Pressing traps and the 2-5-3: Tactical analysis of AC Milan 3-0 Empoli | OneFootball

AC Milan got back to winning ways in Serie A on Saturday evening as they comfortably beat Empoli 3-0 in the fog at San Siro.

The head coach Paulo Fonseca chose to make six alterations to the starting line-up with three of the back four changing. Emerson Royal, Malick Thiaw and Matteo Gabbia came in, while Yunus Musah started on the right, with Rafael Leao on the left and Alvaro Morata leading the attack.

The scoring was opened by Alvaro Morata who broke his run of two months in the league without a goal, firing in after a blocked shot fell into his path inside the penalty area.

A second came just before the break, with Tijjani Reijnders also pouncing on a loose ball in the area to spin and drill home. In the second half he doubled his tally, using Rafael Leao’s run well and rolling it in from 18 yards.

It was a job well done for Fonseca’s side given the pressure they were under coming into the game to not only win, but to be a bit more convincing at both ends. Below is a tactical analysis of the game courtesy of our writer Rohit Rajeev.

The 2-5-3

Milan knew that this game depended on them breaking down an Empoli side that play with three centre-backs, therefore a five-man defence when not in possession.

Therefore, Fonseca decided to embrace a a high-risk high-reward game, with a rest defence of just two players back. This allowed more players to get forward and to try break down the low block.

Pressing traps

Milan’s opener came courtesy of a swiftly and efficiently executed pressing move. As you can see below, the Rossoneri used a man-marking scheme higher up the pitch leaving Mattia Viti alone.

While Empoli were passing out from the back, Pulisic left his man and pressed Viti directly. This meant that Pezzella was left open momentarily.

This was a pressing trap and once Milan executed the press and won the ball back and quickly moved it vertically, all that was missing was the finish.

Third-man combinations

Under Fonseca, Milan have used third-man combinations way more than under Stefano Pioli so far. What is it? As the name implies, it is one-touch passing between three players to open up the defence, given the advantage of extra passing angles.

Set-piece analysis

Milan’s corners were very disappointing to say the least. There was a pattern with Pulisic targeting the far post and Theo targeting the near post.

We remain unaware as to if this was due to some weakness spotted by Milan’s analysts but to see Theo attempting to do the same thing and expecting different results was challenging to watch.

What has given Milan success this season is actually the opposite: Pulisic whipping them in towards the near post with his right foot to target a crowd of bodies.

Empoli’s structure

The away side played a 5-2-3 formation out of possession and tried to overload the wide areas with their wing-back, near side centre-back and the near side mezzala.

When Milan would try to play out from the back then they would use a man-oriented pressing like most teams in Italy and try to block Milan’s passing lane from back to front.

Defensive issues

It doesn’t take a world class head coach to realise that Milan’s issues at the back this season have been largely due to being caught in transition, i.e. losing the ball and suffering from counter-attacks.

In the situation below you can see Matteo Gabbia has pushed forward to catch Pellegri or Colombo off guard and to try a recovery very high up the pitch, but he misses and the striker turns him.

There is a significant gap between Gabbia and Malick Thiaw here and this gives Empoli a chance to counter with numbers and in full speed.

Now, the question is: should Gabbia push up aggressively and with that should Thiaw maintain the high line? Or should Gabbia have maintained the zonal marking and stayed back?

Either way, the answer is that Milan always seem to play high-risk, even in very manageable game situations. The Rossoneri were 1-0 up and could afford to make Empoli ask questions of them, and yet – like against Slovan Bratislava – the opponent found space to gallop into.