AC Milan were eliminated from the Europa League on Thursday night against an AS Roma side, who spent most of the game at a player disadvantage. Today, Tuttosport have given their ratings of the performances of the players.
Milan had a hill to climb on Thursday evening, and it was, of course, going to be a challenge, especially at the Stadio Olimpico, but the hill’s gradient rose after two first-half goals. Whilst a red card was shown to the hosts, and the Rossoneri pulled a goal back at the start of the second half, they failed to make the most of their opportunity, which means several enquiries will occur in the next few days.
Following the game, Tuttosport (via PianetaMilan) published their ratings of the Diavolo’s performance and started with Stefano Pioli, who, unsurprisingly, was given a rating of 4.5 for several reasons, mainly for his poor execution of the game plan.
Regarding the players, the ratings were not nicer, with the only two players earning a ‘slightly above average’ score being Yunus Musah and Mike Maignan, who earned sixes.
Rafael Leao, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Theo Hernandez, Fikayo Tomori and Tijjani Reijnders – who was brought on for Davide Calabria – were given a score of 5.5 each, all failing to create much of an impact in the game.
His goal was insufficient to recover his earlier mistakes, so Matteo Gabbia was rated 5, alongside Davide Calabria, Luka Jovic, Christian Pulisic, and Olivier Giroud, who all added little to nothing to the game.
The worst performance of the game, though, was given to Ismael Bennacer, who the paper says failed to recover from a poor first leg and fell asleep when the Diavolo conceded the first of the evening – he was hooked shortly after the Giallorossi’s red card, earning a score of 4.5.
A horrid evening where none of the stars shone and mistakes were pounced upon, which may have put the writing on the wall for the Rossoneri’s head coach.