There was not much praise to dish around after AC Milan’s 1-0 defeat against Roma last night in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final clash.
Milan have given themselves it all to do in the return fixture as they lost the first leg against Roma at San Siro on Thursday night. Gianluca Mancini got the only goal of the game in the first half, though Milan missed chances and had big calls go against them.
This morning’s edition of Tuttosport (via SempreMilan.it) has their ratings from the game, starting with Mike Maignan who got a 6.5 out of 10 for making an excellent save to deny El Shaarawy and being let down by his defence for the goal.
Davide Calabria got a 6 as he pushed forward a lot but left a bit to be desired defensively. Matteo Gabbia was given a 6.5 for dealing with Lukaku well, while Malick Thiaw received a 6.
Theo Hernandez disappointed with a score of 5, with the paper adding that the fear of giving space on the counter to El Shaarawy slowed him down. Ismael Bennacer got the same after struggling to keep up with the Giallorossi’s movement of the ball.
Tijjani Reijnders played more as a mezzala than an attacking midfielder and shot plenty from distance without causing much danger, so he got a 6, then Christian Pulisic was awarded a 5 after failing to really get into the game.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek 4.5 was beaten by a block and lost Mancini during the corner that made it 0-1 and was imprecise with the ball at his feet, so he scored 4.5, while Rafael Leao (4) was ‘the great absentee’ as Celik managed to stem him.
Olivier Giroud was given the same as Leao after hitting the bar late on in the second half with a shot he really should have buried, being ‘barely noticeable’ aside from that. Stefano Pioli (5) saw his side take a step back compared to the last month and a half.
The substitutes were assessed as follows: Yacine Adli 6.5, Samuel Chukwueze 6.5, Noah Okafor 5.5.
