AC Milan boss Stefano Pioli knew that the configuration of the midfield against Roma would be hugely influential in determining the outcome of the game, a report claims, and he got his moves right.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (as seen below) writes that perhaps not even Paulo Dybala – the great absentee – would have made a difference to the scoreline. With Romelu Lukaku on the pitch there was hope for Jose Mourinho’s side, but was absent in yet another big match.
The Roma midfield is always incapable of a change of pace and it is by exploiting this fact that Milan and Pioli achieved a small tactical masterpiece. Pioli has never lost to Mou, he always ‘reads’ him well.
Two years ago he invented a 4-3-3 to defeat the two Roma midfielders, whereas last night he kept the 4-2-3-1, however keeping Yacine Adli and Tijjani Reijnders in line and throwing Ruben Loftus-Cheek even further forward than Olivier Giroud.
It was almost as if the Englishman were the real centre-forward, because Giroud’s task was to drop into the midfield, taking Gianluca Mancini away from the Giallorossi’s penalty area and opening up the space to exploit.
The 1-0 goal naturally made the task easier, because Roma were off balance. With Theo Hernandez and Rafael Leao on one side plus Davide Calabria and Christian Pulisic on the other kept the visitors shifting from side to side. Then, Loftus-Cheek – as a fake attacking midfielder – disoriented Roma’s defence.
Two chances for Pulisic, Theo hitting the post and other chances kept Roma penned in, so much so that Celik’s shot in the 31st minute was the first for the capital club.
