With a chance to extend Milan’s lead over Inter to 4 points and put pressure on a team that was flying high as long as 1 month ago, Milan travelled to Salerno with coach Davide Nicola still finding his way around Salernitana’s optimal set up
Milan drew 2-2 thanks to a wild strike from Rebic but otherwise put up a very poor display in a week no team in the top 5 league positions won their games. Here is a dive into some of the tactical events from our game in Salerno.
1.POOR DECISION MAKING
That pass from Rebic has already flooded social media but that wasn’t the only mistake that Milan made all night. In multiple situations whenever a Milan player had the ball and was being pressed by Salernitana players, instead of passing to a teammate who is unmarked and available the player would try to dribble past his opponent and progress the play. This meant that Milan lost the ball once too many times
2.VERY LESS INVOVLEMENT FROM MIDFIELD
Despite playing their best side especially in the double pivot Milan barely used their midfielders to build the ball through the center and tried to build up through their inverted full backs. This meant Milan’s build up was usually predictable.
3.CLEVER SEQUENCE OF MOVEMENTS FOR FIRST GOAL
Milan’s first goal came as a sequence of clever movements from Giroud, Leao and Diaz successfully pulling out Salernitana’s LWB and LCB out of position. This gave space for Giroud to occupy and he pulled Fazio out of his space for Messias to occupy and receive the pass from Theo.
4.SET PIECES
Milan had 7 corner kicks in Total and even more free kicks but could not create a chance from set piece once again. Milan’s frailties from set-pieces are becoming more and more of a worrying factor not only due to poor quality of deliveries and tactics but also with positions taken within the box.
5.INTENSITY
Finally Milan’s intensity is something that has to be questioned once again. As per the official record Milan were out-run and out-pace in the game by Salernitana. With no mid-week games or injury crisis, one has to wonder why Milan has had such a drop in intensity.
The Milan Blog 