Ac Milan went away to Torino in what was always going to be a very difficult trip to Grande Torino stadium. Milan came out with their 2nd loss of the league after Torino scored 2 goals in the first half. Here are a few points from the match
1. Best Pressing team in the Division
While Milan identify as a team that like to press their opponents, the team that have the most intense press in the 21/22 season was Torino as per website Understat. Using PPDA as a metric Torino allowed least amount of passes for their opponents, before a defensive action. Juric for that purpouse, deserves a lot of credit.
2. Really good off the ball structure
One of the prime tactical features of Juric is his off the ball structure. It means that when Torino do not have the ball they have a sound defensive structure that allows them to press and win the ball back quickly. It was one of the prime features of Tuchel’s reign at Chelsea before he got sacked. And for this Juric, both at Verona and now at Torino, uses a 3-4-2-1 giving him dominance in the central areas
Higher up the pitch Juric uses man to man marking and block passing options to the double pivot often luring Pobega into their pressing traps and having him overpwoered using 2v1’s and forcing him to take decisions quickly.
3. Higher xG but missed chances
Torino had an xG of 0.87 and Milan had an xG of 1.11. what does it mean ? It means that Torino scored their goals from more difficult chances than the ones Milan created.
Just like the Verona game, when Milan were 1-0 up, Giroud failed to close the game off a thorough ball from Brahim Diaz and Milan had to go through waves and waves of Verona attacks before Tonali scoring the winner.
Fate (or Torino) wasn’t just as kind with Torino scoring 2 goals after Leao missed 2 easy chances put to him on a plate to Diaz.
The Milan Blog 