Milan went ahead much of 2020 sailing through calm waters of the seas only for 2021 to come with turbulence and a threat to rock the boat and ultimately sink Milan. Pioli post-lockdown had created an enigmatic Milan which wove through opposition defenses and rarely succumbed to its opponents. However within the space of 45 days Milan have lost 3 games, being completely outplayed in 2 of these games while the Juventus game can be counted as a let off since Milan played without 7 of their main contributors.
So what are the chinks in Milan’s armor? How can they be rectified? Here is a prognosis of Milan’s issues.
RIGHT WING CREATIVITY
Starting off with the most obvious one, Milan’s dead right-wing has been a cause for concern for Milanista’s for over a year, but with Milan scoring almost 2 per game the problem did not blow up until Milan’s last few run of games.
With this pass-map of Milan first 14 games it is quite clear that Milan’s creative outlet on the right comes from Calabria and that Saelemaekers or Samu Castillejo does not provide anything much other than a passing option in the final third of the opposition half. While Saelemaekers does track back and cover Calabria if Milan lose the ball and the opposition counter-attack and contribute to pressing his creativity is not up to the standards of a modern creative right winger.
Another disturbing trend that popped up during the Atlanta match was how Atalanta were quite comfortable to leave Samu Castillejo unmarked while they were aggressively marking Milan’s other 2 front players. This trend popped up as Atlanta didn’t consider Samu an important threat.
Possible Solution: The only possible solution, in my opinion, would be to dip Milan’s hand in the transfer market come the summer. Milan have been linked to the likes of Florian Thauvin from Marseille and it’s time for Milan to finally address the issue that has been quite a gangrenous limb in Milan’s attack.
LEFT HALF SPACE
With the role of full back’s in modern football being redefined inducing full-backs to attack more due to their agility and physicality it has required coaches to re-adjust their tactics to make up for defensive shape and numbers at the back. Liverpool and Bayern have their best defenders push up and cover the space vacated by the left back. Milan until now do not have a clear plan and with Romagnoli not comfortable pushing to maintain a high line it creates a temporary space called has a half space.
The half space created on the flank has been duly noted and identified by team to create chance and score by teams. Juve scored 3 goals from this left half space, Illicic wreaked havoc from the left half space tormenting Kessie, even Crotone took advantage of this half-space to create chances taking the most amount of touches in Milan’s final third in this half space. Teams have started to identify this weak spot and started to align their chance creation tactics accordingly.
Possible Solution: 2 possible solutions for this conundrum. The first one would be to have Alessio push up and maintain a high line which would mean he could be beaten more as he is not the fastest defender and struggles in 1v1’s. The second conundrum would be for Theo to be a defensive full back and maintain shape but that would mean that Milan sacrifice the attacking impetus Theo provides.
THE DOUBLE PIVOT
Milan under Pioli have been using a double pivot since lockdown. The Double pivot brings defensive stability, hacks down opposition counters and allows Theo and Calabria to join the attack. With some individual brilliance of Bennacer or Tonali the double pivot helps in facilitating build up play from the back.
Pioli encourages his double pivot to stay very close to each other to facilitate pressing and not allow opponents to progress centrally. This comes both as a blessing and a curse as teams exploit this trait of the pivot. When Kessie and Bennacer press simuntaneously it creates a space between the last line of defense and the midfield. Intelligent teams with good attackers have been able to exploit this space by placing their attackers between the lines and have a creative player pick out a pass to find them. In Serie A this crack has not appeared much because teams in Serie A generally tend to sit back but against more attacking teams in the Europa League including against Bodo Glimt these mistakes tend to creep into Milan’s game.
Possible Solution: Milan need to have their last line of defense to push up and be compact like in the days of Arrigo Sacchi where Milan’s lines had no more distance of 15 meters between them. But playing a high line would be suidical given how Milan’s Center-back’s aside Tomori are not the quickest and would not be able to catch up to a fast striker or winger breaking through their line of defense.
BUILDING OUT FROM THE BACK
A common practice for teams in modern football is to pass the ball out from the back and build fluid attacks. However recently teams have figured out Milan’s pattern of play; Have Kjaer and Alessio spread to the half space with either of Theo or Calabria pushing up with Bennacer or Tonali dropping off to form passing triangles with the Center back and then farm it our wide to Theo or Calabria who would carry the ball forward.
Atalanta, a team that employs intense man-oriented pressing broke Milan’s passing pattern and on that fateful day at San Siro outclassed Milan 3-0. A similar tactic was employed by Vincenzo Italiano with his Spezia team which stifled Milan’s passing by covering all of their passing options and blocking the center. Spezia however employed a more physical press often pressing in triangles targeting Milan’s double pivot. When Milan tried to be more direct towards Zlatan, Zlatan was doubled down by Atalanta/Spezia by having 2 phsyical center-back’s press him.
Against Spezia what was even more painful to watch was how Hakan Calhanoglu was limited in making backpasses with the intense high press employed. Hakan’s lack of press resistance made sure that there is no link betweem defence to attack.
Possible Solution: A possible solution for breaking this man oriented pressing of Atalanta can be found in how Liverpool defeated Atalanta 5-0 at the Bergamo. A map of how to build out from the back can be drawn as shown below (thanks to @TyLevinsohn)
Atlanta employ a 5 man midfield with 2 wingbacks, 2 central midfielders and a trequartista. It gives Atalanta the ability for a central overload and physically dominate the midfield which Pioli tried to negate by playing Meite. Milan need more creative wingers and have them pin Atalanta’s wingbacks giving room for Milan’s full backs to push up and have Milan’s Center back’s split. Milan need Hakan to take up the space between the opponents midfield and last line of defense, often interchange positions with Ibrahimovic.
Against Spezia’s more physical press Milan was too lethargic and casual while moving the ball and the backline was too cluttered to each other making it static and having no movements. The lack of Hakan’s press resistance made it harder for Milan to move the ball.
CORNER-KICKS
A thorn in Milan’s side since long the monster popped up its ugly head against Red Star when Milan conceded a last min goal to make it 2-2. Milan have conceded a majority of its goal in the first half of the season through set pieces and it doesn’t look like Milan has heard the last of it.
Milan look to have been employing a mix of Zonal marking and man marking having a tall player like Zlatan as its first line of defense. Milan’s lack of tall players except Zlatan and Kjaer makes it extremely difficult for Milan to out jump their opponents.
Possible Solution: The most obvious solution would be that Milan need taller players to better deal with corner kicks. Tactically Pioli needs to find the right balance with Zonal and man marking as there seems to be a bit of confusion in the box
LACK OF A CREATIVE FORCE AND BALL HOLDING MIDFIELDERS
Back in the day of Ancelotti’s Milan, Milan had a very elite level of players that won trophies after trophies. But what made Milan tick in Acelotti’s Milan was their elite midfield diamond in the form of Pirlo, Seedorf, Gattuso and Kaka. Pirlo would be tasked with bringing the ball out from the back, Kaka would find space between the lines and if pressed will dribble out of tight spots to either slide in a through ball or score himself.
Now they don’t make players like Kaka or Seedorf or Pirlo in world football anymore but it is obvious Milan lack players who can be orchestrate the play from midfield and find space between the lines. In the last few games Milan’s chance creation has largely been down to crosses or from individual piece of brilliance. Milan’s main attacing threat comes from their full backs Calabria or Theo or from Rafael Leao while Hakan has been largely underwhelming. While Kessie is seen as the more physical Defensive midfielder Tonali and Bennacer is seen as the more of the deep lying playmaker.
However if they are pressed as seen against Spezia and Atalanta they succumb and lose their rhythm especially Tonali since he is not used to playing in a double pivot and is more comfortable playing off with 2 midfielders flanking him and has reduced physical work rate. This creates a vaccum between the double pivot and the attack and does not favor when Milan want to transition from defense to attack. What makes it more difficult is that Hakan is not press resistant and if he is marked he does not have the technical skills with the ball to dribble the ball and find the space between the lines much like how a player like Kaka could do.
Milan’s wingers are technically more of runners or athletes who are comfortable of travelling with the ball and finding space and crossing but in terms of picking out passes or creating chances to break defenses they are yet to show their creative ideas other than spam crosses in the box for Ibrahimovic to head in.
Possible Solution: Possible solution? Get better players. But for the moment I think Milan could consider a formation change to a 4-4-2 or a 4-3-1-2 to better utilize Tonali who looks extremely uncomfortable playing in the double pivot. As for Hakan, playing in a 3 man midfield would make him more comfortable playing away from the press and a midfield 3 would need him to start from deeper positions and away from the clutter.
The Milan Blog 