How Lecce’s mid-block was combatted: Tactical analysis of Milan’s win against Lecce

By Rohit Rajeev -

AC Milan returned to winning ways in the league after draws against Empoli and Bologna as they beat Lecce 2-0 at San Siro on Sunday evening.

Milan were made to work hard for the three points against a team who attempted to frustrate, with Rafael Leao getting both goals. His first goal was his second ever header for the club – his other being against Lecce – and then a solo run in the second half sealed the points.

Given Lazio, Juventus and Roma all dropped dropped points while Inter and Atalanta won in their games, it is a much-needed victory that compacts the battle for the top four. Below is an analysis from the game…

Lecce’s approach

Unlike the Bologna game where Stefano Pioli opted to make 11 changes, Milan went with a a pretty strong team given the importance of getting three points against Lecce.

Lecce played a 4-3-3 formation which became a 4-5-1 off the ball. The visitors were happy to Milan have the majority of the ball to try and break their defence and score, as many might have predicted.

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What Lecce did was play as a mid-block, which means all three lines of their team occupied the midfield of the pitch and thus there was minimal space between the lines.

They also played narrow and shifted their block to the area of the wing where Milan had the ball. If the Rossoneri attacked down the left, it meant that the Lecce right-back, right winger and right-sided midfielder all pressed the Milan players to that side.

Then, Hjomlund acted as a net to sweep up any loose balls or to tackle any player that evaded their press.

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Lecce were also so conservative that they did not always follow their man but rather chose to defend their space and only their forward players marked their man.

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Milan’s double pivot and build-up

Since Lecce were happy to concede possession and stay narrow, it meant the onus was on Milan to break them down. Given that it is all a numbers game at that point, the home side wanted maximum players up the pitch.

Seeing that Rafael Leao was being triple teamed from the second minute of the match onwards, Pioli wanted to push up Theo Hernandez and Pierre Kalulu to create some additional width.

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For this he used a 3+1 build-up strategy. Due to the fact that Lecce only pressed high with their striker, one of the double pivot would sit alongside the centre-backs and the other player would sit in front of the three.

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They would rotate based on which side of the wing they wanted to attack. For example, Milan wanted to build from the left Tonali would sit back and Krunic would function as the deep-lying playmaker, but if they wanted to attack from the right the reverse would happen.

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Whenever the defence of Lecce pushed up to suffocate the space, Tonali would ping long balls over the defence for Rebic to chase. This would push back their defence.

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Another tactic Milan used was to push Messias inside and Diaz to the half-space create space for Leao, then Kalulu would occupy the wide areas. Since Lecce did not follow their man to keep their structural integrity, it meant there was space for the wingers.

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Forced into action

With Lecce trailing 1-0 at half-time, they had no other option than to start attacking. Umtiti and Baschirotto would sit back along with the Lecce left-back Gallo while their right-back Gendrey pushed up to join their right winger in attack.

In the event that both full-backs pushed up one of their Mezzali would sit back to keep three at the back ,while Hjomlund acted as the anchor to defend the space between the lines.

This opened up spaces for Milan and we started seeing a lot more counter-attacks. The Rossoneri were able to create more 2v1’s all over the pitch so they also started pressing in the middle of the field, cutting off all possible passing options of the player on the ball.

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With a 2-0 lead, Milan wanted to be safer in their build-up play. With Bennacer on the pitch, Milan went for a 3+2 build up giving a midfield advantage and to prevent shock counters.

With no other options available, the Lecce boss Baroni opted to put on Strefezza who had excellent attacking output, but his man-marking was really poor. This meant that there was more space for Theo.

What really hindered Milan’s ability to make this win more comfortable was the number of individual mistakes committed by players especially in the final third. With more composure and with a killer instinct in front of goal, these games can be put to bed earlier.

Conclusion

Another article will follow this on the errors that were made to ensure this was more of a grind-out victory than it should have been, but at this stage of the season points are the only currency that counts.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to compact the race for the top four was a necessity, and the other big positive is that the rearguard looked solid thus allowing Leao to work his magic at the other end.

 

Tags AC Milan Milan Lecce

5 Comments

  1. Lol Lecce’s “Approach”. They parked the bus hoping for a counter and score. That was their approach plain and simple, and they almost succeeded too….the formation used obviously got them to do that perfectly. It’s the park the bus formation. Soon as we scored they became open and we scored again..after that they admitted defeat and went back to park the bus to stem the bleeding. Lol I see their coach talking about their approach too like they actually had one

  2. First of all Lecce was playing low ball tactic not mid ball for majority of time. The defensive back line was a compact, deep-lying unit that was designed to limit the space available between them and the goal. And because of this milan was finding it hard to penetrate and which have been our issues for majority of time in this season….lecce wide players did pushed up hard when ever given opportunity…..the only way we came back was through leao header….other wise we were out of ideas how to unlock them…..

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