Milan took on Monza at the San Siro which marked an emotional return for once Milan supremo Adriano Galliani and president Silvio Berlusconi. Milan wanted to continue their winning streak but had an eye on the mid-week clash against Zagreb.
Here is an analysis on the goals and numbers between Milan and Monza.
Brahim Diaz 1st goal
One of the prime things that Ariggo Sacchi focused on while instilling his pressing game is that his teams need to be compact and the difference between the first and last line of defense shouldn’t be more than 15 metres.
Monza, In the buildup, violated this sacred rule of Sacchi having a gap between the last line of defense and the middle line, which helped Diaz to drop in between the midfield and defense and Tatarusanu to pick him out. This was mostly done because Monza’s defenders are not the greatest in terms of recovery pace and we can see how explosive Rebic and Origi can be.
Brahim Diaz 2nd goal
Once Monza were down Monza had to push up in search of an equalizer. They tried to pin Milan to the touchline of whichever wing the ball was in play and the defenders unlike the last time pushed up to squeeze the gap between the lines. This time Origi used his pace to beat Caldirola and pick out Brahim who occupied the space between the CB and LCB in Monza’s 3-4-2-1
Origi’s 3rd goal
One of the biggest risks of playing a 3 at the back is that if not structured properly the formation’s biggest strength (defensive cover) can be your biggest weakness. Center-backs are not always the most agile and pitting them against wingers can be a real test of their 1v1 ability. So when Milan switched it from the left wing to the right wing, it put Messias on a 1v1 against Carboni. While Messias got the better of Carboni it meant that there was a huge gap in the half spaces between the LCB and the CB which Origi occupied before he unleashed his shot.
THE STATS
The pressing
A metric used to measure pressing is PPDA (Passes Per defensive Action). It measures how many passes an opposition makes before Milan makes a defensive action. The lower the PPDA the better. Milan’s PPDA was 11.1 which compared to last season’s PPDA of 8.86 is a clear indication of how weak Milan’s pressing against Monza was. And even further evidence showed that Milan only covered close to a 105km against Monza. Perhaps the fatigue has become a big factor with the extra tight schedule.
Overperforming the expected numbers
Statistics give us a fair view of the game but Milan vs Monza was a different game. Milan’s xG (1.31) against Monza’s (1.47) showed how Milan vastly overperformed despite not creating clear cut chance. For example Brahim Diaz’s 2nd goal only carried an xG of 0.10 but Milan scored 4 goals against an expected goal of 1.3. This is a good and bad sign. Milan overperforming on the expected shows how Milan are having very good individual quality but it shows Milan need to be creating more chances and be clinical about them.
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