AC Milan 1-3 Liverpool: Five things we learned – going backwards since 2022

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·18. September 2024

AC Milan 1-3 Liverpool: Five things we learned – going backwards since 2022

AC Milan started their Champions League campaign with a 3-1 loss to Liverpool and were totally outplayed, thus further putting pressure on Paulo Fonseca to turn things around quickly.

The game actually started in the best possible way for Milan as they opened up the scoring just three minutes in through Christian Pulisic who combined well with Alvaro Morata and buried a low shot inside the far post.

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Unfortunately it was all downhill from there on as Liverpool took the initiative and ended up scoring through Ibrahima Konate, Virgil van Dijk and Dominik Szoboszlai to earn a 3-1 win that was actually quite generous in the Rossoneri’s favour.

This loss further deepens the worries at Milan and it won’t be long until the we can say it is a full-blown crisis with the derby coming next which can further worsen the situation. Here are five things we observed during the Liverpool loss…

1. Tactics let Milan down

The first two Liverpool goals were both from set pieces where no Milan player seemingly marked Konate or Van Dijk which sounds bizarre given the threat they are on set-pieces.

That’s mainly because of the way Fonseca prefers to defend using zonal marking, but given the opposition and their strength from dead balls one would think that an alternative tactic would’ve been used. What was even worse was that after conceding the first goal, Milan did not react and managed to let a second identical goal in.

Then we get to all the sloppiness at the back which we can’t solely address to tactics, but we could make the case that the coach instructed the players to try and keep the ball playing it from the back instead of clearing away from Milan’s half.

If that is the case both the carelessness of the players and the instructions of the coach need adjusting since that seemingly didn’t work at the beginning of the game and failed to work as they match went on,

Finally, the lack of urgency with which Milan played meant they were hardly going to trouble Liverpool and that was pretty much the case excluding a few nice combinations. Throughout the 90 minutes we saw a slow Milan that couldn’t move the ball quick enough, thus struggling to find open space.

Given it’s not a one-off but rather a constant since the start of the season Fonseca has less and less time to turn the ship around and against Inter on the weekend it won’t be much easier either.

2. Lack of leadership critical

The leadership – or the lack thereof – really let Milan down on the night. We start with the captain Davide Calabria, who barely put a foot right on the right flank and was also at fault for the foul that led to the equaliser.

Then on the other flank Theo Hernandez and Rafael Leao also disappointed. Theo was occupied for most of the time as he had a lot of defensive duties, given the opposition, and he did fairly well but not brilliant since Mo Salah managed to hit the crossbar twice. The Frenchman was much better compared to Calabria on the right, still.

Leao on the other hand was a ghost excluding a couple of moments where he used his speed, one of which was the 96th minute. For the majority of the game Trent seemed to know exactly what the Portuguese was going to try to do and prevented it from happening rather easily.

The winger was also isolated for big parts of the game and instead of trying to get on the ball, move around switching position he just stayed out of the game.

The rest of the squad can also be put under scrutiny excluding only one or two, but the reality is that Milan lacks and has been lacking a true leader for a while now and will continue to struggle in games like the one against Liverpool if someone doesn’t step up in tough situations.

3. Striker duo not enough

Morata put in a real shift, showing great work rate and desire to make things happen, and even picked up the assist for Pulisic’s goal after a lovely one-touch pass to sharpen the attack.

Then in the second half when Abraham came on, he too caused some trouble and looked very lively with his pace and dribbling which is a continuation of his display against Venezia.

Unfortunately for the pair they didn’t have a lot to go off as their team-mates struggled to combine with them, and despite them moving around and looking for the ball it just wasn’t enough.

It is, however, a positive seeing Milan have not one but two such strikers and if the situation behind them improves then there are guaranteed goals for both of them.

4. One positive at the back

Fikayo Tomori had several crucial challenges, and even if he could’ve done better on the first goal it’s not fair to put the blame fully on him. The fact of the matter is that he was the best out of the bunch defensively and prevented the scoresheet from looking even worse.

We already mentioned Calabria and Theo, but Strahinja Pavlovic was another that struggled on the night and had his worst game in red in black thus far. He had lots of misplaced passes that led to dangerous situations and the Serbian pretty much gifted the third goal to Liverpool after one such sloppy pass.

It also might be a tad harsh to blame him for the set piece goals as it’s a collective and tactical mistakes, but realistically if you’re the one player above 1.90m you should have your eyes on Van Dijk and Konate and maybe take initiative to challenge them despite the tactics.

In any case were are talking about a player who just joined a big club and lacks the experience still and we can only blame the management for not bringing in experience, really.

5. Going backwards since 2022

After Milan won the Scudetto back in 2022 it seems that they have gone repeatedly backwards instead of forward. The management sold Franck Kessie and Sandro Tonali with no proper replacement coming in and instead they have opted for bargains on the markets and young players who could appreciate in price.

This summer, Milan arguably improved the squad but they decided to not spend big on a coach and went with Fonseca when the likes of Antonio Conte and Thiago Motta were available, for example, who offer more guarantees in Italy.

Now that Milan (on paper) have a fairly good squad they are still struggling to perform. One could argue that the squad isn’t as good even though some of the new signing look promising given that in the defensive department Milan sold Pierre Kalulu who now starts for a very strong looking Juventus side. The replacement? Emerson Royal, who is struggling to even compete with Calabria at this point.

The management have also failed to bring a experienced centre-back when Mats Hummels was up for grab coming of a season where he led Dortmund the a Champions League final.

Whilst the financials look great, Milan are failing to make the leap forward for a couple of seasons now highlighting the ambitions, or lack of rather of the current management and we can’t put all of the blame on the players or the coach.