There ended up being a lot of deadline day movement involving AC Milan, but none of it concerned Fikayo Tomori nor Strahinja Pavlovic.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport writes, Tomori and Pavlovic seemed to both be on their way out of Milan at various points during the winter mercato. However, they were the architects of their own destiny because they did not give in to the will of others, but obtained what they wanted.
Very simply, both central defenders wished to stay where they were and both ended up starting the derby on Sunday against Inter, with Kyle Walker and Theo Hernandez completing a back four that held up well for the most part.
Tomori had been ‘invited to look around’, especially in the last few days of the window, because Tottenham had offered a figure close to €30m. However, the Englishman feels like with Conceiçao he has regained a leading role, so he closed off to any idea of a sale.
Pavlovic is also experiencing a rebirth at Milanello. The start of his adventure was promising after joining in the summer, then he ended up on the bench and logic led to thinking that the Serbian would say goodbye in January.
As with Tomori, the desire to prove himself worthy of the Rossoneri prevailed. The Serbia international said no to Fenerbahçe and did not even consider Galatasaray despite the big offers that both were willing to put forward.
Tomori and Pavlovic then started together again, with the derby hopefully being the first step towards becoming the established centre-back pairing. Gabbia and Thiaw have been warned.
Competition. Good. Every CB will have to fight for their minutes. Just like it’s supposed to be.
Objectively true, but Pavlovicn and Tomori just don’t convince. Me I see the same headless chicken reckless style about both of them. Let’s see how it shakes out when Thiaw is fully healthy, but we can already see that Conceicao prefers the first two to Gabbia. To date, Conceicao only has 1 clean sheet.
I agree, Tomori is a bit better just because he is fast and can recover his stupid mistakes much easier. Comuzzo looks like a word class potential, hope they get him in the summer.
Tomori is sh*t
He is not reckless
You would call Baresi reckless too if you saw him play because he always charged forward with the ball
You’re just clueless and think that centre backs should just stay at the back and defend
Our defenders were never an issue but for some reason the management decided to meddle there. We had Tomori, Thiaw, Gabbia, Simic, Kalulu, Theo, Jiminez, Calabria, and Bartesaghi. Sending away Kalulu and Simic to get Pavlovic and Royal was a waste of time and money that could have been used to fix the midfield and attack. Looking back, it seems more and more likely to me that neither Pioli nor Fonseca were involved in the transfer markets.
It seems the management has woken up this the past few weeks and tagreted the right areas. Let’s hope they did their homework and signed the right players as well.
This !!
Pavlovic is a solid defender. The lad need time to establish himself in a different country, culture,atmosphere and different style of play.
If they produce the level they did on Sunday they are keepers for sure
This.
Hopefully but that was one game. Hard to expect both to perform like that all the time. Do you remember Adel Taraabt. He was better than Messi those 4 games, and that was it of him.
Now this is something I haven’t seen in a while 😂
Held up well, eh? Was it 3 posts or 4??
If we can’t admit Milan were extremely lucky to come away with a point and not get pumped 3 or 4 – 1, then are we being honest with any assessment of this team at all?
Pavlovic is starting to look really good, like during the derby. He has more upside than Tomori. He needs to stay here.
Tomori played one great game this season so far. ONE. Outside of the Scudetto season he’s been a dud. Let’s not get carried away here.
If someone offers 30mil for him this summer, I’ll drive him to Linate myself. UNLESS, he plays every game like he did against Inter from here on.
Same with Pavlo.
Classic over reaction from everyone both positive and negative. Tomori had a solid game but wasn’t perfect, Pavlo is a very talented tackler and reads runs well but takes a lot of risks both on the ball and in defense. I think if Tomori can find consistency he’s a good one to keep around. Pavlo can be a star but needs to be more cerebral above all else.
With the quality inter has they are going to get shots off. Here’s some stats to provide better context: shots on goal Milan 5 Inter 7, xg Milan 1.29 inter 2.07. There wasn’t much distance between Milan and Inter in spite of Inter controlling possession 62-38, which indicates Milan defended well. Inter score close to 3 goals a game but they only scored 1 and their xg was near a goal below their average goals a game; another indication of a solid defensive performance.
Because Inter hit the post three times those don’t register as shots on goal however those shots were by far their most threatening and reflected in the xg. Sure Milan could have lost 3-1 but at the same time they could have won 1-0 had a bounce gone differently. Xg isn’t a perfect stat but it does a decent job of reflecting the relative danger a team creates and I’d say keeping the difference in xg to less than a goal when you’re offense is as limited as Milan’s is a credit to the defense. Sure there’s room to improve but this was a positive performance and we can acknowledge that.
Complete misread
Tomerdi sucks
Pavlovic is good
Pavlovic should be retained
Tomori should join Calabria on Bologna, but if we can get 30m for him from some EPL side go for it