Mistakes and new methods: Tactical analysis of AC Milan 1-2 Cremonese

AC Milan lost their first game of the season on Saturday, as Cremonese earned a 2-1 victory at San Siro leaving plenty of room for improvement.

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There was a lot of hope ahead of Saturday’s return to Serie A action. However, that also came with the weight of expectation. Milan needed a result, and a strong one at that. One that never arrived.

During the game, they never really looked too dangerous, and failed to take their chance to gain momentum as the second half rolled around. Scoring a late equaliser in the first half was a golden opportunity, but nothing changed.

The Rossoneri conceded their nth cross in who knows how long, and the visitors walked away with three points. Frustrating, but now over and a chance to learn. Rohit Rajeev has some tactical pointers.

Mistakes and methods

The goal Milan conceded was from an individual mistake made by RLC and Pavlovic. Loftus-Cheek even peeked a glance at Baschirotto who was his man, but was caught ball watching just like Pavlovic was doing. When defending in these situations getting in between the ball and the man is important.

Milan used a concept of field tilting. With Cremonese defending in a block Milan would try and pull their opponents to one side and try to play out of it.

Escadinha’s or passing diagonals were formed to play out of the the press by Milan.

I had complained about Milan not stretching the Cremonese block enough and it took Milan 38 minutes to play 5 up front.

One of Milan’s chances came from Gimenez receiving a ball square and laying it off to RLC who shot it wide.

Cremonese were defending with 4 men in the penalty box, which meant there was less space to get a shot away.

Pointers for Allegri

Pulisic’s role is something which baffled me? Playing as the second striker in a two striker formation he barely had any interplay with Gimenez which is usually how a two striker formation works. Close proximity and counter movements were never observed. In this screenshot you can see Gimenez and Pulisic taking positions between CB and WB which is normal for 2 striker formations.

But here you can see Pulisic playing so withdrawn making Fofana taking up striker role. Which makes me question. What is Pulisic’s role? What was he supposed to do?

Obviously the second was a question we all know. Why did Allegri play Ricci in the entire pre season but then bench him the entire game? Another small but significant issue. Saw player get into each others path many times. It means the players are not in synchronisation.

Plenty of learning to do, indeed.