AC Milan’s Coppa Italia adventure came to an end on Thursday evening, following a late Lazio winner and a poor performance. 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.
Starting XI
Maignan (6.5): He made a couple of good stops in the first half and followed that up with a great one on Noslin in the second half. He was left for dead on the goal, as none of the defenders picked up Zaccagni on the corner.
Tomori (6): A few situations here and there could have been handled better, but overall, his defending was solid and also crucial in some moments.
De Winter (5): Unfortunately, we got to see quite a lot of mistakes from him tonight, mixed with defending that can only be described as average. Although it was hard to see if he was marking Zaccagni, he was the last to make contact with the goalscorer before opting not to follow him.
Pavlovic (6): He got an early yellow card, deservedly so, but that wasn’t really his fault. His defending was okay overall and he also had some good moments in possession. Very average, though, so it’s just about a 6 here.
Saelemaekers (5.5): The Belgian wasn’t his usual self, that much is clear, with misplaced passes, a lack of creativity in possession and a good chance missed. It was right to take him off, even if Milan didn’t have a proper replacement.
Ricci (5.5): It was an opportunity for the midfielder to prove himself but instead, he was way too shy on the ball. He improved in the second half but it wasn’t enough to get a 6 here.
Jashari (6): All things considered, he did an okay job in the centre of the park with decent movement, some duels won, and a few great passes too. He nearly had a fantastic hockey assist, picking out Estupinan’s run with a fantastic ball, but Leao missed.
Rabiot (6): While it was nothing special from him, he at least made some important runs into the box and also carried the ball a lot for Milan. By his usual standards, he could have done better but at the same time, it was good enough for a 6.
Estupinan (6): The early misplaced pass that forced Pavlovic to take a yellow could have cost Milan dearly. However, after that, he was actually very solid in possession and had some good runs in attack. You could argue he should have had an assist, after a great run and good pass to Leao.
Loftus-Cheek (5.5): Size and strength, yes, but he wasn’t able to make the most of that tonight with some dodgy moments in possession. On top of that, he had two decent heading opportunities in the box, but failed to hit the target both times.
Leao (5.5): The No.10 did help Milan open up some space in attack, and also brought down some long balls nicely, but his rating is heavily affected by the miss. It’s a chance he should have scored, and considering how the game panned out, we can’t look past it.
Substitutes
Nkunku (5): He played tonight? The usual story repeated itself with the Frenchman, despite getting 30 minutes on the pitch.
Pulisic (6): The American forced the Lazio goalkeeper to a decent stop in the dying minutes, and he also helped create some of the late chances.
Modric (5.5): With the risk of sounding harsh, I don’t think his entrance made much of a difference at all, even if it wasn’t an easy situation.
Bartesaghi (N/A): I didn’t see enough to give him a rating.
The manager
Allegri (5.5): What can we really say about this game? The rotation was necessary, given the hectic period coming up, but perhaps some changes could have been made earlier. Furthermore, with Milan’s endless possession of just passing the ball around, it felt like the gaffer wanted the penalties.
Very tightly played match, much more tempered then our others games. Not a lot of imagination but loads of side ways and missed passes. Jashari did open up later in the match with a few long balls but overall neither team really wanted to take risks and Lazio won it on a corner.
Lazio stopped the midfield from playing the ball forward. What was Allegri doing waiting until the 80 min mark to put in Modric and Pulisic? ACM has been hanging on with these 1-0 wins. It caught up with them. Here’s why ACM will not win the scudetto- they don’t dominate teams they eke out wins. Not good enough for a season.
This!! How can I line this comment.
Allegri has solved the defensive issues no doubt, but in expense of Milan’s attacking prowess. He needs to take more risk. I don’t think 352 is very suitable for this Milan. 3421 should be ideal
yup. When we have all 3 of Modric, Puli and Rafa, it all works well but that’s only because of their individual brilliance and the fact that when all 3 are in, teams cant focus on the one there.
This match was crying out for the Modric and Pulisic subs in the 60th minute. It was quite obvious we had a slight tiny advantage and that had we put two talented offensive players the game was there for the taking.
Instead Allegri waited and waited and then put in our weakest attacking player thus far (Nkunku), who predictably made no difference.
You have to give Allegri a 4 or lower for this. Missing the obvious subs that any fan could see were needed to go win the game.
Or you say, hey, Allegri didn’t actually want to win this game. And he’s thinking scudetto and the long game.
But he managed this game to tie or maybe eke out a win or surrender a loss on a tiny advantage. And that’s what happened. We lost on one well-taken corner kick.
The subs were obviously too little too late.
Milan had control and majority of the possession in the game but didn’t really do much with it. Outside of couple crosses for RLC headers and that nice Jashari- Estupiñán action that Fofana, I mean Leao skied, there was nothing else from Milan or Lazio.
I could easily say that Estupiñán was actually Milan’s best player today.
Jashari looked good for someone who has barely played any competitive football in over 5 months, since the end of last season.
Rabiot was below his usual as a Milan player, while Ricci, well, we already know.
I didn’t like Allegri’s subs. Pulisic should have been introduced while it was 0-0. He is Milan’s most dynamic player. He waited until Milan was down to put him in.
Also, if you are taking Saelemaekers out and you don’t have another wingback, as a coach you have to be able to switch tactics. You can’t ask RLC to play as a wing-back. He should have switched to 4 at the back with Tomori as a RB, and play 433 or 4321.
Missed opportunity to progress vs a very poor Lazio team. Bigger picture, maybe it is a good thing. Last year Napoli got knocked out early and won the scudetto.
On to Torino.
not really fair to give Pulisic or Modric a rating since they played for 10 minutes. Max got this one wrong. Almost like he didn’t really care if we won or lost.
The game:
Oh well, we’re out of Coppa and I can’t say I’m dismayed. We have a short roster and some older, as well as some injury-prone players. The top of Serie A is crowded; any little advantage counts, so maybe it’s good that we won’t be bothering with Coppa any longer while our opponents will. It sounds lame that everybody else who count did advance and it sucks that Lazio got their revenge but maybe our big revenge will be that we’ll make top 4 and the UCL, while Lazio won’t (hopefully).
We didn’t seem to try hard. Our short roster means that with little depth, when we rotate more heavily (which was necessary) we don’t do as well. And without Puli we depend on Rafa, and when he has a day off like tonight, then it’s hard to score.
We suffered the goal in the second half when we were actually improving; their goal was kind of against the run of play, in a collective defensive failure; maybe the only real BIG failure we had, but it was enough to lose the game.
Otherwise we were very pale in offense, and the midfield without Modric isn’t the same (Ricci is no Modric; Jashari was encouraging, though).
I did a summary of our errors (several) and accomplishments (a few) which went like this:
Defensive Errors (from not dangerous to very dangerous):
Maignan 0
Tomori 1 (very dangerous)
DeWinter 4 (moderately dangerous) + 1 (poorly conceded corner)
Pavlovic 0
Jashari 1 (not dangerous)
Saelemaekers 1 (very dangerous) + 3 poor ball controls + 1 dangerous foul
Estupiñan 1 (which made Pavlovic rescue him with a tactical foul and a yellow but it was his only one)
Ricci 0
Rabiot 0
Collective error leaving Zaccagni unmarked for a score; nobody picked him up. I can’t single out any one player more responsible for it than others.
Offensive errors:
RLC 2 (missed headers)
Rafa 0 in first half but little effort; second half 1 lost ball that doomed a great attacking play; 1 miss of a huge opportunity shooting too high
Big Defensive accomplishments:
Maignan 2 (great saves)
Estupiñan 1 (prevented dangerous attack)
DeWinter 2 (interrupted dangerous attacks in second half)
RLC 1 (headed to interrupt a dangerous cross)
Moderate offensive accomplishments:
RLC good header attempt, a bit high, on a good cross from Estupiñan
Saelemaekers 1 good shot saved by goalie
Jashari great pass to Estupiñan who served Rafa well (the latter missed)
Big Offensive accomplishments:
RLC 0
Rafa 0
Nkunku 0
Pulisic 1 (excellent attempt miraculous saved by their goalie)
———–
So the above influenced my ratings, as such:
Maignan, 7. Two great saves and good work with his feet. Not responsible for their goal; got burned by the collective defensive failures of his companions.
Pavlovic 6.5. Best defender tonight. No mistakes. Solid. Some attempts to help the offense that went less well.
De Winter 5. Several mistakes in first half. Better in second half when he actually interrupted two good attacks by Lazio but not enough to save his rating.
Estupiñan 7. Actually a very good game. Not that I think he is better than Bartesaghi but this was one of his finest games with Milan’s jersey. A couple of excellent crosses and solid defensive work.
Saelemaekers 5.5. One of his worst games. Rather ineffective. Had one good shot on target.
Tomori 6. A couple of mistakes but otherwise adequate, gets a pass.
Ricci 6. Also gets a pass. I found him less shy than usual, a bit more prepositive.
Rabiot 6. Not that good, not bad. Gets a pass.
Jashari 7.5. A great game after long absence for injury so this is very encouraging and the one big positive tonight. MOTM for us, in my opinion.
RLC 6. Gets a pass. Missed a coupe of headers but otherwise was decent. Not great offensive work but not bad either.
Rafa 4. Didn’t do anything right. Missed what should have been the winner, and spoiled a great run that he creates himself, a bit like Fofana last game. Rafa also showed little effort, reminding us of some of his worst moments last season which seemed behind him, but not tonight when he didn’t seem to try hard to help the team.
Subs
Puli 7. He showed that had he played for longer, we might have tied or won. His attempt was the best one of the entire game despite his few minutes. The goalkeeper was very lucky to have stopped that. Puli deserved the score.
Nkunku. 3. What a bust. When he plays, it’s like we are playing with a man down. Does absolutely nothing. I wish we’d sell him in January. Sure, sure, it’s his first season, but come on. This player looks a lot like a has-been, washed up player eternally out of shape and utterly useless.
Modric, Bartesaghi S/V. They both got subbed in very late and couldn’t get much done to help the team.
Mister Allegri – 6. Is it his fault that our roster is short, has no depth, and he HAD to rest players who were getting exhausted? No, it isn’t. But tonight we looked flat which has not been a characteristic of Milan under Allegri so I wonder what he failed to do to motivate the players. He gets a pass given that the short roster is the managers’ fault rather than his but no more than a pass as he didn’t seem to make an impact on his team tonight. What is clear is that if we want the Scudetto or at least top 4, we need reinforcements in January. We can’t drop this much when we need to rotate. Tare needs to try to accomplish some miracle in the January window otherwise we may fail again. The continuation of the season could mean that a promising start will fade if our players get exhausted and injured.
I also don’t care. We would have not won anyway. We are missing 2 NT level players to be good in the league. We can let the reserves play in the coppa when we actually have a full team. In this game we saw key bench players, so not like we have depth if anyone gets injured.
Maybe like someone above said, Allegri didn’t really want to advance in Coppa Italia, knowing that we need every advantage we can think of in Serie A which is way way way more important than Coppa. We need top 4 very badly or else the budget will suffer and essential players will leave if we get two seasons in a row without the Champions Legue. In these circumstances, Coppa Italia is really not important at all. It is clear that when we had a midweek game we don’t do as well in the next Serie A game, so maybe Allegri who is a smart guy, didn’t really want us to advance, thus the flat squad, and Allegri’s lack of effort to sub earlier and change tactics. Maybe he thought, “oh well, good riddance, let the boys lose this one so that we focus on Serie A.”
For me it’s way better to win 3 points in Serie A against Lazio than to win against Lazio in Coppa and advance. If I had to pick which Lazio game I’d like to win, knowing that we’d win one and lose one, I’d CLEARLY pick the Serie A game.
Hahahahaha. The excuses yall will make for Allegri 😂😂😂😂. All of a sudden Coppa is no longer important for a big team like Milan. Lmao.
You are certainly not Italian. Here in Italy NOBODY cares for Coppa Italia. It’s not important. Serie A and qualifying for the UCL are important. Coppa Italia is just unwelcome distraction.
And I’m not saying this just because we lost. I said the same before the game, in another thread.
Get informed. We don’t care for Coppa.
No one outside Italy cares about the Coppa either. It’s only for the losers who cannot compete for the scudetto.
Yes I’m not Italian and I didn’t claim to be. What I am is an ardent supporter of this team. And as a true supporter, I believe every trophy is important. Telling players they don’t need to play well for any trophy is a mediocre mentality for sure. I promise yall, this Allegri ball is not winning the scudetto. You can mark my words and remind me of it at the end of the season. We look very terrible when we’re playing even mid table or end of the table teams.
The money for winning the Copa made it important. With no CL, ACM need the money to buy good players.
“…Allegri didn’t really want to advance in Coppa Italia, knowing that we need every advantage we can think of in Serie A which is way way way more important than Coppa”
This tournament is meaningless to them in the long run of the season
Milan is zone marking in corners. That ball on the first post should be attacked by RLC.
Anyway this is the other side of Allegri’s ball. Very few things happen during the match, we concede little and create little. We need to hope that we turn the decisive moments on our side.
No Fofana, no party.
Fofana was heavily involved in the only 2 goals Milan scored in the previous 2 games vs Inter and Lazio in serie A. No Fofana, no goals for Milan.
He was missed today. Hopefully he comes back as soon as possible.
Interesting.
He does provide something extra in midfield.
Shame Ricci seemed to struggle. I’ve got a bad feeling about him.
Either he or Jashari will struggle this season and it could well be him.
Oh my. You had to mention him.
Lmao. Yall still enjoying Allegri ball ? My man had only one competition plus the league and he couldn’t even deliver. Smh. I said it last week that this park the bus nonsense will destroy this team’s winning mentality but yall still think Allegri is such a masterclass.
Mourinho is my all time favorite coach but even I know his time has gone. Same as Allegri. His time has gone. Every recent successful coach has to play expansive football and not this nonsense Allegri cooks. We’re so ugly to watch for a team trying to win something and playing once every week. SMH
I think you either go for the win or go for players resting and living with the result. Allegri did neither though, which is a mistake.
Hoping Pulisic and Modric can magically rescue a penalty shoot out with just 10 minutes on the clock is just unnecessary risk. You bring them on when Nkunku entered the match and you attempt to win outright in the final 30 minutes… or, just keep them bundled in a jacket watching the match from the bench and go all in this season with full focus on the league title.
Exactly my thought. When Nkunku came on it should have been Pulisic and Modrić. Should have left Saelemaekers on even though he wasn’t having a good match but we have limited options at the moment. You could tell these players haven’t played much together because when we turned Lazio over there was no counter attack or urgency.
Thats our palyers. Limited…we only can win as a team…
This team can’t get a break in the Coppa Italia.
Milan have only won it 5 times and the last time was in 2003.
So it’s harsh to judge these players based on this exit.
I couldn’t watch the game but it sounds like it was tight. Getting Lazio early on and just after the league win made it difficult.
Alas it could’ve been a trophy . That only leaves the Scudetto. Not completely ruling that out.
A few thoughts
1. This loss is on Allegri. Not only for waiting for too long for subs today, but also for not using his five subs in so many games, forcing all of these newer players, to be rusty today.
2. Not having anyone who can back up Saelemaeker is ridiculous. Not being able to adjust to a 4-3-3 when needed is ridiculous. Watching NNkinku playing wingback, then watching Pulisic have to play wingback when we needed a goal was ridiculous
3. I thought the two of the better players on the pitch today was Estupian and RLC. Go figure
4. Milan played well enough on defense today, other than defending that one corner. Milan did not play well tonight, and for most of the match neither did Lazio
5. It goes without saying but if Pulisic and Modric enter at 60 minutes, Milan wins.
6. This just didn’t seem like a game Milan really wanted.
Napoli got knocked out of the Coppa Italia last season in the Round of 16 as well, and they BARELY scraped a Scudetto by 1 point.
Max is just as pragmatic as Conte, so I cannot deny the feeling that he was taking this as a simple training exercise for when we play in a game without Modric. If we had won, all well and good, but if we lost, no big deal.
The focus was always on Torino away, where we have won only ONCE in the last 12 seasons.
1 win in 12 seasons!
Wow!
One utterly match cup gone. Scuds left now. And with winter signing, we have to dominate this league, or should be?
If Allegri really wanted to win the game, he should’ve brought in Pulisic much much sooner. And with the Coppa gone, our reserve will have less and less chance to play.
briging Pulisic alone is not a guarantee for Victory but changing formation would have
What a terrible, ugly, boring game. This team creates nothing when Pulisic is not out there. Had he been brought in earlier maybe Milan win, but honestly it looked like Allegri wanted to be out of the tournament.
This kind of ugly football Milan has been playing is seriously hard to watch. When they win it makes it somewhat tolerable but this was brutal.
How many different ways did Allegri have to show us he didn’t care about this game? Because as soon as I saw the lineup I already knew he’s ok to punt this. This is Coppa. This is made for teams like Lazio and Bologna. I’m glad we’re out. Focus on the league and minimize the risk of injury.
The game about as expected for a group of players who have barely played together. Rabiot/Jashari/Ricci had no chemistry together. For different reasons. Frenchman looked tires. Jashari played just like someone back for his first game after a long layoff – rusty and a sloppy with the passes. Ricci doesn’t have the luxury of consistency playing second fiddle to Modric.
Where does that leave us? RLC looked consistent by his standards. Nkunku, same ol’. Estupinan looked pretty good considering. Puli with 15mns or however much time he had, wasn’t going to produce any miracles, even if he came close to scoring. Salad looks heavy-legged and has played every match so far.
So yea, the game went as good as it’s lineup. ONe less thing to worry about. I’d even skip the Super Coppa honestly.
Exactly. Here is one poster who gets it. Coppa Italia in our situation? Good riddance.
How do people on here manage to have both ridiculously high expectations for players and the club’s performances, and ridiculously low expectations for the results!
I think it’s stems from the fact that people believe a club needs a squad of 35 Messi’s to be able to compete in Serie A and Coppa Italia!
This is a loser’s mentality. Milan should try to win every competition they are in. It’s not like we have a full schedule this season. The idea that it has to be either the Scudetto or this is silly. As if they can’t do both. We have no European play at all this season, it’s the perfect time to try and win this trophy. The more likely scenario now is that we don’t win any trophy this season. Don’t see how that’s good.
And if Allegri really doesn’t care about winning this competition, then why come out and play so cowardly? Why not turn the players loose and let’s see some exciting, attacking football for once. If you don’t care about winning at least give the fans something entertaining to watch. Not that sloppy borefest we had to sit thru in this game.
We have only 19 players of whom only 11 have quality. And you want to stretch them thin like a half a teaspoon of butter over two slices of toast?
Milan hasn’t given a sh*t about this competition in decades. Rightly so. Focus on the league and CL. Call it whatever you want. I call it realistic expectations and risk management.
Stop with the excuses. Stretch them thin? No European play at all. They have been basically playing one game a week. The Coppa Italia is not some grueling competition. It’s the perfect chance to let some of our rotation players get minutes. They just need a coach with a little bit of courage and some ideas. When you just sit back and park the bus for 90 minutes and hope for 1 moment to get you a 1-0 win, it can easily go the other way, which we saw yesterday. Milan have been on the lucky side of it many times this season but that is not a sustainable strategy.
Anyone who is happy to lose is a loser, no matter what the competition.
You say this, but the record shows that in the last 3 seasons, whoever drops out of the Coppa in Round of 16 ends up winning the Scudetto.
Does that mean that those clubs were not in it to win it? Who knows, but having to play 4 less games during the most busiest period of the season will help.
Napoli dropped out last season in R16 and only BARELY managed to win the Scudetto by just 1 point over Inter.
If Milan want to win the Scudetto this season, they’re going to need all the advantage they can get.
It’s shame it wasn’t taken more seriously.
Juve’s 15 wins suggests that this is in fact a competition for big teams.
In fact it’s precisely this attitude that sees Milan struggle against Pisa and Cremonese.
Well how many CL do Juve have? 🤔
Sure, if you have the depth in squad. Does Milan? Not currently, no. if anything, this game showed us that beyond our starting 11, we have very limited quality on the bench.
Jashari was poor. And estupinan does not impress me. Neither does Winter. Moreover the match was underwhelming
This is what you get when you have a lean squad, and not everyone is performing well. I hope Tare and co. do something about it in January, and, also, make concrete decisions on strikers’ futures. We are not getting any help from them.
Passing was sloppy. Again. And the most guilty party was Ricci. Especially towards the end he failed even the easiest passes miserably. Not the the others excelled either but Ricci’s passes were just horrible.
Remove Modric & Pulisic from the team and we’re absolutely toothless. Oh well, at least now it’s 100% all-in on Serie A.
Milan lost because Fofana didn’t play.
Well we have been playing very poorly recently including the last match v Lazio. So eventually the luck runs out.
Allegri sure is good at organising a defence but if it is at the cost of having ZERO threat in attack, what is the point. 0-0 with Allegri, 4-4 with Pioli.
Perhaps some day we will have a manager that can play defence and attack.
The squad is a shambles. How did we sell Jimenez who is desperately needed as a wingback.
Never mind Tiji and Theo who were made for this system.
We have no depth and half the players we brought in summer are utter rubbish
Nkunku not worth 4m let alone 40
De Winter for Thiaw, just wow, how dumb.
Estupinan back up to a teenager, money wasted
Do management even talk to each other?
We brought in Modric, Ricci and Jashari, all of whom play as the regista. Sold Tiji who is a box to box midfielder with goals.
Rabiot is only here because he got in a fight, where would we be without him? who would play on the left of midfield?
I just cant wait until we are rid of the clown show
From owners to sporting director, scout, manager it is a collection of bums
From his pre match interview and his squad clearly tells me he is not much bother about this competition, now he needs to focus more and win the scudetto for us.The management needs to sign at least top and guarantee striker and a Center back in January.We need to bring Thiago Silva, looking at the time constraint,he is ready made, knows Milan and the league very well.
What a terribly boring @$$ game. Max clearly didn’t want to go far in this compy. And I can’t blame him either. However this means top 4 is a priority (not that it ever was but it’s going to be even moreso as an avenue to Europe is lost).
It almost felt like a friendly game to get injured players some minutes in their legs in preparation for a bigger game lol. Burn the tapes
100%. As soon as I saw the lineup I could tell he’s punting it. But what he also did was show Fulrani and Tare that we have limited quality on the bench.
I’m not sure we can really claim we had reserves playing.
De Winter cost good money
Estupinan is supposed to be our LWB
Jashari is our record signing
Ricci has been a regular and played instead of a disatrous Fofana
Nkunku for 40m should be capable
It’s hard to make excuses.
Poor squad construction and negative tactics are to blame imo
Sure it’s not the league but we have been riding our luck a little too much
Estupian was arguably our best player in this match.
De Winter defended well but was a little shaky on the ball.
Jashari didn’t do much but it’s basically his first real action since being out months with a broken leg so to make any judgements on him would be ridiculous.
Ricci did not look good.
The real problem is the coach who is a dinosaur and has no ideas whatsoever on any creative attacking football. He sits deep and tries to defend the entire match and hopes for 1 moment of offense usually created by Pulisic or Leao to win the match 1-0. or draw 0-0.
It’s boring, it’s ugly and it also relies a lot on luck, which Milan have been lucky a few times this season to be where they are, but it can easily go the other way like yesterday.
Even if Milan win the Scudetto playing this way I would not want to see Allegri back next season. And I like the defensive part of the game, I don’t need end to end madness like in the Premier League, but I do like to see some good football and Allegri ball is just hard to watch.
I think Allegri is just picking his battles. Winning the Copa but not finishing top 4 is a disaster. If we advanced to the latter stages, it would mean more matches at the tail end of the season, most likely against top 4 rivals. He knows at the time of the season, having fresh players will count. And I believe he is just being modest, he would give anything to win the league.
His plan is to win first, then entertainment afterwards if possible. 1-0 wins are still the same points as 4-3 wins. An entertaining draw is worse than a boring win, that has been allegri’s style. If his first year with us, Milan usually scored within the first 15-20mins and his first sub was usually with 5mins to go.
Those days were nerve racking.