After the disappointing…although not exactly heartbreaking…exit from the Coppa Italia, Milan look to get back on track in league play as they travel to Torino. A place that hasn’t been kind to Milan in the recent past. Can Milan find a way to take home all 3 points?
MATCHDAY:
LAST FIVE
TORINO: DDDLL
MILAN: WDWWL
FORMATIONS
TORINO (3-5-2): Israel; Tamèze, Maripan, Coco; Pedersen, Anjorin, Asllani, Vlasic (C), Lazaro; Zapata, Adams
MILAN (3-5-2): Maignan (C); Tomori, Gabbia, Pavlović; Saelemaekers, Loftus-Cheek, Modrić, Rabiot, Bartesaghi; Nkunku, Leão
TIME/LOCATION
TIME: 2:45pm EST/6:45pm GMT
PLACE: Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino
WHERE TO WATCH:
***New season, so tell me if this needs to be updated***
Paramount+ and FuboTV here in the US of Aye (Spanish broadcast on Fox Deportes in the US); FuboTV and TLN for Canada; TNT in the UK (maybe?); ESPN for Mexico; DAZN for Germany, Austria, Switzerland; a website called GXR for our friends in India; and illegal streams that support dictators and oligarchs everywhere.
*Let us know if this needs updating or if you have additional broadcasters to add*
WHAT TO WATCH FOR:
So I didn’t do a post match for the Lazio-Milan Coppa Italia match because, well, it felt kind of pointless. I don’t really care about the tournament and of course I want Milan to win but sometimes losing can help in European football considering how it is structured. For example, the last 3 Scudetto winners all lost in the Coppa at the exact same stage, the round of 16. Milan, if it goes on to win the Scudetto this season, would be the 4th straight. Sometimes the lessening of the workload helps the team in other ways. Not only is the Scudetto more prestigous, they would make as much if not more for winning it than if they went through and won the Coppa with all the gate revenue and other financial considerations. So again…totally fine crashing out of the competition.
But…it doesn’t mean the game we saw wasn’t helpful or demonstrative of other themes. You all know I’ve been concerned with all the 1-0 wins. Great having the defense playing well and defense often wins championships AND you need enough offense or it makes running the table with a lot of those 1-0 wins very difficult. So the frequency of them is concerning for me but adding to it is how Milan is doing it.
Right now Leão and Pulisic have more than half of the team’s goals, scoring 13 of the 24 total goals scored across all comps (10 of the 19 league goals and 3 of the 5 Coppa goals). Sure, we see that with other top scorers in Europe but overall the low volume of goals for Milan combined with the hit rate is playing with poison. Right now, Leão is scoring every 122 minutes and Pulisic every 75 minutes, well above their career averages (goal every 233 minutes for Leão and a goal every 277 minutes for Pulisic). A regression is going to happen and when that does the goals for Milan will largely dry up.
There was an article about this this past week and I know it irked a lot of you because the Italian newspapers sure to do love picking on Milan. But I think they have a point. You know who have the most goals after Leão (6) and Pulisic (7)? Saelemaekers and Pavlović, both with 2 goals each. That’s in 16 games across all competitions. The midfield has been solid defensively, but it’s not contributing offensively and Allegri and his Allegri Ball 2.0 notwithstanding, I worry it’s going to continue on this way and cost Milan the Scudetto.
That leads us to today’s game. Allegri’s approach is been the same as it ever was and that’s been fine vs the tougher teams in the league, as evidenced by Milan’s record vs teams in the top half of the table (6-1-0 heading into this round). Playing those teams and this compact and conservative approach can work and work well, but it hasn’t vs the others (2-3-1). Those other teams will stay back and not risk much and the lack of offensive creativity and reluctance to get players forward has doomed Milan vs those inferior sides.
So Milan will need to come out today and open up the team to get forward. Playing at Torino hasn’t been kind to Milan of late, winning only once in the last 12 visits, that odd 7-0 win in 2021. But Torino is no longer the dentist’s chair as Michael Lisi used to call Juric’s Torino sides, and they currently are one of the lowest scoring teams in the league and have the league’s worst defense. So no reason for Milan not to play with an aggressiveness we’re not used to seeing from an Allegri side. One last thing: Allegri is serving a suspension in this game, the 3rd time he is going to be missing from the sideline this season and Marco Landucci will be at the helm. The other two times he lead the team to a 2-0 win over Bari in the Coppa opener and a 3-0 win over Udinese in Udine. So while Allegri undoubtedly led the game plan planning, maybe Landucci is more aggressive in the execution while leading the team. I hope he is anyway…
PREDICTION TIME:
In Landucci I trust! #ILIT! Milan win 3-0!
Ok, in all seriousness, I think Milan win and a multi-goal effort is in the cards, so that 3-0 win just might happen. Plus, Milan hadn’t lost since round 1 so they were kind of due, so I’m glad it was in the Coppa. Time to run off another run of 13 unbeaten, hopefully with a lot of wins.
Forza Milan
gillis