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Horrible pressing and lack of effort: Tactical analysis of AC Milan 1-3 Liverpool

AC Milan hosted Liverpool at the San Siro for the 2024-25 Champions League opener. Despite taking the lead earlier on, what followed was sheer domination with the Reds probing that the Ropssoneri are still from from the elite clubs. 

Indeed, several things went wrong for Paulo Fonseca’s men and the manager now finds himself in the crosshairs ahead of the derby on Saturday. Below is our tactical analysis of the different playing styles and the issues Milan experienced against Liverpool…

Milan’s first goal

Milan’s first goal came as a result of Liverpool’s high press. With Tsimikas pushing high up it created gaps behind him and this gap was exploited when Mike played a long ball and Calabria’s quick flick-on and Morata’s quick release of the ball meant space opened up for Pulisic.

Liverpool pressing

Liverpool, just like Milan, pressed in a 4-2-4. The pressing trigger was Tomori and whenever the ball was passed to him, Liverpool would swarm him to recover the ball. Gakpo and Salah cut off the passes to the full-backs, while Jota and Szoboszlai pressed the two centre-backs.

Milan’s defensive issues

In turn, Milan’s pressing was horrible. You can see how Van-Dijk slips a ball between Morata and Reijnders so easily.

There is such a wide gap between the two sets of defenders that Alexander-Arnold easily slips a through ball between the defenders.

Lastly, when you play against a top European team like Liverpool, it is essential that you defend well and give them as little space as possible. You can see how Leao does not close Alexander-Arnold down in time and Theo loses Sala. With simple one-touch passes, Salah then almost scores after turning Pavlovic.

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Furthermore, the fact that Calabria was getting beaten easily in 1v1a and foot races vs Gakpo wasn’t helping Milan’s defensive cause.

Static all over

Slot gave Liverpool players the freedom to move around in attack to scatter our markers. However, when Liverpool played their tight marking in defence, no Milan player made an effort to move and collect the ball from the centre-backs.

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Wastefulness

Coaches like Mourinho and Allegri are clearly the opposite of Pep’s idea of possession. They don’t think possession is important but instead, they focus on what you do with it. Decisiveness is important. Here we can see how Pulisic was through on goal and he didn’t get the pass.

In this sequence, Reijnders played beautifully between the lines but wasted the chances even though Leao and Theo were unmarked.

Liverpool’s first goal

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Liverpool’s second goal

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Lack of effort

Lastly, I’m very disappointed that we went down without a fight. You could see how Liverpool were first to both the first and second balls, while Milan weren’t even trying. Salah clearly outmuscled Theo in the clip below and almost slipped Jota on.

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Tags AC Milan Liverpool

29 Comments

  2. There’s only so much you can blame a coach for but looking at the game it is also clear that the Milan players were a disgrace. Lack of effort and no desire yet they are getting paid millions and playing in a top team.

    Only Pulisic, Morata and Abraham showed any desire and effort.

    1. It’s important to hold players accountable BUT When everyone looks this terrible and confused, it’s on the coach. I mean we’re talking basic defending errors, like defending set pieces. Nothing advanced. Fonseca hasn’t even been able to resolve that.

      He is by all accounts a genuinely nice human but just out of his depth here and questions have to be asked of whoever thought this was a good idea.

  3. yeah we need to improve our rb we are conceading to many goals there emerson is pure trash and calabria is better than emershit but still is bad to we need a good rb and ofcourse a better coach back up to theo more cbs a real 6 and a ral 10 over 200 million spend and havent spend on what we need the most back up to theo better rb a 6 and a 10 all of our midfilders are box to box midifelders except bennacer which is injured

  4. So basically, everything Fonseca said in his post interview was all true.

    “Fonseca criticises Milan for being ‘weak defensively’, making ‘wrong decisions’ and not following plan.”

    1. He isn’t wrong but doesn’t mean he needs to say that publicly, it makes it look like he is trying to shift the blame to the players and avoid accountability.
      I wouldn’t care if he beats up Leao or Theo in the locker room, but criticizing your players publicly never brought any good. Sometimes it’s just better to say that nothing worked and that’s it.

    2. Just say that you think Milan players are mentally weak.
      It’s obvious that any kind of negative comment no matter how true affects them in even more negative way.
      I mean Leao aka Twittao, has had more tweets going viral over the last couple of years than goals scored.
      Mentally strong people take criticism as a challenge, as a feedback to improve and play better, but not Milan players. Milan players have to be treated with kid gloves.
      When he deservingly benched Theo and Leao, people said he is throwing then under the bus.
      If he says that players are not following instructions, he is throwing them under the bus.
      Say nothing, do nothing, let them be lazy and pretend like most Milan fans pretend, that their players are the best in the world at their positions, and blame everyone else.
      And people are calling for Milan to hire a top coach. Ha ha 😂.
      What do people think would have happened if Milan hired Conte? He isn’t someone that hold his tongue

      18 March 2023.

      A furious Antonio Conte says his players are “selfish” and Tottenham “can change the manager but the situation cannot change” in a stinging criticism of the club’s culture.

      The Spurs boss said his team “don’t want to help each other” after a 3-3 draw at Southampton on Saturday.

      Most Milan players should thank God Milan didn’t hire Conte, because most of them are not built for a coach like him or for any top coach.

      4. @Z….you say and even most say thank God we didn’t hire Conte but look at Napoli. An inferior team to us but he’s got them playing well.
        We are playing badly and losing games.
        And to Zlatan Ibrahimovic why don’t you shut up and work hard you twit. Stop calling yourself a lion and get this team on track.

      5. You keep brining up Conte, but not every coach (in fact many coaches who are more successfull than Conte) criticizes his players Conte does.
        I’ll say this again: I’m ok with Fonseca if he decides to beat up Leao in the locker room, I was actually ok with him benching Theo and Leao during the Lazio game because I thought they were lazy the previous game.
        You seem to have interpreted my comment as me defending the players, I’m not. In fact, aside from Abraham, I don’t think any player deserves more than 4 or 5 out of 10. But this is a team, and if your team $ucks, you don’t go each time saying to the media “this isn’t my fault, this is the other guy’s fault”. He should have just said that the performance was terrible and then handle the players privately. If he thinks a player should be benched or sanctioned, fine.
        Also you can see during the game that even his tactics, the pattern of pressing, the choice of not being tight or closer to the defense were at fault and not just the players. So should we understand by his comments that his tactics were ok ?

  6. Firstly we don’t have a coach, I have given up on the Leao is world class shit, cashout on the dude and Theo, get hungry guys who are willing to fight.
    Pair up Gabbia with Pavlovic let’s see. People complain about pace, but without proper positioning pace means nothing, check all the goals we have conceded from open play, Tomori is always nowhere to be found.
    RLC is a waste of space and personnel sell him and get Duncan from Venezia to add physicality to the side.
    It’s not suppose to be rocket science but I guess it is for this magement.

  7. A lot of doom and gloom today and fonseca basically already fired reading those articles. End of the day. He still the coach. So much drama for nothing. Generates kliks tho

    1. With all that has been said and done, all the drama around the club, plus those rumors about a beef between him and Zlatan, I don’t see Fonseca being maintained unless we somehow pull a big win against inter on sunday.
      It might be better, it might be worse, but we need to brace ourselves for the new coach.

  8. Firstly we don’t have a coach, I have given up on the Leao is world class sh*t, cashout on the dude and Theo, get hungry guys who are willing to fight.
    Pair up Gabbia with Pavlovic let’s see. People complain about pace, but without proper positioning pace means nothing, check all the goals we have conceded from open play, Tomori is always nowhere to be found.
    RLC is a waste of space and personnel sell him and get Duncan from Venezia to add physicality to the side.
    It’s not suppose to be rocket science but I guess it is for this magement.

    1. Duncan? seriously?

      We need at least 2, maybe even 3 depending if Liberalli can handle being vice-Reijnders.

      You need to replace both RLC and Bennacer (his last injury made me give up on him and Pioli can hopefully bring some Saudi money).

      Frendrup from Genoa was even targeted by Liverpool, great 6 and a good partner for Fofana who is actually n8… we then also should try Ricci even if it costs 30M + 10%, since this kid can play both 6 and as seen at Torino n8 as well… our new Tonali, basically. best part is that his favorite players are actually Sandro himself and Andrea Pirlo…

      if Liberalli fails to be in first team this time around (I have no worries, kid with that gritta and talent will definitely be 1st team player), bad new for Gerry wallet but we’ll need a CAM and their is no better than Lewis Ferguson at Bologna!

      1. The bigger issue is RB… we have 4 players, only good one is injured, 2 are $hit and the final one can’t even play well in friendlies against opposing academy teams

    1. Can’t remember a time in recent history when a crisis ran so deep. And there was a time when Montella was on the bench!

      It feels like a loss in the derby is an eventuality, followed by the sacking of the coach.

      To make things worse, our rivals look like a well oiled machine. I wonder whatever happened to all the financial woes they were supposed to be rocked by thanks to their reckless spending. Right, they are winning.

  10. It’s pretty simple, not rocket science: hire a mediocre, weak, loser, player-blaming guy as a coach, and you predictably get mediocre results and a rebellious / confused locker room. Top this with a child with a God complex undermining the coach, and give that clown actually some power, and you have a full-blown crisis.

    The start of a fix would be to fire both Fonseca and Ibra, and bring in a real sporting director, and an actually competent coach.

    1. 100%
      This management is playing stupid games so expect stupid prizes.
      A deep clean beyond Fonseca is needed, Zlatan is not suitable for a management position. Bring back Maldini, he was able to form a Scudetto team or aim higher which shouldn’t be that hard

    2. Agreed, but Ibrahimovic isn’t the DS. So it’s even worse, because Ibrahimovic is just a lap dog and all he does is bark and create confusion. The DS is Furlani. And Furlani has got to go too, or at the very least be promoted-demoted to handling the stadium. Let him be in charge of that, if Cardinale doesn’t have the balls to fire him. Fire Ibrahimovic, fire Fonseca, fire Geoffrey “GQ” Moncada, hire a real DS (Sogliano, D’Amico, Giuntoli or Prade), a new head scout that will look at Italian players and other leagues besides Ligue 1, and a better coach. Clean sweep.

  11. Most teams with Zonal marking still have man marking with corners & free kicks. You cannot play elite level without a well thought man marking system implemented, regardless of Zone marking or not. A mix of both systems has been around since the 90s.
    Last year, in some segments of Pioli’s set up it looked like amateur hour and this season it’s even worse.
    Ultimately, if the players do not take up their duties to mark their man , with conviction, there is no other way but to drop that player for a player who will be responsible to mark and run for 90 minutes.
    All the Italian teams Atalanta, Bologna, Inter Juve left a good impression of themselves against strong opposition except our team. Their good performance was all based on having a strong compact defensive phase . That is why I favour getting someone known for sound defensive units as coach, a no-nonsense type who would put the team response abilities above all else , barring No one. This is where it has to start from and very few coaches can turn this around.

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