AC Milan suffered a tough defeat against Atalanta on Saturday evening after conceding a 95th-minute winner. While some of the Rossoneri players did okay, quality was lacking especially at the back and below are the player ratings.
Starting XI
Maignan (6.5): He made an unreal save to deny Atalanta when Milan were trailing 2-1 and it looked like it would be a crucial save, as Luka Jovic then scored the equaliser. He couldn’t do anything about the goals.
Calabria (4.5): As the captain, you simply cannot do what he did. That’s about as silly as it gets, and schoolboy-esque, for second yellow cards. Milan had momentum, and then the game completely changed. Plus, he was really poor at the back before that too.
Tomori (5.5): We have certainly seen better games from him. He seemed to be just one second late in too many duels tonight, even if he did win a few as well.
Hernandez (5): It may not have shown against Frosinone, but tonight we saw that he isn’t a centre-back. Poor positioning on all of the goals, especially the second, and he didn’t have much success when going forward today either.
Florenzi (6): Bagged a nice assist for Giroud and looked okay on the left, in the defensive phase that is. Certainly not the worst at the back this evening, which says a lot.
Reijnders (6): He has come into his own it seems, more or less always available and using his movement in a good way. Having said that, he could have been bolder with his passing this evening.
Musah (6): A hard-working display with some good moments, doing well even after he had to switch to the right flank.
Chukwueze (5): Slow and not strong enough in the duels. He had one or two moves where he got past his man, but then the end product was missing. And most of the time he didn’t even get past the defender.
Loftus-Cheek (5.5): Helped Milan win the corner for the first goal after a nice run on the right flank, but we didn’t see enough of that. Whenever he did it, Milan put Atalanta in trouble.
Pulisic (5.5): Yes, he did get the assist for the second goal with a nice cross, but apart from that he wasn’t that good. He had a great chance in injury time at 2-2 but completely mishit his effort.
Giroud (6.5 – MOTM): The veteran combined well with his teammates throughout the game, actually succeeding with most of his flicks, and the goal was really a great one.
Substitutes
Bennacer (5.5): He has just come back from injury, so we must take his displays with a grain of salt, but he can do so much better in every sense.
Jovic (6.5): Another goal for the Serbian, who found the back of the net with an easy finish. But it was good movement from him to be there for that cross. Hopefully, he can build on this.
Adli (5): Lost Muriel on the winner and wasn’t that good in his passing either. Given that Reijnders had done okay, it was a slightly strange sub so late.
Calabria 😂😂😂 can u sometimes catch CDK 🤣🤣 He lost him 10 times tonight ,a true leader and captain 😂
We had the chance to sign Singo, yet the brilliant coach thought different.
I like adli and I wish good for him but management should shift his ass out of Milan … He’s literally doing nothing instead of him we could buy a proper DM… And chukwueze looks like Samu 2.0
Samu was better.
We are not even half way through the season and we are already out of the Champions League, and most likely out of the race for Scudetto. To put salt on our wounds, it seems that it will be Inter that will be getting a second star on their badge at the end of the season. I am upset and disappointed…
Same.
As a Milan faithful, i am refusing to believe that we are out of the Scudetto race. If we don’t win the Scudetto, then i hope Juventus stops Inter from winning it! And then sack Pioli and appoint a coach, who would stop playing players out of position.
Are you seriously hoping that Rubentus, of all teams, wins another Scudetto? And with the horrible, boring way they’re playing, too?
I get inter-city rivalry, but I’d think everyone has enough of a brain to set aside any other rivalry in order to dunk on that corrupt mafia organizational that is Juve… Guess I’m too much of an optimist.
Not that i like Juventus either. But i can’t stand the noise, if Inter were to win the 20th Scudetto and get second star before us. It is not that we play attractive Football either and to win silverware you don’t need to play Tiki Taka!
As for corruption; Inter are no saints either. If any other team(expect Juventus) were challenging Inter for the Scudetto, then I would’ve supported that x team! If we were in Inter position, then they would’ve supported Juve to stop us from winning the 20th Scudetto and getting second star!
Inter will choke.
Inzaghi’s not a winner.
Juve will win the Scudetto. What’s another one for them.
Don’t know why they bother.
Samu? Oh boy, he was classy. He was elegant. He was useful. He’s everything this other Samu isn’t. 😀
More like a CDK 2.0 but different positions. I am glad my friends saved me from watching him…
Chukwemeze is a flop complete flop
He doesn’t even deserve to be called a flop. He’s way worse. He needs to go back to La Liga where no one can defend.
No one can defend yet they produce my champions league winners….
Not with players like Chuku they don’t.
After the top four in La Liga, the quality of the teams and players really drops off, especially on defense.
Chuk has talent, he just hasn’t learned that football is a team sport and that being really good at passing the ball to your team mates is how you beat a tough defense.
He costed us a lot of points…
He is so SLOW
Is he better than Krunic – yes
Is he player for Milan – not
No @Bunny..Adli is waaaaay better than Krunic and can distribute the ball. Look at how well he distributed the ball on the goal. (Sarc)
Just ignore all the people who have an understanding of the game and realizes his defensive deficiencies and you’ll how great he is ala Zidane even
What I am coming to see consistently is that we are not playing Adli AND covering for his defensive weakness.
I found myself thinking back to last year when Pioli rotated the whole squad for a game. At that time it felt like he’d thrown up his hands and said, “Fine I’ll do it your way.” But I don’t know who “your” is in this case.
Bringing Adli without making an adjustment to cover the defense seems like, “Fine here is your Adli.” Appeasement? Really, I cannot image such a thing, but if I can see two moves ahead surely any coach can?
When Benny came in – we know he is not match fit – we moved Musah to wing. Why? We weakened our screen for the weakened defense. The we add Adli knowing he is weak on defense. So we have a recovering player and a defensive liability covering a weakened defense. I’m left confused.
I’m not gonna lie. I saw Adli and said out loud, “about time”. My wife said “why?”
I said, “He will go in at attacking mid and distributes beautifully. We need this win and need to score.”
Then I saw who came off and my heart sank. Sure enough along the left edge of the pen box he almost howled it again.
At this point I don’t see an Aldi problem. I see a system problem. I see single changes made without consideration for the impact on the other 10 players and how to disrupt the opponent. I see players put in situations without accounting for their success individually as well.
I think is see frustration in the players. I am beginning to understand why.
I hope to see this improve in the coming weeks.
Forza Milan
From the first match of Chuk in Milan, I saw nothing special in him, and already said that if he didn’t raise his game, he’d easily become the CdK 2.0, both as the most expensive signing of the season as well. Boy, do I wish that I was wrong. It’s better to field Romero in this level.
With this tempo we wont even be in top 4 soon. We can only hope that the other teams will do worse. Cause nothing else will come out of Pioli.
PS. Maybe its better if we get out of Europa League as well so we can focus on top 4. It would be wiser long term. Will need all the help we can get this season.
Adli subtitution is a silly mistake by pioli, he cant defend at all, but the worst today was calabria. Dont expect to much if we still using him regularly
Milan will defeat us for sure…
Would be unfair if we got 1 point, they were much better,pioli deserved nothing more than 0 points tonight.
Bad game.
1. There is no movement without the ball apart from the giroud which is far in front. So, every Milan player who was in the third half of the field looked like he was dazed and held the ball for too long.
2. Back pass
Pioli is famous for his “ball possession” tactics. But what’s the point of having possession of the ball when the Milan players seem afraid of losing the ball and prefer a safe pass to the back. Just pass the ball into the penalty box…!!! The ball had reached the end of Atlanta’s playing field but for some reason, the ball would return to Maignan’s feet, which ended with his high pass into the middle of the field. 3. How to deffend.
Atlanta’s third goal showed clearly, Pioli’s stupid upbringing to every Milan player. See how Adli tries to run in front of Muriel to chase the ball instead of behind her to protect the net. How many times have Milan players had to miss or pull their opponent’s shirt even though the opponent only had to turn their body while Milan players would always try to take the ball from in front of the opposing player. As if we don’t know where our net is???
Even if they win, it doesn’t feel right with all of Pioli’s stupid tactics and the way the Milan players play….
Meanwhile, Inter crushing Udinese 4-0, while the latter beat us. We’ve changed players, we’ve changed management, results are the same. The only common denominator has been Pioli. Pioli has to go, and if I were Cardinale, I’d fire him if we drop out of the CL this week (95% likely). Of course, I’m not Cardinale, so it’s likely nothing will happen to Pioli.
Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets fired Wednesday. Not sure who the new coach would be but I just can’t take any more of Pioli’s no tactics and delusional comments.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he is sacked before Wednesday, and doesn’t sit on the dugout for Newcastle game. But in all likelihood, i don’t think that is going to happen, the worst case scenario is- we are struck with him, until end of the season.
We are already out of the Champions League this season, i don’t have any hopes left. Knowing Pioli, even if Dortmund beats PSG, he will lose or draw against Newcastle. As you said the worst case scenario is- we are struck with him until end of the season.
“Atlanta’s third goal showed clearly, Pioli’s stupid upbringing to every Milan player. See how Adli tries to run in front of Muriel to chase the ball instead of behind her to protect the net”
How is Pioli the sole cause of someone’s inability to defend. Bro even I know not to go behind the player but position yourself between player and goal. And I’m not coached by Pioli. This is basic defending 101
I don’t know what the instructions for theo was, he is playing cb but goes too wide on the left and front, its just confusing, this inverted full back was just confusingly stupid
He played CB but Pioli gave him instructions the last game to make runs from the deep and have the left back (in this case Florenzi) slot in to CB while he’s up. The thing is we did this the last game so a proper coach (Gasperini) would know this and prepare a solution to those runs. Notice Atalanta’s midfield immediately collapses inwars once Theo goes last a certain point and then forces the play outward?
Anyways…
A toothless team. Midfield non-existent. Chuk a total flop. Another Saturday evening wasted.
CdK was best Milan player on the pitch tonight.
Adil was not in the game today it was a bad sub from Pioli he made some sili errors this few minutes
Pioli out out out 😠
I hope the Adli fanboys are happy. After all, he played. He did cost us the game, with Atalanta’s third goal entirely on him. He is a defensive liability, prone to commiting PKs, dangerous fouls close to the box, or misses his guy and allows the opponents to score. He has cost us points in several games. And he is nothing special otherwise. In my opinion he sucks and is the most overrated player by fans.
Calabria also cost us the game as his red card changed momentum. But if Adli hadn’t subbed in we’d have kept the draw.
Otherwise, this was honorable. We conceded their first goal on a really lucky deflection (while our first half deflection had Atalanta’s goalie beaten and the deflection actually allowed him to defend the ball, while ours took Maignan out of it (not his fault, had a great game). Honorable also because it was an away game against a good team,
We basically lost because of Calabria and Adli.
Maybe Jovic deserves a chance to stay with Milan passed June.
Gotta love Giroud. What a header!
Pulisic tried hard but was imprecise in the last third. Not a good game from him.
Reijnders was playing well. No need to take him out and bring Adli in. That was on Pioli.
I’ve been defending Chuk but he was poor today.
Yes, our defense is banged up and Theo is not a center back.
In the middle of a defensive injury crisis, we did play honorably but got defeated by a lucky deflection, by a silly mistake by the captain, and by the sucky Adli. We didn’t deserve to lose this game.
xG was 3.10-1.01. This is pure domination. It’s naive to believe that a substitute at 88th minute costed the game. (I am not defending Adli here, he is a different story).
We need to realise that many fundamental things go wrong right now in the club. Trashing one or two players (now it’s Adli, yesterday it was Krunic) and the coach every week is not the smartest.
Like I said it’s not just this game that Adli has cost us. Yes, it is smart to realize when an overrated player sucks. What is not smart, is to overrate him.
And xG is not all since we do have one of the greatest goalies on the planet. The team is not made of 10 players. It’s made of 11 and the goalie counts. Many of the great opportunities Atalanta had which enhanced their xG were stopped by Maignan.
Without Adli’s blunder we wouldn’t have lost this game, and it’s not the first time he does it.
Now drop your condescending attitude. If you find me smart or not, I couldn’t care less. Have a nice day.
Yeah, attack Adli like people attacked Musah when he was playing RB. It’s Pioli’s fault 100% when he keeps on playing him in the wrong position. Adli is no DM and never will be. Yet there is playing out of position. Again.
You got me wrong, there was no attack on your intelligence, probably wrong phrasing. It was not meant to you specifically but rather to the way of thinking that a single player (who is not even the same every week) explains the entire situation.
The xG story is rather complicated to analyse here but long story short, what you wrote is partly true and only in short periods of time. In the long run, the stats converge way more than you would expect. This means that in the long run, even a great keeper like Mike most probably will not deviate much from the xG. So it’s the wrong strategy to rely on an overperforming keeper and not anticipate and fix the defence issues.
Ok fair enough; sorry for my reaction. Thanks.
Adli is playing out of position and isn’t match fit, he barely play. What do you expect. He is not a defensive midfielder. This is on the management for bad recruiting. We did not need chuk nor Musah we needed a defensive midfielder, striker, 1 winger and a backup left back. Until we get that sorted we will struggle
Bro stop. Forget xGs for a moment and realize Adli lacks in defence and cost us. Just like vs Udine and PSG
As said, xG is a complicated story and indeed doesn’t tell the full truth many times, it doesn’t explain everything.
But in this case, the xG at the moment Adli came in was 2.96-.098. It was a miracle that we were still in the game.
This of course doesn’t excuse at all Adli who wasted the overperformance of (some of) his teammates. On the other hand, it’s a big question why/when/where he was introduced in this game – and that’s not on him.
So we’re going to put the blame on adli and not pulisic who lost posession in the worst spot possible instead of kicking it up? Can adli have done better? Sure, but pulisic caused everyone to be out of position
Easy to blame Adli as he’s playing out of position every match. He’s not a DM and never will be.
Why does everyone want him to play there instead of Krunic then? It boggles my mind..also where else should he play? Mezzala? Can’t defend well but it’s not like the others playing there are stellar too. Maybe a 3 man mid but flat instead of with mezzalas 🤔
Because he has talent and has room to grow. He is creative. Something that has been missing from the team since Pirlo left. And Krunic? The old, “reliable” Backpass-Krunic? Say no more.
So Adli makes a mistake here and there. He’ll learn. Or even better, he might someday be playing in his natural position instead of being a DM which he’s not. It’s not like Milan has been playing fantastic football and only lost matches just because Adli was put on the pitch to ruin everything.
He is a natural AM. Unfortunately, with our current system, playing him as an AM is simply not going to work. So I guess we got a good player but simply don’t have a good use for him.
Adli is not a defensive strong man.
THE SIMPLER AND SOONER YOU ALL UNDERSTAND THIS THE BETTER.
PLAY HIM TO HIS STRENGTHS. THIS IS NOT HARD TO SEE. AND HOW MANY GAMES HAS ADLI HAD UNDER OUR COACHING MANAGEMENT.
Practically frozen out of games last season, and only gets some game time this season and yall want a miracle Rijkaard. Horses have more hopes of flying.
Maybe next week Pioli tries Adli as the CB.
Don’t give him any ideas! LOLZ
Adli is a defensive liability. I don’t find him particularly good as midfielder either. So I wonder what he’s good at. For me, he’s overrated and has always been. Nice guy, loves Milan so the fans love him, but as a footballer I don’t find him that good. He’s playing out of position? Sure. But when in position he’s nothing to write home about either. Lots of back passes or lateral passes that do not result in attacking opportunities.
There is no point of picking on individual players. The whole team looked confused and out of ideas. Unfortunately we’ve been looking like that for sometime now. Pioli’s signature. Baldie gotta go. We will not reach top at the end of the season with this kind of play (hope im wrong).
“There is no point of picking on individual players.” Bro week in week out majority of ppl here pick on Krunic. What you guys mean is don’t pick on the guy you favour over the other one
True and I’m one of them. But after all these bad games, its just gotten pointless. 1 week its theo and leao that sucks, than the next week they shine amd tomorri and mike suck until they shine the following game. It’s baldie’s fault.
Sorry, we can’t just rely on Maignan to win games. Our defense is trash for a top 4 side, and it was trash before Theo needed to start playing CB. In fact, until Thiaw got injured, our best back 4 was usually available, with the bench players being the ones not available. The squad doesn’t know how to defend. Meanwhile, Juventus is locked down with a former brick layer and a wing back occupying two of three CB slots, and they defend as a disciplined unit. Proper defense is much harder to teach than attacking. We don’t have a proper attacking strategy either. Pioli out for God’s sake!
@Luigi cold hard facts bro!!! All of it
Enough is enough already… This summer the objective was a scudetto challenge and qualify for knockouts in champions league. We’re not even half way into the season and both seem improbable.But it goes beyond that, I’ve said it many times. Milan haven’t played well since beating napoli last year!
There’s no point using injuries as the excuse, while they haven’t helped us even with a full squad we haven’t played well. It’s either we focus on attack and score plenty and concede plenty. We defend and get clean sheets and score maybe a goal. But this year he wanted balance and we’ve been HORRIBLE in both attack and defence.
Everything pioli has done this season has been a complete failure. 4 3 3 failed and he goes back to the 4 2 3 1 which was the right call. But somebody please explain to me WHY loftus is playing as the attacking midfielder and reijnders is playing defensive? Loftus reijnders musah do not have the same characteristics as Kessie tonali bennacer so what is he thinking? Loftus is physically superior to many players and can break up play so why isn’t he in the double pivot? Reijnders is a fantastic dribble and passers so why isn’t he playing as the attacking mid? Reijnders also has very poor defending abilities. It’s an idiotic move by pioli.
We’re short for defence and you decide to put our best runner in theo as our cb who is also alour weakest defender? It’s madness. I said he would fail to a better attacking team and it was atrocious. You either give Simic his position or you put Calabria in the middle and florenzi on the right. He has three players out of position in defence.
How are you going to play musah in midfield In a demanding job and then put him on the wing where he’s never played and expect him to bomb down the flank and beat defenders. HE’S SETTING THIS TEAM UP TO FAIL!
The attack is toothless and its because there’s no creativity. They don’t know what to do. I fully expect pioli to be fired on Thursday. Once again, injuries haven’t helped but it’s the reason why were like this. If abate needs to come in until end of season, so be it. This season looks like a write off if pioli remains. I’m heartbroken with each passing game. Milan no longer have their DNA and the way the play hurts more than allegri style. In my eyes, pioli must be gone.
It’s NOT the reason we’re like this**
We bought players for a 4-3-3 and now we are switching back to a 4-2-3-1 LOL. Shocking. Well it was MANAGEMENT’s decision to give Pioli all the power to make these decisions and it looks to have backfired. Now we have many midfield players who are not suited to the double pivot., Reindjers and RLC are not double pivots. They are both attacking players. Adli is learning the position. Pobega has poor control and passing and is a backup and has never played there; Musah is raw as they come and has to learn the game let alone the position; Krunic is on his way out and is better served as a back up anyways. So we have Benny and maybe Adli – but he has to work on his D. So basically we are F*%ck€d
Juro, Pioli is central to the project. Oh might I add, he has more say in the transfers and he got the players he needed. They’re also working in perfect harmony. Dont forget 🤣🤣🤣
“You either give Simic his position or you put Calabria in the middle and florenzi on the right. He has three players out of position in defence.” Well summarized!
Thank God for a 🟥 , we will rest from our “captain” at least one match. Also amazing play from Theo on CB 😂 GREAT IDEA GENIUS PIOLI 🤣 He failed to cover an opponent on 3 goals,also forget to cover CDK when he missed a goal chance from 3 meters. Not to mention that the decision to play him as CB automaticaly killed our left side , but SIMIĆ IS YOUNG,WOULD BE RISKY to play him, i can bet he would not make this many errors! NO BALLS PIOLI keep rolling!
Lmao,when they look at the table we are still 3rd,nothing changed for out DATA menagement,they just look at stats,they probb never watch our dead gameplay.
Theo, florenzi, loftus, Reijders, musah. All players that played out of their natural position today and we expect the best out of them?
Milan teams and teams who have been successful in CL always had a midfield that could control a game.
This current team looks like a naive English team from the 90’s who run up and down with no control.
This is what you get when your new owners want a “European Team”
Essentially they saw a physically bigger Chelsea team blow us away last year and thought that’s how you win “soccer” matches.
Never mind the midfields of Barca and Madrid who dominated with smaller skillful players.
You cannot win trophies like that!
Pioli sucks, he needs to go. Enough already, sets us up to fail
I have been following Milan since 1997, and I will continue to support the team until my final days. But, I am bound to say that I have lately ceased to receive any satisfaction from watching our games under Pioli. It is at times painful to watch how incapable, toothless and clueless we seem to be on the pitch, especially when facing any above mediocre opposition.
I watched Villa today with my friends instead of our game, just put the game on my phone to get the updates. Look how well they are playing (just beat City, Spurs and Arsenal), this is what a team which is well managed looks like, even with less financial support compared to other EPL teams + many injuries to their key players, they are still able to get results against top teams.
It’s all about the coach, our squad is good, if we had an Emery, Pep of Carlo we’d be top 2 challenging for the title and last 8 in Europe
Don’t hate on Pioli, he’s always been this average, hate on those who keep him there: he should have gone last season
We as Milan Fan roll from nightmare to nightmare !
Pioli said sorry after the Atalanta game this morning, he also said sorry after last season in same fixture
I can’t remember did he say sorry after the Inter game where Milan were smashed?
Pioli has always had trouble out smarting the big clubs and Inter sacked him straight away
The scudetto is out of reach for Milan this season and they are fighting for CL position next season, that’s all !
When Milan play it’s always unattractive non exciting football under Pioli’s watch but the management do nothing and that’s CRIMINAL!
WATCHING INTER SUCK SEED IS KILLING EVERY MILAN FAN please do something!
True. I watched the game too. Great stuff from Aston Villa, and I’m an Arsenal fan.
Any satisfaction? Wow. I didn’t even remember that word existed. This f*ng nightmare keeps happening over and over and over again. And that’s on Pioli. He needs to go. NOW!
I’m glad I met my wife 11 years ago when watching Milan play was satisfying and fun each week. I don’t think my wife would have endured my swearing and reactions during the matches if Milan was this awful back then when we were still dating. 😀
If my marriages ever breaks, I’ll blame Pioli. That f*cker is getting on my nerves too much.
Spot on man. My wife kept asking me what’s wrong and if everything is okay and I had to pretend like nothing was bothering me but I was ready to explode.
Same toughts as you my friend.Milan fans since 1995 too..
Watching Milan these season is such a pain(like many seasons before …) ,lucky today i had a visit from a friend and we played new Warzone ,will not even check the highlights,its enough to read comments and see Calabria on the main page.Until this fool is our captain and even in the first eleven we will never win anythin again…
This loss is a 1000% on the sackless coach.
He played 3 players out of position because he doesn’t have the balls to play the young players that would put everyone else in their proper positions, and that cost Milan the game.
He played Reijnders as a regista. Reijnders likes to go forward, he isn’t a regista. Pioli has Adli and Krunic on the bench, who even though they are not natural registas, they are more suited to play there than Reijnders. Adli with his long passing ability and Krunic with his defensive cover.
He played Theo as a CB and Florenzi as a LB instead of playing Simic. Theo & Florenzi were at fault or played major role in all 3 goals and if CDK was better player, they would have been at fault for another 2 goals.
If Scalvini can play in serie A at 17, 18 why not play simic at 18. Even if you lose the game because of him you’d have that excuse but instead you don’t play him because you don’t have the balls and still lose.
People said Gigio owed Milan for his career. No he owed Mihajlovic, RIP.
Miha had the balls not to only play him at 16, when the starting GK got injured, but then keep him as a starter when Diego Lopez came back from injury.
Pioli would play with a man down before he gives the young players a chance.
Unless a miracle happens Wednesday, Pioli should be fired first thing Thursday morning.
100% agree
Milan Fans are so P
They defend Pioli defending those lunatic,
Mocanda Furlani, the idiot president, the idiot owner
Shame
That rating for Pulisic is absurd. He’s the only player that consistently shows up every game, and contributes something.
Defense was shocking. If CDK didn’t miss 3 sitters this could’ve been 5 or 6 goals. How many times can your captain be the worst player on the pitch? Theo was bad but its not his fault hes not a CB. I would trade Messias back for Chuku in a heartbeat.
He is a waste.
Bottom line is we are getting outclassed every game. You would think with the fact that our defense is barely pieced together that we might try be a little more compact and conservative. Nope. Not Pioli. Wide open. Theo is in the middle one minute, the next he’s flying up on the left side. Calabria always getting caught out of position. Just a shapeless mess of guys scrambling to get back to where they think they are supposed to be. Trying to figure out what position guys are actually playing is difficult. I don’t think they even know, and that is on the manager. Not to mention he has no ideas offensively of how to break any team down.
Writing is on the wall. Pioli is out. Thanks for the Scudetto but he’s out of his depth now.
” I would trade Messias back for Chuku in a heartbeat.”
I said that twice during the match. I even said Chuku makes me miss Saelemaekers too!
I agree.
If we look at the performance from Pulisic, today, he was relatively tame and mishit his shot late in the match, BUT….
Until Bennacer took the field, Atalanta had Zappacosta man-marking CP11 AND one of the central defenders leaning that way and always offering support, so he had nowhere to go. We also seemed to avoid attacking on the left most of the match, so he was taken out by our own decisions, most of the match.
The few times he did manage to accomplish something, his teammates were useless, the early minutes cross to the back post being a prime example. Chukwueze decided to run in BEHIND his defender, instead of running inside and across his defender, which would have created a tap-in, because he has the attacking instincts of a traffic cone.
That was HARDLY CP11’s best outing, but he was the only shred of a threat, bar the one good cross that Giroud finished like the pro he is, at least until Bennacer entered the match and Atalanta had to defend the middle of the field, as well, drawing Zappacosta’s help to the inside.
Wow. What a game. WHAT. A. GAME. Out of form and out of players Atalanta beat us 100-0. It could have been another 5-0 loss if CDK were a baller. Thank God he isn’t. But it says a lot when the Milan defense made him look that decent. Kudos for that. Not every team can do that.
So… Where to begin? I’ll save the best for the last and start with the obvious. The midfield of Milan is pure shite. There’s nothing to build on there. They keep losing the ball, can’t pass forward, zero creativity, zero courage, zero ideas. There’s absolutely nothing to build on. Reijnders keeps getting worse day by day. He lost the midfield-battle to his fellow countryman 100-0. RLC? Looked like he was already waiting for the Newcastle game and couldn’t care less about today. Musah? Wow. For attacking plays he’s ALMOST as useless as Backpass-Krunic. DO NOT PASS THE BALL TO MUSAH IF YOU WANT TO ATTACK. Make a note on that.
Wingers? Oh, Chukwueze dominated La Liga, eh? Those MFs clearly can’t defend at all if that bum ever made it past any defender. Pure rubbish. Pulisic? Oh well… He did assist a goal and was visible every now and then but looked tired and isolated. He needs help and can’t do anything by himself.
Defense? Well… What do you expect when only one CB available and half of the defense plays out of position. But it was truly awful defending in all three goals and there were so many to blame for each goal. How did Lookman get to shoot when he was surrounded by 3 Milan players? How did CDK get to walk into the box and cross to Lookman for the second? Chuku & Calabria didn’t even try to stop him. And the third? Yeah, let’s blame Adli again even if there were 2 others who had f*cked up way before him.
MOTM: Pioli. Again. How the **** can someone so clueless be the head coach of any Serie A team? The team has zero tactics. NO ONE knows how they’re supposed to attack. SO bloody obvious. Just look how confused the players get when the ball is at their feet and they’re 20m away from the goal. They had no idea what to do. It’s like Pulisic & co are asking Pioli “How do we attack?” and Pioli goes “We pass the ball and score” and then the players are like “Yeah, but how do we break the defense? How do we create chances?” And Padre Pioli replies “We attack. We score. Dai-dai-dai!!!”
All the Milan players were so bad that even Jovic looked pretty decent. And that says a lot. On the scale of 0-10, Milan’s attacking play looked like 0 or 0.5 before Jovic came in and when Giroud had someone close(r) to him, the attacking threat rose to maybe 1 or even 1.5.
And since the wingers don’t do **** these days, I’d say it’s time to change to good old Xmas tree formation or 4-3-1-2 with Pulisic as trequartista and Giroud & Jovic as the striker pair. That would also leave room for Theo to run up the left flank.
We clearly lack the players (especially wingers) to play 4-3-3 so it’s useless to bang the head against the wall 2-3 times a week. Learn from your f*ng mistakes already!
Oh right, one more thing. F*** Pioli. Furlani sacked the wrong guy in summer. I’d rather have f*ng Pirlo as the coach than Pioli.
Wow. What a game. WHAT. A. GAME. Out of form and out of players Atalanta beat us 100-0. It could have been another 5-0 loss if CDK were a baller. Thank God he isn’t. But it says a lot when the Milan defense made him look that decent. Kudos for that. Not every team can do that.
So… Where to begin? I’ll save the best for the last and start with the obvious. The midfield of Milan is pure sh*te. There’s nothing to build on there. They keep losing the ball, can’t pass forward, zero creativity, zero courage, zero ideas. There’s absolutely nothing to build on. Reijnders keeps getting worse day by day. He lost the midfield-battle to his fellow countryman 100-0. RLC? Looked like he was already waiting for the Newcastle game and couldn’t care less about today. Musah? Wow. For attacking plays he’s ALMOST as useless as Backpass-Krunic. DO NOT PASS THE BALL TO MUSAH IF YOU WANT TO ATTACK. Make a note on that.
Wingers? Oh, Chukwueze dominated La Liga, eh? Those MFs clearly can’t defend at all if that bum ever made it past any defender. Pure rubbish. Pulisic? Oh well… He did assist a goal and was visible every now and then but looked tired and isolated. He needs help and can’t do anything by himself.
Defense? Well… What do you expect when only one CB available and half of the defense plays out of position. But it was truly awful defending in all three goals and there were so many to blame for each goal. How did Lookman get to shoot when he was surrounded by 3 Milan players? How did CDK get to walk into the box and cross to Lookman for the second? Chuku & Calabria didn’t even try to stop him. And the third? Yeah, let’s blame Adli again even if there were 2 others who had f**ked up way before him.
MOTM: Pioli. Again. How the **** can someone so clueless be the head coach of any Serie A team? The team has zero tactics. NO ONE knows how they’re supposed to attack. SO bloody obvious. Just look how confused the players get when the ball is at their feet and they’re 20m away from the goal. They had no idea what to do. It’s like Pulisic & co are asking Pioli “How do we attack?” and Pioli goes “We pass the ball and score” and then the players are like “Yeah, but how do we break the defense? How do we create chances?” And Padre Pioli replies “We attack. We score. Dai-dai-dai!!!”
All the Milan players were so bad that even Jovic looked pretty decent. And that says a lot. On the scale of 0-10, Milan’s attacking play looked like 0 or 0.5 before Jovic came in and when Giroud had someone close(r) to him, the attacking threat rose to maybe 1 or even 1.5.
And since the wingers don’t do **** these days, I’d say it’s time to change to good old Xmas tree formation or 4-3-1-2 with Pulisic as trequartista and Giroud & Jovic as the striker pair. That would also leave room for Theo to run up the left flank.
We clearly lack the players (especially wingers) to play 4-3-3 so it’s useless to bang the head against the wall 2-3 times a week. Learn from your f**ng mistakes already!
Oh right, one more thing. F*** Pioli. Furlani sacked the wrong guy in summer. I’d rather have f*ng Pirlo as the coach than Pioli.
PS. Good that I copy-pasted this text “just in case”. Didn’t get published at first try.
Thank you, @bb, you said everything I wanted to say. Agree with everything you said in your comment, they sacked the guy who got us key players who helped us to win the title and tried to push all the blame on him, look where we are now, compare this with how we performed when Maldini was still in the management. We are back to square 1 now, no progress apart from maybe Pulisic who is playing very good.
Your rant cuts deep and it’s funny, and also deep from. The soul.
I said it earlier this year it was gonna be another ptsd season loading.
Bcos everything last year is been repeated again, just with more worse intensity.
Good one at BB. Oh I forgot to add the Adli hate has begun. I guess the transition from krunic is taking place.
@bb – it’s now official. Hell has frozen over. Lol. I completely agree with your assessment. Spot on.
🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂I had to recheck the username 😂😂😂
The hate of losing unites us all. Enough is enough.
Boulden disagrees with you.
“Boulden disagrees with you.”
Does he agree with anyone? 🙂
Every single game we’ve played this season the defence have been caught out and so out of position. I don’t know what’s so hard about keeping a tight back 4 but Calabria is constantly caught out and a winger just bursts down that side to put in a cross that either leads to a goal or a last ditch tackle wondering where our cb’s were. They can’t seem to defend and organize and in the attack they have no clue what to do. All we do is switch side to side and pass it backwards. Hardly does a cross go inside the box and when it does it’s when there’s four defenders marking giroud whose the only man I’m the box. When the wingers should cross they shoot and when they should shoot they cross or pass back. There is no movement up there and especially no ideas
Out of the seria A and CL race from early December, Mister Pioli ladies and gentlemen
It’s funny those who always praise Calabria saying he’s UCL material. LOL. Like I have always said I like Calabria he is a warrior he gives 150% despite being limited in several aspects of the game. BUT he is not and should not be our captain nor our starting RB. Again he has zero offensive ability, lacks top end speed and athleticism and constantly needs help on the defensive side. CDK skinned him alive LOL. And the yellows??? And he is our captain? Only reason he is – is because he’s Italian. Period. His backers that cite his games against Krava claiming Calabria shut him down” are delusional and conveniently didn’t notice Reindjers providing a constant double team. Let’s face it he is not starting material for UCL and against bigger Serie A teams. The modern game requires fullbacks to bomb up and down the flanks attacking and providing crosses. He does neither. We badly need an upgrade there.
Honestly we deserved to lose this game. CDK missed a sitter snd Mike made some fantastic saves that kept us alive – and some on here think Mike is so easily replaceable?? LOL. Ya sure. Hate to say it but Chukwueze looks like a 28M bust. He has offered nothing. This was his time to shine in Leaos absence and he has not. Terrible. Musah runs a lot but I don’t see any positive balls forward. He is still raw. Love his work rate but he is not polished and why we paid 20M for what is basically a backup player when Benny is fully fit is beyond me. 48M – Musha and Chuck – could have bought us a nice proven striker. Hmmmm. Oh wait I forgot we have Jovic the savior??? You know because he scored again? Another sitter with a wide open net that rolls right to him – so I guess we don’t need a striker any longer lol. Please. 6.5 is funny. RLC can be dominant or non-existent. It’s usually one or the other. Today it was the latter unfortunately. We were dominated in the mid. That determines the game (and often does). Simply not good enough. Not sure what Pioli was doing w his subs but that’s nothing new. Same old story. 9 point deficit if Inter wins today?? #20 looks very difficult now…
The team is too timid, too apologetic, too scared to make mistakes…Chuck, Pulisic, Musah, Adli, Tijji…no leadership, no guts, no imagination…this would be so funny if it wasn’t so sad….we do not have sufficient depth, and sadly the coach has ran out of ideas…we can’t still be going into a tailspin everytime Leao is not available…says something about the quality of players we have…
Please let stop blaming these players..when we have a coach like Pioli. Players make mistake when the coach is tactically inept.
We have better players than last season…Pioli got the players he wanted and the team plays badly even when we win…we play terrible.
Gasperini said it himself on Football Italia…that Atlanta adjusted to Milan Tactics. And Pioli didn’t have a response…because he doesn’t have the know how.
I wonder… How did Atalanta adjust to Milan tactics when Milan don’t have one? Maybe the interview lacked the words “lack of”. They adjusted to the LACK OF Milan tactics. That sounds more like it.
I’m a Calabria fan but even I have to admit he deserves to lose the armband. Too many bad games this season. This is the capstone moment it’s a shame there’s so many defense holes. It’s undermined the players ability to recover from Pioli’s terrible decisions.
I really though we were going to win this one ,,but chukwzi was absolutely awful,,,tomori was out of position on all 3 goals ,,as for calibra ,,poor performance for a captain and a stupid sending off ,,pulisic worked well ,but his final ball was often poor ..
We started the game with a high tempo ,,but when Atalanta did break we just could not defend well .
Loftus cheek did ok ,but even he was not at his best .
Thought Giroud did quite well ,and scored a terrific header ,,,jovic when he came on got into some good positions and indeed scored a goal .
We will have to do better than this to beat Newcastle.
We definitely need Rafeol leao back .
What can I say disappointed.
Adli 10/10, he never disappoints, always on point when it comes to making mistakes that lead to goals against us.
I can’t believe that such a medicore player has such a fanbase. He has shown absolute zero so far has us losing goals each game he plays, but I guess that’s Pioli’s fault, lol.
As for Pioli, he should be gone since last January.
He did great. No one would have done as well as him under those circumstances.
😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣 I’m assuming “he” means Pioli because it couldn’t be Adli
There goes Pioli with his subs and shuffling players around again. The worst in game decision maker in the game. We kick the ball around in our own half and when we finally start moving up field we stop look up see no one moving and pass back and repeat. We were poor in the final third the handful of times we actually made there. This game was one of the worst of the season.
dis our coach is lacking I swear 🤬
What a mistake by the management to keep this fool as our coach this season. He completely lost it. Players out of their postion, and everyone on the field is just running like a headless chicken. No gameplay whatsoever by baldie. He can’t seem to find what position our new players best fit, given their characteristics.
2nd. We are ar the bottom of the table when it comes to km on the field. That says a lot about this idiot’s training and tactics. And still there are a lot of muscle injuries. If leao wasn’t part of our team this fool would have not even lasted the 1st season. His tactics are simple, attack from the wings and gope something comes out of it.
He couldn’t utilize diaz properly, look at him at madrid now. This guy gotta go sooner rather than later.
Inter will got a second star
Juvemerda should get it.
Rooting for Juve now. Only a miracle (or sacking Pioli which would count as one though) can save us in the fight for the 4th spot.
How the hell can anyone root for Juventus? Even out of spite? That just seems crazy to me…
When you have to choose from Inter & Juve, it’s easy. WTF would ever support Inter??????
How much more would we get owned if it wasn’t for amazing saves by Mike and terrible finishing from CDK and others?
The idea that Milan might not be willing to pay Maignan is mind boggling 😄
Typical textor style. Selling top players like Olympique Lyon
It’s the moneyball system mate, it’s a race to the bottom. The minute someone gets to the top of their game and they want parity in salary, we pretend at playing hardball so they go. At least two of Mike, Leao and Theo will be gone this summer. We show no signs of improvement. Why would they stick around? Unless we get a big name coach in for next season we will be very lucky to keep those three.
I also got criticised for saying that this current midfield was worse than 3 years ago and the Pioli and Redbird fan boys had a pop. Apparently Krunic now being a starter when 3 years ago he was a backup is a forward step….none of our current midfield are particularly bad, but none except Bennacer are right. Musah is young, Reijnders I think has peaked, is he going to improve? RLC has talent but I don’t think he’s Milan class in the truest sense. That said under Pioli is it fair to judge any of them?
Haven’t seen Boulden here much recently…..
Our brotha from anotha league motha, ManSh*t also lost 0-3, is it bc of coach or the players
Manchester United’s problem since Sir Alex left has always been top owners and management. They’re a poorly run club.. Hoping we don’t turn into that.
They double and Triple teamed Pulisic, Impressive that he got an Assist rly.
-The field looked Cold and the balls looked Waterlogged, some heavy shots from both teams. Midfield needs to score goals. Chuk is really slow.
-Why wasnt Aldi wearing Shinpads when he got fouled and took 7 mins out of the game.
Putting Theo as CB is like playing young Gareth Bale as CB. Nobody in their right mind would do that. Unless you are Pioli the megamind
At least it wasn’t a 5-1 like bayern did
Nah nah I don’t want to hear it now. At the start of the season when pulisic was starting over Chuk people was like Chuk should start or when Adli wasn’t playing people was campaigning for him. Don’t bash those players now cause it was pioli don’t know what he doing and that he should play them. Again I’ll say, Adli is a good player, he just isn’t built for the Italian way of football. Adli can’t defend and for his role in the midfield it is required and as for Chuk he is just a very raw young player that need a lot of refining in order to show what he can do. He needs the most time. I have a serious question, who is Milan leader on the pitch cause it seem like everytime something bad happens or we concede everyone loses confidence and drop their head. Milan plays so scared at time afraid to make a mistake, pioli done got bullied into scraping his tactics from the beginning of the season that now Milan have not identity. Milan went from playing attacking football to to conservative football. Aside from the inter game we was playing great 🙄
Time to move on frim Pioli and strip Calabria for captaincy
Well well well hahaa. Its almost like knowing and watching a train wreck happen waaay before it does. Didn’t I say game would be lost in the midfield? Atalanta seems like they played a 361 at times. They were going to pack the midfield and what do we do? Simply ignore that and continued with 3v5 in midfield lol. Our midfield was overrun simply by quantity smh. This should be simple coaching. Heck, Inter has the same formation and we always get overrun by a midfield 5 or 6.
Poor subs and in-game management by Pioli. Moving Musah out to RW left the already poorly defended midfield either another man short or if he dropped back, left us with no right wing. He had no courage to play players in their positions and it will cost him. Gasp made subs suitable to the functionality of his system. There’s a difference there.
Anyways for the individual players:
Is it me or is it easy to defend chuk? Ruggieri and Scalvini were owning him easily. Smh.
Reinjders to me is doing the same thing as Krunic as a DM. He was targeted and he’s no 6 is he? Got dispossessed easily and what do u know…back passed alot lol …..the same thing people complained about Krunic doing but fail to realize u have to do it in that role and it’s very very necessary at times (or.maybe ppl here don’t actually play football). Hope y’all have that same energy for him. I was going to say also he needs to take more long shots but that one shot that went into row triple Z was atrocious. At Akmar he had way better skill in that department. Don’t know where it went.
While Puli is quality he drifts out of games for large stretches. RLC needs to be more consistent. Apart from one show of strength in the first half, didn’t see much after. Ok he won the corner for the goal I suppose. Other than that. …🤷♂️. So far we’ve been giving him a pass but more hated figures are occupying the spotlight. Once said player is gone, we’ll easily switch to him.
Oh Calabria lol. How long have you been playing in Serie A?
Adli loves trying to foul inside the box doesn’t he? But hey “he can distribute” so it’s fine. When I saw that sub I immediately thought our already soft centre of the midfield became softer..You guys gonna learn. Btw what was he doing on the goal? Nice defending /s
Y’all also gonna learn why Krunic benched Bennacer last season lol 😂😂😂 y’all gonna learn reaaaal quick. Benny was lucky to not get a red too. Ref was generous on the second foul (same intensity as Calabria’s second yellow too). Don’t get me wrong, I love Benny. But to keep it balanced, Koops needed to get a red for that high studs foul on Theo. It should have been reviewed.
And to our director-fireable signing who plays for the other team. What can I say lol 😂 CDK missed shot acc to the commentator sums up his time at Milan. And then the non foul on Theo only to shoot when he should have passed 🤦♂️. At first I thought maybe that sums it up but then I thought those are two good chances and most of Atalanta’s most dangerous moments he was involved in and it changed my perspective. At least he’s involved in the play and is doing the right things to get into dangerous spots….and then he assisted lol as the football gods would like to have it
And then wrecked havoc down the left in the second half contributing to Calabria’s eventual dismissal lol (and in some ways the victory as the one man short proved telling ) The stuff of legends!
“But to keep it balanced, Koops needed to get a red for that high studs foul on Theo. It should have been reviewed.”
True. I said it already after 6 minutes that the referee was 100% garbage and doesn’t understand anything about the game. I was right. Awful, awful whistling. And if we’re being honest, Calabria did get the ball on his second yellow but how this “referee” whistled it wasn’t a surprise.
I’m not blaming the ref for anything but how on Earth 90% of the refs in Italy are garbage? They should clone Collina and wait 30 years to get those clones in action.
I believe the smart couch “Pioli” asked the player to make it an easy win, to prepare a big game for New Castle. I think he screwed up the first game and not strange if he will screw up the other game.
His Problem is that he doesn’t study his opponent carefully and prepare working plan.
Watching Inter, they play at a completely different level, a level we will never reach with Pioli.
I believe management needs to bring back Maldini and give him the fund to appoint a high class couch.
With this loser, young players are not improving, players are running like idiots in the field. I noticed that the team does not know how to reach the goal, unlike Inter, its very easy for them to reach the goal and score.
Add to this, the management of player rotation which is poorly done at Milan.
I advise the milanesta to forget about this season. The management screwed it up when the fired Maldini which was holding the team together.
They need a long time to recover from this disaster.
Nah some fans think the directors who got fired where the problems plaguing Ac Milan. So bringing them back is a no-go.
“Watching Inter, they play at a completely different level, a level we will never reach with Pioli.”
Comparing us to Inter is unfair. Their squad is 100x better than ours. They have depth. Pretty much all of their starting players are players so good they raise the level of their teammates. And ours? None of them do. There’s not a single player in Milan that makes his teammates next to them look or play better. None. Depth? LOL. Sure, sure…
And then there’s the tactics. And coach. Milan lack both. End of discussion even before it began. How about the transfer policy? Everyone Inter “buy” are ready. Acerbi, Frattesi, even Thuram. And Milan? LOL. We’ve discussed this before too.
If milan has problems scoring and needs a new st why do we keep scoring goals?
Because some people think that by buying a new striker we suddenly start creating chances out of nowhere and score 4-5 goal per match.
Some of us have been saying for quite some time now that even if Milan had Haaland as the striker he would struggle to score +10 goals because the lack of service. How many chances did Milan create yesterday? One? Two?
Agree. We can’t create anything from the middle or buildup play, just run on the wings and hope something happens. Even when we had an actual am ( diaz that is doing well at madrid) we struggled for most of the games. Thats pioli. Lack of creating game in game out is very irritating and kind says a lot about pur positioning at the end of the season.
Any one watching Tottenham ??? A CAPTAIN LEADS by example !!!!!!!!!!!