AC Milan fell to a 2-1 defeat to Atalanta on Friday night, and the result has all but kicked the Rossoneri out of the Scudetto fight, and made Champions League qualification very difficult.
Paulo Fonseca named quite a standard XI to face the Serie A high-flyers, but with the inclusion of Yunus Musah, as we have seen against the opposition of a ‘higher’ level, given he allows the system to be more fluid.
Despite taking a controversial lead through Charles De Ketelaere, Alvaro Morata levelled the scoring in the first half, and Milan certainly had given some reasons to believe in the squad going into the second half.
Unfortunately, this did not continue into the second 45 with the Rossoneri seemingly holding out for a draw, and this was eventually punished by Ademola Lookman in the dying embers of the game. Poor management and a frustrating result which the media have hounded the squad for.
As always, Rohit Rajeev has provided a tactical analysis of the game, and what issues have come to light about the game.
Tactical fluidity
Milan gave themselves a ‘spare man’ with Mike Maignan pushing up and having Theo Hernandez invert which created the spare man in the centre.
Atalanta then went to man-to-man-marking like their usual self but with positional rotations and – with Maignan pushing up – it created an advantage for Milan.
The temporary five-back was created when Yunus Musah sat back as a RWB to assist Emerson Royal from getting outnumbered by Kolasinac and Lookman.
Before Milan’s goal, they created a 3v2 situation in midfield with Pulisic dropping in and sucking Atalanta’s press towards the right side and switching the ball to the left, allowing Leao to make a run and beat Bellanova in 1v1.
Persistent problems when shooting
As seen below, Milan (in a good position) fail to make the most of a rare chance, despite having a successful chance similar to this in the game – the Morata goal.
— Rohit Rajeev (follow @keralista) (@keralista_v2) December 8, 2024
According to the stats provided by Fbref via Opta, Milan’s G-xG is negative which means Milan arent finishing even the simple chances properly. If you look at Atalanta, their G-xG is +9 while Inter is +6.5 which means they are converting even their hardest chances.
Using G-xG we also take a look at how our forwards are faring this season, according to stats from Opta via Fbref and here they are.
Taking a look at our forwards we can see some very poor numbers. Abraham has the worst of them all with close to 2.4 goals behind xG. Rafael Leao shows why he has had a poor start to the season with -1.4xG.
Pulisic has a G-xG of +2.4 but that’s mostly due to the Olympic goal he scored. Morata maintains good numbers but as a starting No.9, he needs to record better xG, essentially he needs to get into better shooting positions.
This is all whilst recording the third most shots in the division, as provided by Fbref once again.
Set piece errors
The first goal of the evening, though controversial, comes from the Rossoneri’s failure to aptly mark the Atalanta attackers, and as seen below, there is a failure to detect the advantage created.
— Rohit Rajeev (follow @keralista) (@keralista_v2) December 8, 2024
Then, the second goal of the evening comes again at the fault of Milan not paying attention. As can be seen in the clip, a decoy run is not watched and when the ball reaches the back post, Emerson Royal is caught ball-watching, resulting in La Dea’s winner.
— Rohit Rajeev (follow @keralista) (@keralista_v2) December 8, 2024
Without Puli’s great effort which disorganizes the opponent’s defense, and without his creativity, Milan couldn’t do anything against an otherwise paler-than-usual Atalanta.
The fact that clearly the head coach was content with a draw is an utter disgrace. It shows his mid-table mentality. With our points deficit, both the Juve game and the Atalanta game were must-wins, and in both, Fonseca appeared content with a draw (which in the case of the Atalanta game, predictably turned into a loss; the Juve game didn’t turn into a loss exclusively because Juve was handicapped, missing several players and unable to even field a striker).
On another topic, it is sad, but we do need to realize that a player we all love(d) so much, Theo Hernandez, currently (I mean, I respect his great past, but currently) is one of the worst players in our roster, together with Emerson, RLC, and Terracciano. It is unlikely that Theo unlearned how to play football, so it’s got to be something in his head; either lack of motivation, or conflict with the head coach, or feeling unappreciated by the management, or missing the guy who hired him and mentored him (Paolo Maldini); whatever it is, it’s bad and it isn’t getting any better. This is by far Theo’s worst season.
So 3 of the worst players in our roster are FBs….and you don’t think the issue is tactical?
Maybe focus less on players and more on the fact that we have an mid-table coach.
I thought he did focus on the coach. Trying to interpret what is coming out of him via the players.
Yes and no.
Emerson is bad. Maybe a great coach can turn him into a decent player but the fact is he should never have been brought. With Tottenham he wasn’t a regular and only scored a goal in the entire season.
Terracciano was never convincing even under the “beloved” Pioli.
So in our current roster, only Theo was at some point in his career a world class left-back, all the others were decent at best at some point, but the most part below average.
The yes part is that Fonseca is a mid-table coach with a mid-table mentality and mid-table tactics and should have never been hired.
433. Mike
Calabria – Gabbia – Thiaw – Theo
Musah – Fofana – Reijnders
Pulisic – Morata – Leao
That’s the only way forward but Fonseca for some reason beyond me won’t use a 433.
Or play 442 , we have players on this formation.. but I too late for CL anyway
Sure let’s play musah. If we want to finish below the top 10 this season…
Is it time to Fonseca Out?
That time was 3 weeks ago, but no.. we need wait another 3 weeks when top 4 will be 13 points further… maybe then they start thinking about sack him
Personally, and I’m being nice, if we draw or lose another game between now and the end of the year, he should be relieved of his duties.
I hope for this , it’s hard to believe we had a chance for CL in next year, but with better experienced coach we can build tacticly massive team , our players are good but the problem is no respect and chemistry between them and coach…
That G v xG stat is quite telling.
As good as Pulisic has been, he’s missed a lot of opportunities to give his team mates and easy tap in. Takes on a very difficult shot and is often not successful.
The first half was a good contest.
On paper I really don’t think there is much between the quality of these two squads.
I’d argue that our best players are better but their depth is much better. And they are well drilled after many years an excellent coaching structure.
With hindsight at the point Pulisic was injured we should have moved Morata to the CAM and brought on Abraham.
We used our ONLY midfield sub at 38th minute.
In the second half though Milan were very poor.
Also if we must do the Musah psuedo WB / back 5. Why are we not then playing an actual extra CB like Pavlovic or Tomori. Pav typically plays as a LCB for his country and would help cover Theo when he goes forward.
Sadly Kalulu would also be perfect to slot into the RCB roll that Emerson appears to be playing. That is his best position according to Pioli.
The difference between the two squads is the coach. I’ve seen a few Atalanta games this season..what I’m seeing different compared to o other seasons is their patience level. They don’t panic at all even in the latter stages of a match. They’ll wait for you when you’re tired or reduce concentration levels to strike in attack.
The experiment failed. There’s no point in whining and considering what ifs, the management needs to focus on salvaging as much as possible from this season. And preparing for a relaunch next season with a proper coach (who knows, maybe Ancelotti would be free)