Away at Fiorentina always worries me and while Milan didn’t stink up the joint, they surely did their part to not walk away with any points. This game had it all: unfortunate clearances in the box that resulted in penalty kicks, wonder goals, lapses in concentration, unlucky bounces, the Milan ex-player curse rearing it’s ugly head, and multiple penalty kicks getting saved.
I’ve seen a lot of people taking their reasoning and rationale for what happened to every possible corner and explanation. Most of the explanations I’ve read are overblown and want to attribute things to X or Y but don’t really work. It doesn’t mean things are peachy but the sky isn’t falling either. With that in mind, here are a few of my observations…
Fonseca needs to apparently make his preferences known to the team about, well, everything. Fonseca was quoted as saying after the match that Pulisic is the designated penalty kick taker and he’s unsure why he didn’t end up taking any. Happens once…sure. But twice? Doesn’t really matter why his instructions weren’t carried out in this case. Unacceptable at a very basic coaching level.
Management has, to put it mildly, completely screwed up with Royal/Kalulu. Don’t get me wrong, Royal is better than Calabria and I’ll gladly take Royal over him any day. But it’s becoming more and more clear Royal is a step down from Kalulu (maybe even 2 or 3 steps down) and paying for him with what they’re going to get for Kalulu is a catastrophe of management. Royal has failed to provide any width and/or threat from the right and combined with Pulisic being given more leeway to roam more centrally, that means that anything coming from the right has to come from him and it’s just not. Dude must have attempted about 6-7 crosses in this game and only 1…1 was worth a shit.
Finally, while not playing poorly per se, this 4-4-2 is indeed limiting Leão’s effectiveness. Most of his success since Fonseca moved to this formation has come from counters, and while he’s always excelled at that it’s kind of all he’s contributing now. I’m not saying Milan should or shouldn’t have made the formation switch, it’s more about what I always say regarding things like this: every formation, squad selection, tactical decision has it’s pros/cons, it’s about understanding that tradeoff. A 4-4-2 that gets the most out of Leão will be the best 4-4-2 for Milan. Fonseca’s got two weeks to figure out something…
What Happened in Serie A
Napoli at the top of the table, continuing with their solid form but have only really had one quality opponent, which was draw vs Juventus (they’ve played Bologna too but Bologna is a shell of what they were last season). I’ll be convinced of them depending on how they come out of an upcoming stretch of games vs Milan, Atalanta, Inter, Roma, and even Lazio – all traditional top 7 performers. Serie A is close this season so that stretch for them will be huge.
The next six teams are separated by 3 points (2-5 points back of Napoli) with Inter winning 3-2 over Torino, Juventus drawing 1-1 with Cagliari, Lazio beating Empoli 2-1, Udinese over Lecce 1-0, Milan losing 1-2 at Fiorentina, and the before mentioned Torino loss at Inter.
Atalanta is just one point behind Milan and Torino and they won 5-1 over Genoa. They have scored 9 goals in wins over Lecce and Genoa, but have 7 goals scored in the other 5 Serie A games, going 1-1-3 in those. Very feast or famine. Roma drew away at Monza 1-1, with Juric earning 7 points in 3 Serie A games at the helm. Not bad. Finally, of the bottom 8 teams heading into round 7, all but one (Hellas Verona) lost or drew so not a lot of movement there.
Now, ratings…
Player Ratings
Goal Keeping
MAIGNAN 6 – Great on the save but I thought had an off night on everything else. Strangely all the plays I thought he butchered didn’t end up costing Milan (Fiorentina’s penalty partially resulted from a bad punch out). Didn’t have a chance on the first Fiorentina goal and maybe could’ve done something on Gudmundsson’s goal had he been leaning near post (only cheating that way would’ve given him a chance considering the pace of the shot)
Goal Keeping Overall 6
Defense
ROYAL 5.5 – Was mostly serviceable on defense, but is providing nothing getting forward. He needs to hug that touchline
GABBIA 7 – Solid if unspectacular. Best defender out there on the day
TOMORI 6 – Was ok most of the day but mistimed a jump that took a fortuitous bounce and Fiorentina capitalized. That sucks but do me a favor: count the number of times players mistime a jump in any given game. Gotta be at least a dozen times or more. It happens. Sometimes the bounce doesn’t go your way. That’s why just booting 50/50 balls is a thing
HERNÁNDEZ 4 – He gets the 7 for that gem of a cross to find Pulisic. But then gets half of that for the rest of the game. Had a couple of defensive miscues and didn’t stay with Gudmundsson on the game winner. Then of course the missed penalty…and then the straight red after the final whistle. Worst game for Milan in quite some time
Defense Overall 5.5
Midfield
PULISIC 8 – Best player on the team right now and has been all season. Elite quality goal
REIJNDERS 5.5– I disagreed with Lisi’s rating on him vs Leverkusen, as I thought he completely whiffed on the game’s two best chances for Milan, which in the end proved VERY costly. While he didn’t quite do that here, and he did make a nice run to get clipped from the back and earn a penalty, he has been very wasteful. Just sloppy. Bad touches, bad chips, bad balls to the back post. Just…bad
FOFANA 6.5 – Solid if unspectacular
LEÃO 6.5 – I thought he played ok but is getting crowded out when Milan is building in the final third. This has been talked about here for quite some time…and it’s still a problem
Midfield Overall 6.8
Forwards
MORATA 6.5 – Giving him maybe a higher rating than some but it’s because he worked his ass off all game. Needs to score more but that will come
ABRAHAM 6 – Probably his least effective performance as Fiorentina really packed it in and crowded him out. Then, like Theo, had a poor penalty kick as De Gea was leaning the correct way quite a bit before Abraham struck the ball…also the same as with Theo’s
Forwards Overall 6.3
Subs
OKAFOR 6 – Had a few decent moments and almost helped create a goal with some nifty endline moves
CHUKWUEZE 5 – I wasn’t going to grade him because he came in pretty late, and I actually liked a couple of his runs and had a really good cross into the box in the dying minutes. But man…that cut in on his stronger foot…teed up…and it almost hit the left corner flag. Yikes!
Subs Overall 5.5
Coaching
FONSECA 6 – Not a terrible performance from a tactics perspective. Milan scored one and missed two penalty kicks, I’d say that’s not on him…kinda (I alluded to his lack of coaching on ensuring the designated penalty kicker actually takes the penalty). But what is on him is that he needs to figure out how to get Leão in more positions where he can use his strengths. That’s not happening enough and until that happens on the regular, Milan is going to yo-yo between good and bad performances.
The other thing is he’s not using his bench enough, as most games he’s using between 2-4 substitutions…and then he’s not always taking off the correct guy, which isn’t helping either. Often, to my chagrin, RLC stays on when he shouldn’t, but these last two games it’s been Reijnders. Get Musah in there more. Then, he’s pulling out Leão or Pulisic when they’ve been the most dangerous players on the pitch for Milan, especially Pulisic. I also wouldn’t mind seeing Pavlovic again. That giveaway against Liverpool was bad but it wasn’t never see him again bad. Play him
Final Thoughts
Everyone is searching for answers but it’s mostly the same things at issue and even then, they aren’t always what’s causing Milan to suffer. That definitely was the case for this game as it took a wonder strike from Adli and a lucky bounce to land at Gudmundsson’s feet (and poor Milan penalty kick execution).
Milan has been pretty good the last 4 games in the league, and even vs Leverkusen, but sometimes you’re unlucky (like today) and Serie A so far has a lot of top teams dropping points where they historically haven’t. Stay focused after this international break and before the next one in late November, Milan will be right there.
Forza Milan
gillis
