AC Milan needed to respond after their midweek Coppa Italia defeat against Atalanta, and they did so with a 3-1 victory against Roma at San Siro last night.
Yacine Adli, Olivier Giroud and Theo Hernandez all got their names on the scoresheet in what was a commanding victory in truth, although Leandro Paredes’ spot kick to halve the deficit in the second half did threaten to produce a comeback similar to the one a year ago.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (as seen below) has their ratings from the game, starting with Milan’s overall performance and the management of Stefano Pioli, both of which earned a 7 out of 10.
The best performer in the eyes of the newspaper was Olivier Giroud who got a goal and an assist in the second half, scoring 7.5, while Davide Calabria’s 5.5 was the lowest grade as he gave away a penalty.
Mike Maignan, Theo Hernandez and Yacine Adli all received a score of 7 for their performances on the night. Matteo Gabbia, Simon Kjaer, Tijjani Reijnders and Christian Pulisic got half a point less.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Rafael Leao were given a 6, while Yunus Musah and Noah Okafor were given the same score after coming off the bench.
Calabria worked hard, ran, tackled, linked up in attack and made 1 serious error.
RLC miscontrolled, fell over, messed up numerous attacks.
How on earth does RLC get a better rating than Calabria?
You are quite correct.
RLC was “in the right positions”, as in they passed the ball to them. All our plays dried up once the ball got to their feet tonight. They were the end of many plays and were not as sharp on the ball. I had hoped they were subbed off earlier, just not their night, happens.
I believe his pronouns are He/Him LOL
Lol
“How on earth does RLC get a better rating than Calabria?”
Sure, Calabria caused the penalty but what did RLC do? In a positive way I mean. No way he did better than Calabria!
I’m a big fan of Calabria. He reminds me of Gary Neville. He’s not the most gifted technically, but he’s a decent defender, unorthodox at times and you can’t buy his level of commitment and heart. In the list of problems at Milan, he isn’t high on the list…..
I’d love to see a world class coach get hold of Adli. The Pirlo comparisons are evident. He’s a player who isn’t quite a no10 but he shows excellent vision and composure at times and always play on the front foot. Imagine Pep or Carlo who were masters in that role improving him. Before the haters start I’m not saying Adli is anything like as good as Pirlo, there’s just similarities…
Gabbia impressed me, he did a great job on Lukaku on his first start back for us and Lukaku is a monster and on his day world class. Theo looked back on point too.
In my opinion Leao is off, this is it the player of last season.
It was an excellent dominant display at times
Yeah I agree about Calabria, you need guys like that.
On Adli there are some people who want to see him as AM which perhaps has its merits. Seems to me his long passing and ability on the ball are better utilised deeper.
Pirlo was slow and not a great defender, what he did have was the ability to beat his man when pressed or to pick a forward pass if they stood off him. Adli has those characteristics, how good he will be is another story but he certainly has the right attitude to continue improving.
Absolutely, he also had Gattuso to do his running for him lol. Being a great defender is often about positioning and reading the game, Maldini said if I need to make a tackle then I’ve already made a mistake.