Former Inter goalkeeper Walter Zenga has highlighted two key moments in the defeat against Udinese where AC Milan lost the game.
Zenga was speaking during an interview with Sky Sport Italia (via SempreMilan.it) when he assessed what was an extremely disappointing defeat against the Friulians.
One of the moments that he highlighted was Fikayo Tomori’s slow reading of the play in the run-up to the first goal of the game from Roberto Pereyra. He feels the Englishman should have been much sharper in that moment to prevent the low shot into the corner.
“The first one is of Tomori on the first goal: okay, Bennacer’s ball is wrong, slow and horizontal, but the reading Tomori gives is just slow, he doesn’t read the short ball,” Zenga said.
The other moment that Zenga picked out was Malick Thiaw going to ground too easily ahead of the third goal which killed the game in the second half.
“The second image in my opinion is on the third goal: Thiaw stays on the ground too easily. Those are the two images that reflect Milan’s performance this evening,” he said.
The defeat confirms that Milan have slipped into a poor run of form again after their recent renaissance. The Rossoneri could be out of the top four by the end of the weekend and they have work to do.
Even though Tomori gets the big part of the blame on the 1st goal, that sequence for umpteenth time showed Bennacer inability to pass the ball forward or further than 10 yards.
Bennacer passes are always too short or too far away.
People can come up with useless stats about his passing percentage but majority of those passes are short, lateral or going backwards.
We need a major upgrade in the midfield department. That’s where most of our problems are. Our midfielders are neither good defensively nor are they good in controlling the tempo of the game or connecting our lines.
To be sure, something is missing in midfield. Playmaking should be added to the list. Diaz just doesn’t make the grade on a consistent basis. If we moved away from a formation using a trequartista, such as the 4-3-3, we would only need to find that Anguissa or SMS type box to box midfielder that can defend and pass. Otherwise we’re looking at bringing in two midfielders when we still need to sort striker, RW, and possibly LW if Leao leaves, and possibly CB if this game proves more than just a blip for Thiaw. It’s a lot. And it will be even more difficult it we fail to qualify for the CL.
The only thing keeping us in the top for (for now) is Roma’s incompetence and Juve’s point deduction. I think we will finish 6th when it’s all over. That will be used as further excuse not to spend money, which then will be used to explain another 5-7th place finish next season and so on. So tired of the incompetence of Maldini and Pioli.