Lots of thoughts. Mostly at the end. If your not into brevity skip to the longevity.
Player Ratings
Goal Keeping
MAIGNAN 6 – Not really at fault but also didn’t do anything spectacular to cover himself in glory. Palmed one save that went straight to an attacker instead of across his body and out. Did make some nice long balls to jump start some attacks.
Goal Keeping Overall 6 – At least he didn’t get hurt or red carded.
Defense
HERNANDEZ 5 – I don’t know if he’s moving up on his own or when Pioli asks him to but I hate his game this season. He’s almost never home. When he’s all the way up at RW the whole formation has to sag and compensate for that and it just kills us. This has been a problem going all the way back to the loss away to Liverpool several years ago.
TOMORI 4 FOTM – Let’s play a 3 back with you in the middle. FAIL. Positioning and 1v1 defending on the 2 goals has horrendous. He over committed so hard that one chop back and there was an acre of space to get the shot off. He tried so hard to force them outside he forget how much guys like to cut in these days.
THIAW 5 – How about we play a 3 back with you at RCB? FAIL.
KALULU 5 – How would you like to be on an island against Mbappe? How bout later getting switched to CB in that cauldron? FAIL
Defense Overall 5 – A total fail but this is on Pioli more than the players.
Midfield
REIJNDERS 6 – Played well early but then drowned. Got pushed around and bullied off the ball way to easily. Right now games like this are just a bit above his pay grade. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen it. In time he will be fine. Keep in mind this is just his 11th game with us.
KRUNIC 6 – The king might be dead folks. Or at least being asked to do too much. It is a hard job running around trying to play all 3 CM positions, LB and also help out the CBs. None can be in every place at once.
MUSAH 5.5 – Love his work rate and physicality. He certainly won’t back down from anyone. He’s running himself into the ground trying to be everywhere at once. All the other team has to do is just attack all the space he leaves behind. Has to be more positionally sound otherwise like he’s killing us just like when Theo goes on walk about. Pioli needs to simplify things for him.
Midfield Overall 6 – I’m certainly not faulting the effort or energy. We just have to play smarter and be more responsible. We had zero shape.
Forwards
LEÃO 6 – Hey let’s dump in a cross even though Giroud was holding most of his runs at the top of the box. OR perhaps we will play a cross that sails way over Pulisic’s head or is impossible to handle.
GIROUD 6 – Zero service.
PULISIC 6.5 – Not quite zero service but I’m not sure he got a pass he wanted in the space he wanted more than a handful of times all night. Also had to put up with an idiotic interview with Marco the Clown from paramount after. giving him an extra half point for being put in that position.
Forwards Overall 6 – Our predictability is becoming a problem. We’ve been talking about this for weeks and here we are.
Subs
CALABRIA 6.5 – Him coming on meant a back 4 and settling things down a little bit. Thing is you are putting him out there next to a CB in Kalulu he hadn’t played with all year.
ADLI 7 – He’s more than ready. He needs to be an everyday player now. His strength on the ball and patience is something we really need. His speed is an issue, like on the last goal, but he really shouldn’t be working in those areas anyways.
POBEGA 6 – He played.
KJÆR 6 – He played?
Subs Overall 6 –
Coaching
PIOLI 0 – Got everything wrong. EVERYTHING. Went on the road against a new opponent and pressed instead of sitting and seeing what PSG offered. This was madness. Sit and watch. see what they do. go from there. The press wasn’t the biggest mistake though. As mentioned above in big games he keeps giving Theo the freedom to go wherever. At times he pops up at LW, RW, ST and pretty much anywhere across the midfield. It’s a massive drain on the rest of the team trying to fill that spot. At times Krunic dropped back there but then someone has to fill in at that spot. It just goes on and on. It’s exactly like what we did away to Liverpool way back when and Kessie ended up at LB and bennacer ended up as a one man double pivot. When Krunic didn’t get there it was a 3 back with Tomori and Thiaw both in the wrong spots. Thiaw is a CB whether it’s a back 3 or back 4. He is NOT a LB or LCB in back 3. pioli ‘fixed’ that by bringing on Calabria. A good defender that would balance out a back 4. BUT he takes off Thiaw so now we have Kalulu at CB which makes no sense. Who here is starting Kalulu at CB over Thiaw? No one? That’s what I thought.
Final Thoughts
For 10 games Pioli got almost everything right bar the Inter game. sure we didn’t score in the first 2 CL games but we had a ton of chances AND didn’t concede. Those games were draws because of he set them up. They weren’t wins because players didn’t finish. The first few games of the year we started the same group we started all summer. We looked great. Then came injuries (RLC, Maignan, Chuk) and cards (Thiaw, Tomori, Maignan) so now we are seeing the result of turning over half the starters and most of the bench. The midfield especially has struggled. I told you this was coming though so don’t be surprised. Teams in general and especially midfields are not rebuilt overnight. The great start was not a mirage. The foundation was set in the summer but now the real work really begins.
The rest of the group games are now all must win games. That’s a lot of pressure but we were left for dead at this point last year and made the semis.
For now it’s on to Napoli.
Forza Milan
Lisi
