Horrible pressing and lack of effort: Tactical analysis of AC Milan 1-3 Liverpool | OneFootball

AC Milan hosted Liverpool at the San Siro for the 2024-25 Champions League opener. Despite taking the lead earlier on, what followed was sheer domination with the Reds probing that the Ropssoneri are still from from the elite clubs.

Indeed, several things went wrong for Paulo Fonseca’s men and the manager now finds himself in the crosshairs ahead of the derby on Saturday. Below is our tactical analysis of the different playing styles and the issues Milan experienced against Liverpool…

Milan’s first goal

Milan’s first goal came as a result of Liverpool’s high press. With Tsimikas pushing high up it created gaps behind him and this gap was exploited when Mike played a long ball and Calabria’s quick flick-on and Morata’s quick release of the ball meant space opened up for Pulisic.

Liverpool pressing

Liverpool, just like Milan, pressed in a 4-2-4. The pressing trigger was Tomori and whenever the ball was passed to him, Liverpool would swarm him to recover the ball. Gakpo and Salah cut off the passes to the full-backs, while Jota and Szoboszlai pressed the two centre-backs.

Milan’s defensive issues

In turn, Milan’s pressing was horrible. You can see how Van-Dijk slips a ball between Morata and Reijnders so easily.

There is such a wide gap between the two sets of defenders that Alexander-Arnold easily slips a through ball between the defenders.

Lastly, when you play against a top European team like Liverpool, it is essential that you defend well and give them as little space as possible. You can see how Leao does not close Alexander-Arnold down in time and Theo loses Sala. With simple one-touch passes, Salah then almost scores after turning Pavlovic.

Furthermore, the fact that Calabria was getting beaten easily in 1v1a and foot races vs Gakpo wasn’t helping Milan’s defensive cause.

Static all over

Slot gave Liverpool players the freedom to move around in attack to scatter our markers. However, when Liverpool played their tight marking in defence, no Milan player made an effort to move and collect the ball from the centre-backs.

Wastefulness

Coaches like Mourinho and Allegri are clearly the opposite of Pep’s idea of possession. They don’t think possession is important but instead, they focus on what you do with it. Decisiveness is important. Here we can see how Pulisic was through on goal and he didn’t get the pass.

In this sequence, Reijnders played beautifully between the lines but wasted the chances even though Leao and Theo were unmarked.

Liverpool’s first goal

Liverpool’s second goal

Lack of effort

Lastly, I’m very disappointed that we went down without a fight. You could see how Liverpool were first to both the first and second balls, while Milan weren’t even trying. Salah clearly outmuscled Theo in the clip below and almost slipped Jota on.