Milan did it after 7 long seasons, they qualified to the Champions League, a trophy which has Milan’s name etched into history 7 glorious time each win sweeter than before. With this season considered as a sorts of Milan’s building block to return to the top rung of footballing giants it was important that Milan reach the Champions League for its financial and glory rewards.
Having completed Milan’s financial and Transfer market review in Part-1 of this review, we at SempreMilan open our tools to examine and identify Milan’s performance on the field.
WHAT MILAN GOT RIGHT
TACTICAL IDENTITY
Milan under Pioli as described by Pioli himself were a team that wanted to emulate Bayern Munich and he had his analysts study their style of play and emulate it albeit a base version of Bayern given how Bayern have some of the world’s best player and Milan are a project in evolution. For a large part of 2020 and towards last 3-4 games of the season the identity of Milan played a large part (whenever our players stayed fit) to qualifying for the Champions League. Pioli showed he could adapt to different situation when he threw his systemic principles and turned into defensive system to stifle Atalanta and win the game 2-0. Even when he had to deal with an injury crisis Pioli had the ability to pull a rabbit out of the hat (Verona 2-0, United 1-1).
PRESSING
The Pressing was/is an integral part of our system and Pioli, whenever we had a fully fit squad in their rhytmn, could press their team extremely well and win the ball and turn it into quick counters. A very good example was Milan’s goal against Lille in Milan’s 1-1 draw. Milan executed a perfected Horizontal Press and as soon as Tonali won the ball, released Rebic on the counter. Quite contrary to Bayern and Liverpool, Milan execute a more basic version of the press. Bayern and Liverpool engage in the Gegenpress which is the physical version of the press.
Although Milan’s pressing became extremely non exsistent thanks to their Injury crisis, they picked it up when they had most of their best players back in the last few games.
USE OF FULL BACKS
Theo Hernandez was 3rd choice Left back at Madrid but when he arrived he was top scorer for Milan’s 2020/21 for up until January before Rebic overtook him. Similarly Milan had a creative deficieny on the right wing which was temporarily plugged by Pioli by a resurgent Calabria. Seen as a plus valenza opportunity Calabria was backed by Maldini and he repaid the faith. Pioli often let his full back hunt in pairs especially against the less technical team who preferred to sit back and let the team in possession come on. Against better team the full backs would alternate depending on which flank the attack would be carried out.( Majority the attack was routed through Theo). Rebic would push infield to act as a second striker allowing Theo to overlap him and would bomb into the box or cross the ball into the box. Saelemaekers would do the same on the right, covering for Calabria in case of counter-attacks.
COUNTER-ATTACKS
An area Milan lacked severly in the last few season was counter-attacks. Limited with lack of pace, Milan could not capitalize on the opposition lack of disorganization. However this changed this season with Milan forced to change to a counter-attacking side in early 2021 due to injuries. Milan was able to score goals
WHAT MILAN CAN DO BETTER
INFUSE MORE CREATIVITY
A lack lusture number 10 in a 4-2-3-1 means that Milan suffered from a deficiency in creativity. It came to the fore whenever Milan played against teams who parked the bus and Milan were clueless crossing the ball into the box expecting someone to get on to the end of it. Milan need a more creative presence in the Attacking midfielder role.
RIGHT WING
Milan’s attack is extremely is lopsided. Their idea is to creative a numerical advantage on the left and then use it to create chances. The amount of chance from the right was very limited and this meant Milan was more dependent on the left. Of Course Milan are in the market for a Right Winger but this is one of the most important positions to be addressed.
INJURIES
A situation that derailed Milan’s Scudetto challenge was injuries. With Ibrahimovic and Bennacer missing right about 60% of the season and Tonali and Leao not ready to take over Pioli was left to scrap the bottom of pit for ideas and in one particular game in the Europa League he was forced to field Samu Castillejo as a false 9. Milan and in particular chief medic Osti has to work out a clear introspection as to why these injuries have happened and prevent it in the 2021/22 season.
CONCLUSION
A successful season but one that now has to be built upon. Milan and now in particular Maldini has work to do. Milan seem to have already led the Italian transfer market getting maximum business done signing Maignan and confirming Tonali and Tomori while deals for Diaz and Giroud are set to be completed in the coming weeks. Hopefully Milan are able to iron out their mistakes this season and aim higher than what they achieved this season and prove that this season was no one-off.
The Milan Blog 