In a midweek game against 20th placed S.P.A.L, Milan drew 2-2 in a game of extreme luck. Whether this draw will be decisive to Milan’s chances for Europe next season will be seen as Milan face Lazio, Juventus and Napoli in 3 consecutive games which could challenge their resilience and quality.Here are my thoughts and tactical analysis related to yesterday’s game.
1st Half
Milan played a more lineup often varying between 3-4-2-1 and 2-4-3-1 with Calabria pushing really high up from his original position. Milan chose to bring the ball out from the back through Alessio Romagnoli who had different option such as wide pass to Theo Hernandez or a Diagonal ball to Alexis Saelemaeckers and at time you could see paqueta (who had a free role) dropping deep to collect the ball and pass it to Hakan who occupied the half space created by Paqueta’s movement.
Spal on the other hand played a 4-4-2 out of posession. While in the ball they were quite content playing horizontal passes between the centre back which drew our players out of position inorder to pass and then played a quick vertical pass to either a striker dropping deep or a D’Alessandro who was free on S.P.A.L’s right wing.
Milan conceded a goal from a poorly defended corner in the 13 the minutes and this made Milan come out and be extra agressive to quickly tie the scores.
S.P.A.L’s second goal came courtesy of a worldie from Flocarri. Bennacer committed to an aerial dual with Dabo who won the header. While bennacer was pulled out of position it caused a half space which flocarri ran into and shot to score his goal. Petagna kept Gabbia busy but Floccari made his shot before Alessio could commit a challenge. A top class goal.
And then S.P.A.L’s D’Alessandro made a studs high challenge on Theo and was sent off. And S.P.A.L quickly dropped into a deep block and was happy to not keep posession and give it to Milan as they were clearly out of ideas.
An opening came via a Hakan Çalhanoglu goal When Rebic shifted outwide against a narrow S.P.A.L defence and crossed for Hakan to score but it was ruled out as Rebic was offside.
2nd Half
S.P.A.L set up in the second half typical of a lower table team trying to defend a lead. They sat into a deep block chose to play it narrow and concede posession without committing any player forward especially with a man down.
Milan countered the deep block with a change of their own by bringing on Leão for Calabria and shifting a 2 striker formation. Both strikers played close to the centre backs and tried to exploit the gaps between the centre back who got stretched at times. But S.P.A.L were resilient. With no pace and lack of technique Milan were forced to shoot from distance or crossing into the box.
I believe that Pioli missed a trick seeing that Milan were forced to play crossed into the box as they were not able to bypass the deep block, to bring in Milan’s recognised no.9 Zlatan whose height would have come to use when putting in crosses to head them in.
All in all Milan had 39 shots off which only 9 were on target. Yesterday’s performances were a stark reminder of how Milan have failed to break down teams that defend deep and lack quality to come up with alternatives when faced with a low block. A revolution under Ralf Rangnick seems inevitable if true
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