In an early kickoff, Milan took on Spezia at La Spezia 3 days before their return to the Champions League at San Siro to take on Atletico Madrid. Spezia came on the back of a narrow defeat to Juventus as Thiago Motta has shown to be promising coach and Milan had a few injuries and niggles to contend. The good news was that Giroud was back in the starting XI while Daniel Maldini made his first ever start for Milan in Serie A at the age of 19. Here are a few points from the game at La Spezia.
- Fatigue a real concern
Milan have a heavy schedule and play almost every 3 days. They have played 3 games in the space of 6 days and with injuries piling up Pioli has very little to rotate with. This means that Milan have to keep their intensity low and win with minimal efforts in order to conserve energy in the long run. And this can be seen in the Atheltic data. Milan only covered 97 kilometres against Spezia while they covered 103 km against Lazio and 105 kilometres against Juventus. It clearly shows a drop in fitness levels.
- Spezia and their high press
Spezia under Motta did not play like normal low-tier teams. Instead they pressed Milan high up the pitch using man-oriented pressing and force Milan defenders to make a mistake.
- Pioli countering the high press
Pioli countered this by having his Center split far and wide and having Tonali play as the 3rd Center back while bennacer sat back as a creative midfielder while Kessie, Saelemaekers, Theo, Leao and Kalulu/Calabria pushed up. Pioli gave Saelemaekers quite a free role where he would drift into the center from the right often being a passing option to help make the transition from defense to offense.
- The leao effect
While Leao did not contribute directly towards any of the goals his ability to beat defenders and take them out of the game is important in setting up chances. For Milan’s first goal Leao’s move to beat his marker and pull his opponent out of position before he could prevent leao’s pass to Kalulu gives us a fair idea as to why Pioli still has faith in the youngster
- The deadly counter attack
In a prelude to what we can expect from Simeone’s Atleti in San Siro on Tuesday evening, Milan maintained a high line against Spezia which was breached quite a few times only for Tomori’s or kalulu’s pace to save the day. Against atletico this may not be the case as the attackers in Madrid are far more gifted physically and mentally to take their chances and this would be something Pioli would need to work on.
Another chance creation technique Spezia used was to create 2v1 on the wings wih Bastoni and Gyasi to create crossing situation. One such situation is the one that led to the goal while the other chance ended up with Maggiore missing a sitter
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