AC Milan clinched their first win of the pre-season, and in the Soccer Champions Tour, as Marco Nasti scored the 3-2 winner against Manchester City. Paulo Fonseca will surely be happy and 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
Torriani (6.5/10): The youngster was surprisingly good with his feet, not fazed by intense pressure, and was thus able to find a teammate nine times out of ten. He also made a good stop in the first half to deny Man City a goal.
Calabria (6/10): The captain mostly stayed on the right flank, not attempting any adventures infield, and he was okay for the most part in both phases of the game. However, he got beaten just before City’s second goal and he arguably could have done better then. That said, he had several good balls forward, either in behind the defence or out wide.
Gabbia (5.5/10): His man-marking wasn’t always spot on, as Man City created some dangerous chances through the middle, but he did an okay job in the end. Like everyone else, he also fell asleep a bit on the first goal.
Tomori (5/10): He was beaten too easily just before the first goal and had a few questionable moments on the ball. Horrible defending on the second goal at the start of the second half too.
Terracciano (5.5/10): Man City got their first goal thanks to him, lacking awareness when receiving the ball and throwing himself to the ground was too easy. He did have some nice tackles, though, and also took up good positions in attack at times. But he must do better overall defensively.
Bennacer (6.5/10): The Algerian, as you would expect, was very comfortable on the ball and made himself available to his teammates. He also switched the play a lot and directed the play, which is just what we want to see.
Florenzi (N/A): He had to be subbed off due to a very serious knee injury. We would like to send our best wishes to the veteran, hopefully it was just a false alarm even if it looked very bad.
Chukwueze (7.5/10 – MOTM): We didn’t see an awful lot of him on the ball, but when we did see him, he was incredibly effective. Two very nice assists, using his skill to retain possession and wait for just the right moment to send the ball into the box.
Loftus-Cheek (6/10): He started the game with some very good runs in behind the defence and had some really nice flicks on the counters. It was nothing spectacular, but he was also decent when he moved down in midfield in the second half.
Saelemaekers (7/10): It was a very bright start from the Belgian, taking on his man often and driving down the left-hand side with skill. Although it calmed down a bit, he then got a good assist for Nasti from the right. It will be very interesting to hear Fonseca’s thoughts on his future.
Colombo (7.5/10): Two great goals, well-taken, thanks to pure striker’s instinct. It seems a loan move is on the cards for him and we can only hope that he can find the consistency. Having said that, he dropped down a bit too much, but that seemed to be Fonseca’s orders though.
Substitutes
Pobega (6/10): He came off the bench to replace the injured and while it was heavy-touch galore for a second there, he improved and in the end, it was enough to get a pass.
Nasti (6.5/10): He was gifted a chance that he arguably should have put away, trying to round the keeper instead of shooting immediately. However, he redeemed himself with a nice goal (after a good run) which put Milan ahead and it ended up being the winner.
Thiaw (6/10): While Man City did still create a few chances, he helped see out the game and although it might seem harsh on the starting centre-backs, he gets a pass here.
Kalulu (6/10): Same as Thiaw, not doing anything extraordinary but holding his ground and keeping Man City from scoring more goals.
Liberali (6): He picked up some interesting positions and compared to the game against Rapid Wien, he looked a lot more confident and thus succeeded in his actions as well.
Jimenez (N/A): A couple of good bursts forward but we didn’t see enough to give him a rating.
Pulisic (N/A): We didn’t see enough to give him a rating.
Musah (N/A): We didn’t see enough to give him a rating.
Bakoune (N/A): We didn’t see enough to give him a rating.
That young goalkeeper is an interesting prospect. A good performance from him
The young goalkeeper is solid but Acmilan needs to sell out tomori immediately because he committed error and he cannot adapt to Acmilan pattern of play at least either Kalulu/Gabbia with Pavlovic for central defence, but if Acmilan didn’t sign Pavlovic then Kalulu will partner Gabbia
Because Gabbia can also play left central defence
Promising start for youngs Milan.
I know this was a friendly game, but definitely it was interesting and much better then game with Rapid.
Colombo is interesting player. Sell him will be bad move.
Jimenes is deputy for Theo, but his last 15 minutes in midfield was good. Nasti also great move in midfield… It is good to see Milan Futuro players play like this against Man City. Then you can ask if you really need to spend 25 milions for Samardzič or Kone when these Boys wanna play for your first team. Hope Fonseca will play Milan Futuro players in some matches.
Liberali. What a player. Fonseca plays nice offensive football but if he doesn’t work on the defensive phase we’ll be in serious trouble when the season starts.
Surprisingly, they’re not using their arms to defend like Fonsy taught them. Then there’s the Library guy or liberally who was kinda entertaining to watch. Saladmaker looks like a player we should keep but Tomori ain’t looking good in all honesty. It somehow feels like we don’t need another striker but the coach knows best.
There’s still some elements of Pioli defending I observed. Would take time to hammer in a new philosophy
“they’re not using their arms to defend like Fonsy taught them. ” Lol so true 😅
I hope Saelemakers and Colombo to stay. They can be useful backup, and we don’t need to find more striker.
Saelemakers showed he can do the job on both wings.
i agree on saele.
i wish saele stays.
but the problem is the player himself.
after last season in bologna, i don’t think saele wants to come back to milan just to sit on the bench again as leao’s back up
Very low ratings, a lot of players played beautifully and deserve higher ratings. On a whole the team looked great except for the first 15-20 minutes of the second half. Great possesion of the ball and great individual perfermonces. I was specially impressed by Liberali, perfect trequartista-materal.
Liberali had some really good touches and movement with the ball. He looked more than just an academy player which is brilliant to see, the goalkeeper was pinging balls really well, even when under pressure he was good.
I will complain about the way the team played though. The team looked lost when trying to break the press and was sitting with the ball doing nothing but creating more troubles.
It’s only a 2nd game in pre-season and playing mostly vs City’s youth players, but it was a massive improvement from the Rapid game. Very encouraging signs when it comes to the build-up play, keeping the ball and getting out of a press. Quick passes, players constantly moving into open pockets of space to give their teammates passing avenues, especially through the middle, and some nice passing patterns. We starting to see some of Fonseca’s imprint on the team.
Chukwueze was very good. Bennacer played well. But Saelemaekers was outstanding. I don’t know if he wants to stay and be a backup, but I’d like to have him on the team. Milan is stacked on the wings, so maybe convert Okafor to a full time striker.
I liked Fonseca trying out Jimenez as a left winger. The kid Is too offensive and absolutely awful defensively to be a full back at this point, but he got the offensive talent to be a winger.
Even though Colombo scored I don’t care much about him. He is a typical poacher. If you serve it to him on a silver plater he might score but besides that he is useless. His awful backwards pass got Florenzi injured.
On the negative side, Tomori proved again why he isn’t getting called up for the NT.
Also, ManCity should take whatever money the Saudis are offering for Ederson and run. He was terrible on all 3 goals.
We were missing a number of starters too and played many youth players.
Colombo was involved in build up play a lot
If we would just get a good CDM we could run 4231 and have Chuk and puli on the field at the same time. Get the freaking CDM!!
100%
Just quickly get a DM, close the deal for Fofana, or even bring Kessie back.
Stop shopping for another striker for the time being, until we find a DM and good CB (quickly sign Pavlovic !!)
Some people can’t get over Kessie. What did he do at Barca again? Oh, yeah made them some money when they sold him off to Saudi league. He could have at least done that for Milan by renewing. In any case, it’s not like he’s setting the football world on fire.
Oh we won. Where are the preseason African and Arab football experts, probably singing a different tune because of this win. Peasants
Sleeping, like normal people.
Racist spotted
One peasant said that Milan will get destroyed by Pep and City 17-0, but since Milan won, they’ll change the narrative that Milan played vs City’s academy and it’s only a pre season game. But if Milan lost it would have been a catastrophe, Milan will finish 10th and everyone should be fired.
Meanwhile, the team that is doing “great” in the market and hired top coach like Motta is getting shallacked 3-0 by a 2. Bundesliga team.
There’s no narrative. They had what, like 3-4 starters the entire game?
We were missing many starters too?
Pulisic played 10 minutes.
Gabbia, Bennacer, Tomori, Calabria, played 60 minutes, RLC played 80 mins.
Every other player on the pitch for Milan was either Milan Futuro (Torriani, Jimenez, Liberali, Bakoune) , players we sent on loan (Salad, Nasti, Colombo) or last year’s bench or injured players (Chukwueze, Terracciano, Florenzi, Kalulu, Thiaw, Pobega, Musah).
Effectively we played 5-6 starters ourselves. Not thst different from Man City.
And everyone knew that would be the case before the game started, yet still the sky is falling crowd were wringing their hands in glee in anticipation of a Milan loss. Because then they could come on here and post more nonsense about who should be signed, what management should be sacked, etc, etc.
It’s the same thing over and over and it’s frankly embarrassing, especially for those posting as it shows the world their utter ignorance.
Yeah and now Milan will win the UCL because they beat Manchester City in a summer friendly tournament meant to sell overpriced Coca Cola to US fans. All of that without our star recruit mister X. Third star here we are
Fa880t
Nice performance by some of the young players. Really impressed by Liberali.
Problem is we need a RB ASAP. Calabria is a big problem. On the second goal he had defensive help to the inside which is where he should have forced the player. Instead the one thing he can’t do is get beat to the outside and that’s exactly what happened. He just is not good enough anymore.
Calabria isn’t a problem per se. he’s just very average. The bigger problem was Tomori – the center of our defense who we are building around. Hopefully its just rust.
…Hopefully
I have always loved Saelemaekers, he has a drive force that only a good coach and single him out,Chukwu did great,we need more of this,the young goalie was exceptional,I loved his confidence.
Overall I feel the team was slow,I just don’t see the energy
I had very low expectations for Milan in this game but I’ll eat my words. Great performance and Fonseca seems to have good ideas offensively. The young talents came to play as well, while City looked completely cooked in the first half. We were a bit lucky in the second half to not concede more, but overall I think Milan deserved the win
For me the best player on the field was Liberali. Very promising, very encouraging! Intelligent, fast, great movement, excellent passes.
The young goalie is great, calm, plays well with his feet.
Chuk, superb. I expect great things from Chuk this season. He took a while to gel last season but the last several games of the season he did great then got injured; now in good shape again, he picked up where he left up and was phenomenal, with two assists.
I always like Saelemaekers. However the enthusiasm here in this thread is a bit unwarranted: sure, he worked hard as usual, but rarely finished well his plays, except for the assist.
Tomori, a disaster. Calabria really got beaten in their second goal. Our defense remains fragile and needs to be fixed ASAP, and we really, really, really need a good defensive midfielder.
Too bad that Florenzi got injured. He’s another player I like. I hope he doesn’t get sold.
Several youngsters looked promising today. However, this was not Manchester City. It was more like Manchester City Futuro. Still, our youngsters against their youngsters, we actually did better, and deserved the win.
Yeah this wasn’t our first string team either. But yeah Tomori needs to get his act together. Pavlovic will help us immensely.
Have you notice everytime tomori plays against any English team he always wanna impress and end up loosing all, over confidence is all i see and you’re loosing everything, he needs to stop doing too much i wish i can say it to his face he won’t get a England call up, just focus on your game and stop trying to impress against English teams
There got haaland hehehe
That second goal conceded was all on Tomori and it highlights perfectly why you can’t build the defense around him. Being beaten by your man is one thing but losing your man like that , at that level, is criminal even if it was a friendly.
This happened last season on more then one occasion when he just loses his man.
He can’t lead the line it’s just not in him,that’s why he played well with Kjaer as the Dane’s Defense IQ , anticipation and leadership skills were tremendous so Tomori could follow (even though Kjaer probably couldn’t outrun a twelve year old).
Look, someone who understands the game. Jerry you are 100% correct. Tomori is lost without Kjaer because Simon knew how to play D, Tomori only knows how to run fast. He has zero awareness of what is happening around him, he is always reacting, never anticipating. If Milan gets ANY offer they should sell him as he is their biggest liability at the back and the overwhelming cause of their defensive facilities. The man just has no idea how to play as a center back. Speed, and some technical abilities yes, positioning and spatial awareness no.
If any good offers arrive for tomori and RLC, milan should seriously take it. Tomori ‘s marking and positioning were poor, he was everywhere. RLC was slow to release the ball and was dispossessed for the 2nd goal conceded, and milan played better with Liberali at trequartista later on.
IMO, we should not focus on getting another striker. Either Colombo or Nasti should stay to compete with jovic as morata’s backup.
The young GK Torrianni looks really promising. Calm and great with his feet. I hope and believe the 3rd spot GK should go to a youth GK.
Salad again asking all the questions.
Promising Fonseca build up play. But currently, there’s still too much risk element in it.
Lorenzo Colombo’s playing style remind me of Hernan Crespo. And Marco Nasti’s playing style remind me of Filippo Inzaghi.
– Lorenzo Colombo showed that his shoot is his strong point ” Bold, Dangerous. Hopefully he will add more power to his shoots, so any GK will never catch his dangerous shoots. Just like Hernan Crespo who has very good shoots in his foot.
– Marco Nasti’s strong point is his movements, like he did with his goal, left many defenders standing watch him score a goal. He might be our next Legend no. 9 in the future. But he need maybe 1-2 years on loan to Serie-A team.
Impressed by crossover passing to both Saelemaekers and Chukwueze when City put pressure on Milan there where big free space that they could run into the attack, this is something we didn’t saw under Pioli, I think it will help us alot during this year.
I thought RLC was ineffective, doing more to kill attacks than create opportunities. He had a couple of movements early but that’s it. Convert him to DM and move Pulisic, Adli, Reijnders, or even Bennacer to CAM and we might be better off.
RLC has a glass foot so when converted to a DM, he may buy a bed at the medical center
😂 good point
Liberali, that kid is on my watch list for some time now. What a talent.
Fonseca really appreciates Saele and said to interviewers after the game that he’d like to keep him. Maybe turn Okafor into a full time striker?
See what a full preseason means to a player. I’m refering to Chuk. But they are doing same mistake with crucial new additions we desperately need in Fonseca’s system – a bloody DM. We’ve seen again the woes of our defense so we need one ASAP.
It’s only a preseason and City played with mostly academy players. But the new ideas are seen already and these games give coach a feedback what to work on and which players to keep. I just hope he gets the tool he needs.
Unless Milan buys Füllkrug (and let’s face it, we will not pay the sum Dortmund wants) I’d say keep Colombo. He can score goals even if he’s not a starter level player. That’s OK ‘cos we’ve got Morata & Jovic ahead of him. But it’s a long season and we need options. Colombo is free and has proven he can score goals so why not use him instead of throwing 15-20M€ on a 3rd choice striker when we still haven’t bought the DM.
Also, people say Saelemaekers should stay but he probably wouldn’t settle for being a backup. Well… IF he continues like this he wouldn’t be a backup but he’d fight for the place in the starting 11. And it’s never a good thing if the starting-11 spots are predetermined. That spot needs to be EARNED every week. Competition is good. Saelemaekers would push Chukwu to do better. Just as moving Pulisic to #10 would push RLC to play better too. I could say something about Okafor & Leao too but Foncesa probably doesn’t have the balls to sub Leao even when he’s being “Lazy Leao” with zero interest in playing.
Tomori is in shambles, whats happening to him. Hopefully he gets back just in time before the season starts. Saele should stay.
RLC is not a bad player. He’s just a box to box. That’s it I don’t get this narrative of hating on him for playing out of position. I think it’s clear that after this we need to focus on the game. I also didn’t see all the game so can somebody let me know how Bennacer played defensively. Also, Tomori started slow last season to remember how much he improved later on. I’ve noticed that we have a habit of playing a lot of our backup right backs out of position lol. If we are going to try Puli at Cam we should keep Romero and I don’t know if we should go for lazar unless where moving Bennacer around to as neither want to ride the bench and shouldn’t when we need have bigger problems to fix. Now that we Salad has impressed I’d like to see Okafor as a replacement st. Good game, and everyone jumped the gun on hating on coach.
The your goal keeper has better footwork and composure than Dollarumma. I did not expect him to start, think Nava will be ahead of him in picking order
This game was played at half speed, Colombo and Nasti are not Milan level, they’re barely Serie A level.
But Acmilan should try and sign Lazar sarmadzic for attacking midfield that Guy is Good and Better
First of all the pitch was so poor. If on camera I can see the unevenness and the patchy work done in the field the it must have been like 10 times worse in reality.
Still trying to figure out what we’re playing but the Florenzi role in particular in midfield is quite interesting. His instructions seems to have been to cover the left back when he goes forward (presumably Theo would be making crazy runs). I Liked how Tomori and Gabbia went to him in his injury. That’s called quiet leadership.
In terms of formation I saw 433 in offence and 4231 in defence in the first half and seemingly the reverse in the second. But there still remains the problem of not closing the gap between the backline and the two pivots/midfield. And that’s a major concern. We also seem to be playing a false 9 of sorts as the striker drops quite deep to initiate play.
I’m also seeing how we’re passing out of a press which is quite interesting. We actually have a solution for passing out near the touchline.
Now for the bad. Our build up play is still sooooo slooooowwww. All this talk about dominating and attacking and we were so chicken. Plus we get pressed rather easily.
We should dominate more against a team of kids. The team we put out was a team we could have played in a real match. For City, it’s only Haaland and Grealish. Rest were academy and we couldn’t dominate against them smh 🤦♂️ (and I’m not talking possession). Their kids were on par for 80mins smh 🤷♂️