Udinese coach Andrea Sottil has explained how he asked his side to exploit the space that AC Milan left during their 3-1 victory last night.
Milan’s regression back to poor form in 2023 continued as they were beaten 3-1 by Udinese on Saturday night. Roberto Pereyra was the man who opened the scoring for the home side before Zlatan Ibrahimovic drew Milan level with a retaken penalty.
However, Milan were not able to hold on to parity until half-time as goals from Beto just before the break and Kingsley Ehizibue in the second half meant the Friulians took all three points.
Sottil spoke to the reporters who gathered in the media room at the Dacia Arena to reflect on what was a very impressive performance from his side and an even better result, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.
“I’ve always said that this team has always performed well, a team that worked seriously, that follows me step by step and has never stopped believing in their potential, I was convinced that they would be protagonists of the season again and they are,” he said.
“But now they have to keep their feet on the ground, they were good, but you have to give the right dimensions to their path. The team is having an extraordinary season, we are seventh on 38 points together with Juventus, but what I liked most is seeing a cheeky team again, I’m really proud of these guys. We are enjoying this victory and now we look at the table, now it counts. Eleven games to go and I can say that we are here too.
“To put a man-to-man team in difficulty, they leave holes that we had to be good at finding. Placing two inverted midfielders served to find these holes, with the wing-backs arriving and the two forwards they kept the central defenders busy. I
“t’s clear that the signal is to put this formation in but we play football, otherwise throwing the ball forward wouldn’t have worked. However, Milan up front are a battleship, we had to be careful and we did it, I’m happy.”
So even Sottil understands the game better than Pioli and finds weaknesses of their opponents and exploits them. Pioli just picks a formation (and starting 11) and sticks to it no matter what.