AC Milan have fallen 10 points behind Inter after taking one point from their last two games, and the Scudetto dream is now over.
La Gazzetta dello Sport ask the question: if things end this way, will anyone say that ‘Milan lost the Scudetto’? They will not, because the Rossoneri were not the favourites nor even the second-favourites going into the season, and yet second is where they sit.
Read SempreMilan ad-free and get access to exclusive news. Click here for a free trial!
It is also important to acknowledge that Milan were keeping pace with Inter until a few weeks ago. When the Nerazzurri’s pace could have dropped as European games came back, instead it was Massimiliano Allegri’s side that fell away. But why? The paper outline three reasons.
Inter are too strong
As hinted at above, Milan are not losing the title, rather Inter are romping to it. They are clearly the most complete team in the league. Their only real rival could have been Napoli, but Chivu was able to count on an even stronger squad than last season.
The Nerazzurri, under Simone Inzaghi, had tremendous potential but also obvious limitations. Just consider their attacking line-up: Taremi and Arnautovic were replaced by Bonny and Esposito, effectively two additional starters.
Chivu was better at rotating than Inzaghi, thus allowing the starters to catch their breath and keeping the others on edge. However, it’s also true that, even in midfield, he had a greater number of options at his disposal.
So Allegri’s Milan actually deserve a bit of praise for being able to keep up the fight for so long, especially with such a small squad numerically, having gone into 2025-26 with 19 outfield players.
European (non) factor
Did Milan fail to capitalise on the advantage of not playing in European competitions? The numbers never lie. After 26 games last season Inter had 57 points, just three more than Milan have at present.
Had they maintained the same pace, Milan would now right in the heat of a battle still, instead of 10 points behind. It’s Inter who accelerated, and now stand at 64, not Milan (compared to Napoli last season) who slowed down.
Napoli had 56 points after 26 rounds last season, essentially where Milan are today. That’s why they then had the energy and skill to capitalise on the leaders’ decline. This time, things are very, very different.
Napoli also better equipped
So, was Conte last year better than Allegri this year? No, the conditions have changed completely, and one thing can be said: last year’s Napoli, who started off with a run of form like the Rossoneri this year, were better equipped.
That summer brought Buongiorno, Gilmour, Neres and above all Lukaku. Milan, who also had to contend with Santiago Gimenez’s injury, have played an entire season without a true striker, until Niclas Füllkrug arrived and quickly got injured.
Milan do not have a player capable of winning a match on his own, to score the easy goals. This also explains some of the missteps against the smaller teams, when all it takes is a ball into the middle, knowing there’s someone who can solve the situation individually.
In short, Allegri’s Milan has done very well so far. If they reach the Champions League zone, as they seem on course to do, they will have completed their task, also revitalising some players who seemed to have given everything. Then, next season should bring about a true Scudetto push.
First of all, let’s not lie to ourselves: none of us was talking about winning the scudetto in august, we were just worried about falling outside of a UCL spot yet again. It’s only thanks to a good start and a somewhat inter slow start that we managed to convince ourselves that 2025/26 could be our second star.
With that in mind, there are certainly many aspects that are quite irritating. Yes, inter is having a formidable season and having far more points than last season, but in our case, IMO outside of the games in Olimpico against Roma, in Torino against Juventus and in Bergamo against Atalanta where we were pinned, I can’t really think of a game that we drew or lost that we shouldn’t be able to win. We got 1 point from 2 games against Parma, lost to Cremonese, drew AT HOME to Pisa, Sassuolo, Genoa & Como and drew to Fiorentina. All these teams are far below our standings and the lack of wins can mostly be blamed to a lack of attacking initiative and ability to break a lowblock.
Furthemore it is also frustrating to see repetitive patterns that lead to us conceding goals. From early october we noticed that the team is quite suceptible to concede from set pieces and crosses and this aspect never seemed to have been corrected. We’re also quite poor ourselves when it comes to scoring from set pieces, an element that should be crucial to our style given that we’re not good a building up and have to rely on transitions to score.
The tactics we’re using, combined with the selection of players, while enhacing our ability to defend, seems to mitigate and undermine our attackers.
And finally, let’s also not lie to ourselves, our players are quite average. Attacking wise, our best player Pulišić hasn’t been the same since his injury and always seem to complain about a pain here and there. Leão also seem to have been unable to recover properly and didn’t sprint and dribble this season the way he usually does. That just leaves Modrić, Rabiot and perhaps Jashari if we’re nice, as actually good players.
If I were to guess, I’d say the conversation/strategy this summer with Allegri was basically to get him to bring this team into CL. They knew they weren’t going to invest significantly until after Elliott was out and Stadium got approved, likely after which they would slowly start to add pieces with qualification for CL secured.
So I think they sat down with Max and asked if he could secure CL with a limited roster, which is what he’s doing. There was never any pressure on Allegri to deliver the Scudetto at any point. So of course Max agrees – 5mil a season to corto muso and no pressure for a championship. So Max is definitely over-performing considering where this team was last season.
The real question is, what happens this summer with CL secured and the roster having very obvious gaps…
I mostly agree with this, but I’ll point out Giga94’s comments about the lost points to Parma, Cremonese, Pisa, Sassuolo, Genoa, Como and Fiorentina. Sassuolo and Como are having great seasons, so perhaps there was always a risk there, but the others are somewhat inexplicable. That said, I also agree the goal this season was returning to the CL, and I also agree that this summer, after the exit of Elliott and progress on the stadium, will show us what the ownership have in mind for us. They need to retain what we have, and spend on the spine. We need a good no. 9, another CM in the mold of Rabiot for the other side of the midfield three (Goretzka?), and perhaps another CB, one that can allow us to play with a back four. But I’m beginning to think that we should try out the following combos to see if they work: Pavlovic/De Winter, De Winter/Tomori, or De Winter/Gabbia. We might be better served by getting a LB to replace Estupinan. Then we should find another winger so that we can use 4-3-3.
In:
ST
CM
LB
LW or RW
Out:
Fullkrug (end of loan)
Estupinan
Squad goes from 19 players to 22.
Then there are some possible Milan loanees who could carve out a space, like Comotto, so that the final squad reaches 23-24 players for the upcoming campaign with European competition addes.