Matchday 25: Milan v Hellas Verona

Am I losing my mind because I feel like many of you have short term or long term memory loss. I’ve seen numerous people here and on social media say Milan lost the midfield in the Feyenoord game and to immediately insist we need to play Musah (at RW or in the double-pivot), play even Jimenez at RW, and/or to put Reijnders back as the CAM. I went back and reviewed some post-matches, stat lines, player ratings, game momentum tracking and guess what? Not a lot of clean sheets. Not a plethora of goals. Not a lot of offensive domination. My more subjective recollection was lots of frustration that Milan couldn’t dominate and put away teams. This is what a lot of you are saying we should go back to?

The problem with what we had before all the transfer moves was two-fold: lack of offensive technical ability and depth. The latter helps with being able to withstand a grueling schedule and injuries and it can help the former but only if you play them with the few offensively talented players we had. What many of you are proposing is trading off the option to play these more skilled players together for going back to what we had before they arrived. Again, do you not remember the issues the squad had?

None of this means we shouldn’t go more midfield/midfielder-skill heavy in the proper circumstances. Sometimes that’s the smarter way to go. Ultimately this is all about tradeoffs. Yes, the aggressive offensive lineup lacks midfield strength in the traditional sense – ball winners, box-to-box, DMs – but he has more quality to both breakthrough a more defensive side and those offensive teeth will also restrain the opponent more as well, making them less likely to be adventurous and decreases the need for more of those midfielder characteristics. Easier to defend when the opponent is only willing to let 2 players attack on the counter rather than 3, 4, or 5. Again, tradeoffs.

Fofana and Reijnders in the double-pivot is enough defensively especially with the RB less of a liability. How these two work together with all the new talent needs to be worked out. Same with the attackers. Giménez may need to do more traditional #9 work in the box to create room than he did with Feyenoord. Felix, Pulisic, and even Reijnders will need to make more runs, both through open lanes but also diagonally to drag bodies and create opening for others. Leão, same song and dance: stay wide and limit those inward runs until the opponent is grossly overplaying you wide, then break them with that inside move/run. And for god’s sake, everyone needs to cross more.

Too many times I see and read people wanting to burn things down when something doesn’t work rather than figuring out better tactics to deal with the situation. Milan could’ve achieved everything they need to this season before the winter acquisitions. The margin for error was far smaller but it was doable because we just saw Pioli do it for 4 straight years. Now we have more talent, albeit tougher overall circumstances with 2 new coaches now in just over 6 months and trying to learn the philosophy of the new coach while playing every 3-4 days. Just like moving away from Fonseca, where Conceição had to adjust the tactics and correct what Fonseca had done, Milan need to get the tactics figured out with all the new players. This is where playing every 3-4 days is most harmful. Game time can get it done too but with higher stakes.

I’m inclined to go with ultra attacking sides vs smaller teams for sure, even vs better competition. Ultimately Conceição needs to determine does he try to maximize what Milan does best (and figure this out with all the new pieces) or hedge and try to take away what the opponent does best. These are always parts of the decision-making process.