Sergio Conceicao has now been at AC Milan a fortnight, and though he already has a trophy to his name he is learning more about the issues to tackle too.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) recall this morning, Conceicao did not hold back after the full-time whistle following the 1-1 draw with Cagliari on Saturday night, declaring it ‘the worst first half since I’ve been coaching’.
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It was a sudden, unexpected stop after the excitement generated by the Supecoppa Italiana triumph in Saudi Arabia. Davide Calabria and Theo Hernandez paraded the trophy at San Siro before kick-off, but then the team showed the chronic inconsistency has not been cured yet.
Mentality issues
The question comes naturally: how can Milan beat Juve and Inter by coming from behind, yet struggle to break the deadlock against Cagliari and then concede an equaliser minutes after finally taking the lead?
Conceiçao is looking for the answer and, rather than a technical-tactical analysis, the path to investigate is the mental one. The coach didn’t like the approach of the first 45 minutes, although when he talks about ‘the worst first half of my career’ he obviously means in relation to the high quality of his team.
He thought that, in the wake of the Supercoppa, the match would be attacked with a fierce attitude. Instead, Milan’s first half was anything but that as they toiled away trying to get through a low block, as the xG (Expected Goals, measuring quality of chances) of 0.36 shows.
Conceiçao knew that Cagliari would be a tough obstacle in terms of their ability to defend with two deep lines and counter well. He had notified his squad and his staff practically from day one of his return to Italy from Arabia about the task at hand.
Instead, especially in the first half of the game, the Sardinians contained the Diavolo’s attacks without too much trouble, even getting forward a couple of times to cause panic, drawing a save from Mike Maignan and a heroic last-ditch tackle by Davide Calabria.
Evidence
The approach is not all that concerns Conceicao, however. The Portuguese coach doesn’t understand why his team didn’t execute the game plan meticulously prepared during the week to the letter.
In the training sessions at Milanello, the team had in fact given very positive signals on how to attack a low block, attack the second balls and bring pressure to prevent counter-attacks.
Yet, once they took to the pitch at San Siro, many starters lacked the practicality of what had been successfully prepared in training, continuing a theme that stretches back.
It is a note that the Portuguese wants to investigate thoroughly, because from here on out – starting with tomorrow’s game in Como – Milan can no longer make mistakes, otherwise it will be goodbye Champions League hopes.
he’s on our side… finally, someone who feels our everyday confusion with us!
I think Conceicao with proper backing can be our salvation and ticket to former glory! he needs forwards, a midfielder and a RB!
Milan is a team that is poorly built and poorly managed by incompetent leadership. We will end up like Manchester United if we don’t replace the incompetent people in management such as Furlani, Ibra and Moncada.
For me that’s the real problem and if they acting on Cardinale orders then Milan will not change until they sell the club.
For years we have been overworking players like Theo who had no suitable backup and now Reinjders and Fofana are being overused.
They are also buying the wrong players. Signing of Jovic, Morata and Abraham was a big mistake and it’s not the type of striker the team needed.
To add to your points (I agree with all of them BTW) we do seem to have a problem of players habit.
To paraphrase a bit what Conceição said, it seems that against teams who park the bus, the only player who moves and tries to make something is the ball holder. All the other essentially stay still and don’t move until they receive the ball. In modern football, or any football, this is a big no-no, it shows that we don’t know how to play as a team, that there might be some individual intelligence from some players, but no collective intelligence. In football you must always be aware of your surrounding and move in ways to open up space for the ball holder, give him options, free spaces for you teammates while keeping on mind a possible ball loss.
A good reference might be Bayer Leverkusen. When we played against them we parked the bus for an hour. They were only able to score one goal but made several quality occasions that could have been converted and you can see how their collective movement pried open our defenses. Granted, their system and quality of players is completely different from ours.
“it seems that against teams who park the bus, the only player who moves and tries to make something is the ball holder. ”
This! Exactly the problem that we’ve seen for 2-3 years now. Ever since the scudetto season this has been our kryptonite.
Agree fully that this is a manegement problem and also too much interference in selection if wjinstays and who goes.Managent look at the best negotiation financially but this does not help strengthening the team but rather weakening the team.They sell high priced players and buy mesium to low priced players reailting in our dutimg oir strength each transfer season
Agree fully that this is a management problem and also too much interference in selection if who stays and who goes.Management look at the best negotiation financially but this does not help strengthening the team but rather weakening the team.They sell high priced players and buy medium to low priced players resulting in our diluting our strength each transfer season
There is clear distinction in the table between top 3 and 4-8th. We are standing at 8th position but if we look at the missing matches, there’s:
Milan – Bologna
Inter – Fiorentina
Inter – Bologna
Juventus – Atalanta
Many points to win/lose for all teams within our small group of 5. And we have 18 more games afterwards, so plenty of room for growth on the field and in the table.
How do you think we feel Sergio….we’ve been treated to this tripe and monotony all season…
The man will need time to get this team up to speed. A lot of confusion and laziness post Pioli/Fonseca. But it’s up to the players now – can’t hide behind Fonseca’s shortcomings anymore.
We did enough to beat Cagliari and we were dominant there was just no confidence in finishing, Morata and Abraham especially. Silly errors, one from Mike and a lapse by Fofana and we throw away two points
I Don’t envy Conceicao
Play local players,
Prefer
Chiesa over Rashford
Calabria over Royal
Gabbia over Tomori
Liberali over Musah( play Reij in place of Musah and Liberali as AM)
We can have that conversation when the local players qualify for a wc
Ha ha… it’s other way around, let clubs play homegrown/italians u ll see the changes.
Musah is Italian but apparently just lacks faith in the farce that is the azzurri
LOL! Musah lived in Italy only until age 9 then moved to London and played for Arsenal academy and England national team until he saw he would never get a call up so he switched up to the US for playing time.
He was only recruited by England and the US but they call up very few 17-18 year olds to the first team in England (same can be said for arsenal) hence la liga and committing to the US