AC Milan have been very strong in the defensive phase as of late, keeping five clean sheets since the last restart despite a very packed schedule. The derby, in that sense, is long forgotten.
The 5-1 loss against Inter was perhaps the wake-up call needed, or it was just a matter of personnel. In any case, Milan have certainly bounced back and the defending is now their biggest strength, just like in the Scudetto season.
As highlighted by Tuttosporty (via MilanNews), Milan have kept five out of seven possible clean sheets since the last restart (beginning of September). The goals conceded came against Inter, of course, and then also against Cagliari.
That’s better than any of the other leaders in Europe’s top five leagues: Real Madrid, Tottenham, Bayer Leverkusen and Monaco. In short, Stefano Pioli can be very happy with how his defenders have responded.
It’s not like there haven’t been absences either, as almost the defenders have been replaced at least once. The most credit goes to Fikayo Tomori, as the newspaper concludes, who has regained the form he had in the 2021-22 season.
Part of this has to do with Tomori being in top form and the others also playing well, but the other part is the switch to 4-3-3. We have an extra body deeper in midfield and I think this extra cover has made our defense stronger. People complain about Calabria, or how we need to revert to 4-2-3-1. Crazy. Defense wins championships. As to scoring, Pioli just needs to work on attacking schemes/movement. Scoring was a problem even with 4-2-3-1 against teams in a low block. We’ll see if he can figure this out finally. Defensively we have nothing to complain about, except for Inter, a club that Pioli needs to figure out how to contain.
You missed one thing. Our attacking force is also part of it. Any team that attacks very well often have less problem in defence. Take Barcelona in the era of Ronaldhino, Messi and Eto as strikers and Xavi with Iniesta hanchoring the midfied as example. They didn’t have great defence but their attacking force makes the opponent to sit back hence, reduce the pressure off the defenders.
Although our attacking is not yet to the full ability which I believe they are capable of.
Yeah i remember trio barcelona forwards ruled that season, just before real madrid with CR7, Benzema, Di Maria, Gareth Bale.
I don’t think you’re wrong, but clubs that play this way have world class attacking players, and most importantly a world class coach (such as Guardiola). You can’t compare the Barcelona of 2008-2012 to us, or to most other teams in any era for that matter. To begin with, they had the the best player of all time. Even if our attack is at their “full ability” it won’t compare to Barcelona 2008-12.
I’ve always said – our chances of winning the Scudetto rest with Tomori’s form, which so far this season looks fantastic. Fingers crossed we keep this up all season.
We got back to about par Scudetto form by going beserk in defence once more. I hope we keep this up 😁