…..🤭🤭
yup
Bartesaghi should play as a CB, not a fullback, similarly to Bastoni. He is too tall and stiff to be a fullback
That’s a really good idea, he can roam up like pavlovic does but he’s better at crossing. Can learn to play out the back like bastoni too; get some tips from modric to.
dont worry, he will be our left CB soon
Worst player Fofana by far. Forget about the goal, the guy looked uninterested the whole game just doing nothing, or like with half effort like he didn’t wanted to be there. Musah a bit better than yesterday but still its better to sell him and get a proper RB with the money. Salamakers deserves to be a starter. The ref was terrible compleatly favorizing Chelsea for some reason, like relax its a friendly. The penalty was non existent and the red card was also harsh especially for a friendly. The ref destroyed the game with that. Without the ref prob it would be 2-1 at the end.
Finally the worst thing was Alegri. It seems he still doesn’t know what formation he wants to play nor which player will play where. This doesn’t look good at all with the season almost starting, Leao as a center forward? Loftus on the right? Also for some reason he played starters CBs yesterday and today he played with make shift Teraciano and Cubis in defence.
100%
My brother I wish our messages will go straight to the owners and board of directors it seems this Algeri is an idiot,he is not sure of of formation is using one 2y using players u know u would not start and y start children when Chelsea came with there full squad this coach is confused
How does CB Terra get a pass?! On the last goal he didn’t come across and cover fast enough b/c he was entirely flat-footed. On a Gittens shot earlier in the game, he literally lay down out of the way.
RLC at 5.5? That guy was a midfield boss against the likes of Caciedo and Fernandez while we were down a man. He drew all sorts of fouls and made several great passes in the channel. 6.5
Tomori was the only adult on the defensive line. He covered a lot of ground and a lot of mistakes. That we only gave up two goals (one on a very soft pen) while down a man for 70 minutes speaks to him holding it together. He gets a pass 6.
Saelemakers a 6.5? He was involved in nearly every dangerous moment we created. He should be MOTM. Glad he is back. 7.0
Ricci was a 5.5. He was abused for lack of pace in the midfield and went down soft moaning on more than one occasion. I’d be okay with this if he wasn’t poorly positioned and practically giving the quicker players the turn. Worse it was often away from Milan pressure. Of all the things I saw today this is the only one that troubles me. Not for this year (we aren’t in UCL) but next year when we have to play UCL he will be a liability.
Nobody asked buddy
Exactly. Criminal RLC rating. Was literally everywhere and outplaying Chelsea’s entire midfield on his own. Fofana … don’t get me started. Grandpa doesn’t know what he’s doing on the pitch. He lost the ball more times than I could count. Whoever decides on these ratings doesn’t understand football at all.
What do you expect from a player tahtvwas over hyped simply because he is Italian. 40 year Modric is far better signing than Ricci and that says it all.
Anyway, I believe management deliberately took the cost for Ricci just to increase local content to Milan which is necessary considering the many bad officiating Milan is suffering currently from Italian referees.
Bad officiating alone cost Milan 10 points last season and a place in Europe.
Ricci will be playing matches in serie A againts the smaller level teams.
I think the result makes perfect sense considering we sold off the only decent CB we had on the ball and tried to duct tape together a 3 man CB partnership that was atrocious.
All goals came from positions that were occupied by the wrong personel. Coubis/Tomori playing where Thiaw should have been, and Musah forced to RB again due to the Red Card causing the PK.
Our CB position needed help before Thiaw was sold. Now we need twice the help and half the time to do it. Sure the fee for Thiaw was never going to be turned down and its a good return. But you have to plug a huge gap in the middle of defense now.
Terraciano/Bondo right to go. Musah won’t develop at Milan – still making same mistakes. Tomori should never be in the center of defense. Coubis needs to go back. Fofana needs to improve ASAP.
But there’s definitely a team in there if you combine the personnel from both friendlies into one team.
Please get your facts straight – Milan offered Thiaw a renewal with good terms but he turned them down. Not sure what else management could do about it
How about not putting him on the transfer list before Allegri had a chance to work with him? 😂
The problem is we’ve seen 6 different teams this pre season and players are still leaving and coming in. We’re going into an important coppa Italia team with an incomplete team that hasn’t played twice in the same outfit. Bari – while qualitatively the lesser side – expectedly played every friendly in the same outfit. This is not at all gonna be a sure thing I would say.
Tomori being played in the center while not being a tall CB and also one of the worst CB when it comes to air duels is just Alegri poor tactics, nothing else. Tomori is a CB who trives on running, thats it, thats his best trait. Can’t understand how Alegri said yea better play him in the center where all his weaknesses are exposed. As i mentioned above the worst thing for me in this game is Alegri. Hopes he figures it out before the season starts cause there isn’t much time left.
He couldn’t really play gabbia and pavlovic due to them playing the full 90 yesterday. But yeah I’m not a fan of tomori he gets exposed alot.
You need to use someone lile kjaer next to tomori one that lacks pace that is the only thing tomori has going for him
Very true, gabbia is very similar play style just not as vocal and experienced as kjaer. I would love an older, experienced cb to though. Someone to teach current and futuro players.
How many goals we have seen with crosses in which Tomori marks nobody in the box. His reading of the game is so poor, all you can do is assign him a player and tell him to mark it like Pioli did.
In positional defense Tomori cannot play at high level.
Tomorrow was playing in England second division on loan from Chealsea before signing by Milan due to our FFP rules impact to Milan
He will always remain a average and mediocre player.
His level improved in the scudetto season because of the impact of zlatan on all teammates.
Thay backline was doomed from minute 1 so I cant blame them too heavy. 1 CB, a child who isnt ready, and a right wingback at LCB. That was doomed… not to mention having musah fofana and rlc above them doing f all. Glad to see ricci and modric get at least a little time to integrate and start learning their teammates. I only hope for Terra he gets allowed to play his real position at his next team because the guy has been shafted harder than Vasquez at Madrid, never played his normal position simply because we’re too cheap to sign the position. Alexis once again proving he needs minutes this season, dame with bartesaghi who will be a good option off the bench this year
No MOTM?
The good: Salad man has been really good. The loan did him well. I always wonder …isn’t this the culmination of good work by the scout and the pathway to development and now he’s ready to the next step up to first team. But now we want to sell him? This is what I don’t understand about this management, we buy players,. develop and when it’s time to win something you sell and restart over again.
Anyways I digress.
The other good is say was Bartesaghi did quite well at what seemed to be left CB in a makeshift back three. I think that’s his best position
Musah wasn’t as bad,.so I’ll have to disagree with the rating. He is an enigma, not in a good way though but not necessarily bad either lol. He can dribble well if he really is able to control the ball and not overdo it. Hope Max can really work on that. It could be valuable.
Modric is also in the “good” column. His movements are a breath of fresh air. How can an old man move more and better than these young guys. This is why you pay the big bucks for quality. Clear class above..let’s hope his body stays healthy and he’s not overused.
The bad…well there are lots. RLC over dribbling for starters. Fofana…nuff said there but I think that’s more a fitness issue..good thing he lost some weight so headed in the right direction.
The ugly: sorry to say Coubis. And this is why you don’t overhype young players. However, they are young so we also need to accept that they’ll make serious mistakes. My worry is that he’ll never get to play gain to atone for his mistakes, especially knowing Italian coaches. That being said, from the little we saw of him, he looked out of sorts like Magni.
Overall, I would have liked to see 11v11 so we would know how we play as the game progresses. But alas. I think we just have too many new players. It takes time to gel and we’ll see that this season. Hopefully we can work that out sooner than later.
Oh and one worrying thing was the ease in which the balls made its way to the middle without it being cut out. That’s sort of worrying with or without a full team
Barts is a CB
They have been playing him mostly in full back roles in the first team (even last year) so that’s why I said he is better at CB.. but in a three
Yeah. What I mean is by now everyone, especially his very own self should realise he’s a CB not aLB. Would do his career a world of good if he makes the switch asap
Oh ok yes I see, thanks for clarifying
Yep, def should be a CB. He has the build for it and also way more comfortable there too
The main issue in this game was the referee — he was way too strict for a friendly match. The match script would’ve turned out much better if we hadn’t been reduced to 10 men.
English referees are by far the worst. He was SO annoying for a friendly. Give the kid a yellow and explain to him it’s a friendly and to calm down because that’s normally a red. No need for a send-off in the first quarter of the game.
2 Chelsea rejects and Fofana (in addition to Coubis) flopped big time. Milan needs to be wise in transfers. Don’t just buy big apparent physical players. The only thing they are good at is run like headless chicken.
A lot of asking why Allegri didn’t focus on one of the two games to play a full team. Probably they had contractual terms to play a percentage of first choice players in each.
I expect the team to change through the opening weeks too – I doubt Modric and/or Jashari will start home games together for a few weeks, they’ll be saved to bring on to give the crowd a lift when needed.
I think next week I’d expect something like
GK: Maignan
RB: Saelemaekers
CB: Tomori
CB: Pavlovic
LB: Estupinian
CDM: Ricci
RCM: RLC
LCM: Musah
RW: Pulisic
CF: Gimenez
LW: Leao
No, Jashari instead of Musah.
With RLC and Musah in those positions there will be zero creativity and passing accuarcy.
I have to be the devils advocate here. To be honest is it a red card in that moment or just a simple yellow? I think 99 times of 100 that is a yellow and this referee was clearly not a Milan fan when he gave a penalty that was a dive and even i could see that miles away it was just that, a dive. But to even give red for that in a friendly says a lot about the referee and more about chelsea who has players not only celebrating goals in a friendly like it was a champions league final but also celebrating when they get a penalty in a friendly.
I like the character of Milan in these friendlies, i like the determination even in the Liverpool win we didn’t celebrate like it was a final, but we keep the energy to the real games. And its clear that this years chelsea with these characters they have like Estevao will not get far mark my words.
Sad to see, it was a youngster mistake on the own goal but the red was too much hope it dont destroy the boys self-esteem and future!
Red card, and to quote the Kinks, “All day and all of the night”
Red card, but it’s only a friendly and frankly both teams would have benefitted from him giving a yellow, didn’t really help Chelsea much as a warmup either once we were down to ten.
Saele very impressive, looks like different man when leave us to Bologna. RLC is also decent, wish no injury happen to him again
Not as bad a result as I thought it would be. That said, Chelsea seemed to let up after the second goal. Not sure what Leao did. Saelemaker was very good. Never a penalty from what I was able to see. Not sure why it wasn’t replayed from a different angle. RLC was good but you can see his weakness in attack. The attack for ACM besides kicking it long to Leao seems lacking a plan. Top 4 finish- get back to me. Oh, and any talk of Pulisic coming back and improving things, forget about it. This setup does not suit hims so I predict his numbers will be way down. He’s not a box to box midfielder or is he really a midfielder- lacks range on his passes and strenght. He is going to be easily neutralized.
I’m still reeling from the UK Channel 5 commentators acting like it was a big European night and being completely biased. Apparently only Chelsea had young players 🤷🏻♂️.
Anyway…that wasn’t that bad in my opinion. That Chelsea team is complete, and cost a billion, we are at the start of a new cycle and we haven’t even assembled a squad for the season yet. At 2-0 down we had a (disastrous) youngster, a guy that’s leaving on loan in the next few days, and Tomori who has his strengths but leading the line isn’t one of them. Then it was never a penalty, and to be fair the fourth goal was a great.
We played some nice football. Leao was brillaint, Saelemaekers was a real problem for them, RLC was great going forward. Bartesaghi is clearly an inside left (been saying this forever, as have others) – he was really solid, this was his best game imo. Madrid’s passing will turn games on their head this season.
Musah has got to go. He was getting destroyed in defence and made the wrong pass pretty much every single time he received the ball – he simply couldn’t cope with the (not even that intense) press. Conte clearly has a plan for him and that’s great – Allegri doesn’t seem to know where to play him (sound familiar?) so we should sell.
Get the squad finalised and lets get down to business!!!
*Modric’s passing
Spot on
Are we seriously keeping Musah?? LOL. The kid is terrible. Take any amount of money for this kid pls.
Terracing can go on loan as well to get experience. He is not a Milan caliber player
What a side Chelsea are. I remember not too long ago (few years) a few Redbird Loving donkeys were bashing them crying they spent all this money and didn’t qualify for UCL – well well well look at them now. A YOUNG Powerhouse. Talent coming out of their arse. If only we could be so lucky. Money talks $$$$$$$$$$$$
I’d give credit to Maresca too. He is a low key coach, making wonders. Allegri is a big name but very outdated coach. I don’t understand different combination of players and starting a young player who has no prospect of playing in the first team so close to an official season start. And Sala did well with Leeds and then did not play again today. I think with Atalanta likely underperforming this season with a lot of players sale and coach departure, Milan can make top 4 this year. Roma is a dark horse though.
Because they were games on back to back days and we have 3 senior CBs at the moment! And probably contracted to play a strong-ish team in both games.
It’s not ideal, but Bari next week will be the final warmup for real. Yes, we need a result, but that will be expected as part of that warmup.
Who arranged this back to back friendlies? Especially quite hot in the UK currently. I still wish they gave Sala another chance today. Fofana should be sold with loss. Some people gave him benefits of doubt regarding fatigue for a long time.
The thing is they aren’t even spending money anymore. They did 1 season where they set this up and spent massively, went around rules by giving long contracts. People were laughing because they don’t get it and that includes all the writers at SempreMilan. Now Chelsea is good for next 10 years. They can pick the players that developed and sell the ones that don’t have space. Meanwhile Milan didn’t do that…
Buddy, take Boehly’s balls out of your mouth, yikes
Erm, they’ve spent upwards of 200M this summer so far, only Liverpool in the world have spent more I believe.
Coubis hit the jackpot if he bet on himself scoring own goal and receiving red card.
Hmm 🤔 same game parlay ? 🤔
We have a perfect Central Defender squad, 4-5 world class defenders
“There will not be a CB crisis into next season. Mngt is sure of this” 🙂
We are lucky we did not concede more. The selection was poor from the start. I wonder if Alegri watch Milan team before he took over.
Alegri should wake up from slumber. Leao is not a top striker. Musah cannot play RB. In 3 men defense Tomori is better on the RCB and not CB.
Whosoever is training the youth team should be monitored very well because those guys are not improving at all. At 21, cobis should have been a better player with good understanding of the game
I believe Allegri’s general theory is Milan team isn’t in the best shape atm, therefore it’ll be prudent to get one offensive formation and another one more defensive to play the top teams, hence 433 and 3421.
But Like I said before, I think the tactical tinkering is gonna cost us . With how I’ve seen Milan in recent years, training with one formation and sticking to it will benefit the players better. Then to adjust to teams when necessary, you make tweaks within that formation.
Agree 100%, RLC rating is well off-side! Did you watch the game Isak?
Ac Milan is not ready yet for an title challenge we should not deceive ourselves, alot of players mediocre players like okafor, musah, fofana, terraciano etc and the coach needs to take a drastic decision on the players whoever that is not ready to give a 100% on the field of play should go so that those that knows what it means to wear the red/black jersey should remain in the team.