AC Milan bounced back from their midweek defeat against Benfica in the right way as they beat Lecce 3-0 at San Siro on Sunday night.
Coming off what was perhaps their worst performance under Ruben Amorim so far, there was a need to put things right especially before the first international break of the campaign, which of course are now three weeks long.
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Thankfully, the team did exactly that as they coasted past a Lecce side that simple didn’t show up. The first goal of the game came in the first half through Christian Pulisic, who brought down a ball over the top from Strahinja Pavlovic with a gorgeous touch and then finished with his next.
Adrien Rabiot got the second after a lovely one-two with Goncalo Ramos, then Diego Moreira came off the bench and got his third of the season and the third goal. It was a relatively stress-free evening in the end, and Rohit Rajeev has the tactical analysis.
Set-ups and shape
Amorim chose to make six changes from the team that lost to Benfica in midweek. Mario Gila, Luka Modric, Adrien Rabiot, Pervis Estupinan, Christian Pulisic and Alexis Saelemaekers all came back into the side, with the American making his first start of the season.
Lecce settled into a 4-4-2 shape and adopted a mid-block. The main objective was to create a central overload, denying Milan the ability to progress through the middle and forcing them to find alternative routes of progression.
In the build-up, Milan would temporarily resemble a back four, with De Winter and Pavlović splitting wide to allow Estupiñán and Gila to push higher up the pitch. The idea was to bait Lecce into pressing high before suddenly increasing the tempo of circulation.
Ramos would then drop into midfield, dragging a defender with him and creating space behind the pressing line for a runner to attack. It was a deliberate attempt to manipulate Lecce’s press and exploit the space it created.
Milan would also create ball-side overloads, deliberately concentrating numbers on one side of the pitch to draw Lecce’s block towards the ball. Once the opposition shifted across, Milan would look to switch play quickly to the opposite flank, exploiting the space created on the far side.
Lecce’s mid-block naturally left space behind their defensive line, and Milan looked to exploit it by going over the top rather than trying to play through the block.
Milan used a long ball to skip the lines of Lecce, targeting the space behind the defence. Pulisic positioned himself intelligently between the full-back and centre-back, giving himself the perfect angle to attack the space.
He then brought the ball down brilliantly with his first touch, setting himself up immediately for the shot.
Amorim’s smart adjustment
As mentioned earlier, Lecce’s mid-block was designed to create central overloads, keeping their defensive structure narrow and denying Milan progression through the middle.
Milan countered this by changing their in-possession structure from a 3-4-2-1 into a 4-2-3-1. This gave Milan two genuine wide players, stretching Lecce’s narrow press horizontally and creating more space for Milan to progress through the centre.
Ramos’ role in the goals
For the second goal, Milan created perfect vertical corridors in a staggered structure, allowing them to execute a proper iteration of positional play. The spacing between the players was excellent, giving Milan multiple options to progress through the lines.
And Ramos’ role in the goal cannot be overstated. His movement was crucial in creating and exploiting the space that ultimately allowed the attack to develop.
For the third goal, Ramos initially wins his aerial duel against his direct opponent from Lecce. This forces another Lecce defender to step across and create a 2v1, eventually allowing them to dispossess Ramos.
But Milan react immediately. Moreira’s instant counter-press wins the ball back, catching Lecce before they can reorganise. That quick regain completely opens up the defensive structure and gives Milan the space to attack.
The data
As mentioned earlier, Lecce’s narrow defensive structure is also reflected in the official Serie A data. Lecce’s average team width was just 39 metres, highlighting how compact and narrow their shape was and why Milan looked to exploit the wide areas.
Milan recorded more accurate passes and successful dribbles than Lecce, highlighting their dominance in both ball circulation and 1v1 situations. It was a clear reflection of Milan’s control over the game.
Say what u want about this guy I’m so happy we got rid of Allegri
Nice piece Rajeev.
I wouldn’t say that Lecce didn’t show up.
They played hard, pressed hard, and were very physical, knocking multiple Milan players, including Pulisic, to the ground.
What they lacked was quality, with poor ball control and poor passing – everytime they got the ball, Milan easily dispossessed them and got the ball back.
The few shots on goal they had also lacked quality, not enough power, or right at Maignan.
Lecce was not sitting back in a low block, they used an aggressive high and mid field press, and in fact dispossessed Modric a couple of times, but, lacking any ball control quality, they quickly lost the ball back to Milan.
Much of the first half was thus a midfield battle, Milan in control but unable to find a way through except for that long through pass from Pavlocic and Pulisic’s brilliant trap and score.
That play worked because Lecce were playing an aggressive high back line.
The second half was more of the same, except twice, Lecce defenders failed to track the runs of Rabiot and Morreira.
So, Lecce isn’t a relegation team like Venezia, and has enough intensity to be a lower half to mid table club
Rabiot goal came from zero resistance from Lecce. For about 20 passes no one was pressing, no one was even close to the ball. I am sorry but it felt like a practice goal.
The only player who wasn’t covered was Rabiot on his run forward.
Pulisic had a guy on him, but got off his pass first touch before his defender could do anything.
Ramos had three defenders around him, who did a terrible job of blocking off the passing lanes to Rabiot.
That’s why it looked so easy – all three were running forward into open spaces, and the Lecce defenders were too slow to close those spaces down.
It was a great offensive combination.
Lecce was tired by this time, and they weren’t reacting as quickly as in the first half, when they pressed a lot harder and closer, and they did manage to dispossess several Milan players with these crunching tackles.
Lecce just couldn’t hold onto the ball as Milan did a great job of immediately counterpressing to get the ball back