Strange roles and sources of frustration: Tactical analysis of AC Milan 0-0 Juventus | OneFootball

It would be fair to say that AC Milan and Juventus did not serve up a classic on Saturday night at San Siro as they played out a 0-0 draw.

It was not an entertaining spectacle by any means. It saw a Milan side who seemed to sacrifice all attacking firepower in making themselves more solid at the back face a Juventus team who were happy with a draw from minute one.

Milan didn’t even have a shot on target until the 95th minute, a rather tame Theo Hernandez header. The boos at full-time said it all as the fans made it clear that they are not happy with being nine points away from the Champions League places.

Below is a brief tactical analysis from what was not a good advert for Italian football and a game in which it was very hard to extract much of note.

Source of frustration

Juventus’ off the ball system was pretty clear to see: they would use a low block down and try to outnumber players in the wide areas, as we can see a 5v3 below.

There was some good horizontal pressing from the away side, something that we saw in Thiago Motta’s Bologna too.

With Conceicao, Savona and Locatelli all contributing for the Bianconeri, the plan was to isolate Leao as we can see in the instance below.

The Portuguese winger was clearly the main attacking threat for Milan, given Alvaro Morata drifted away from the area and Christian Pulisic didn’t start, meaning Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Yunus Musah completed the trident behind the Spaniard.

Milan’s mistakes

Milan’s structure in possession while playing out from the back was 2-4-2-2. The players maintained close distance to facilitate quick passing but nothing much came out of it. Why did they do that? There are multiple theories.

Youssouf Fofana had the ball in the situation below. In front of him there was a 3v2 situation but he still passes the ball forward and loses the ball quite easily. To his left Pulisic was making a good run and had he passed a 2v2 or even a 2v1 situation would have been given to Leao.

In one instance in the first half, Mike Maignan played a brilliant long ball to Emerson Royal, and somehow he was isolated. Juve were able to recover in numbers and there was not a single Milan player to help him out unless he fired an aimless ball into the middle.

The next example is one where Milan win the ball back and a quick pass is made to Morata, catching Juventus off guard. Leao was only marked by one player up field but instead of trying to find him, he lost the ball.

With the Bianconeri committing so many men to ensure that the play stayed in front of them, moments of transition like that simply have to be better capitalised upon, given Leao’s speed in the open field.

Team selection

We have previously spoken about Milan’s double pivot being outnumbered in other analyses. Bringing Loftus-Cheek back in was a change to counteract that, and it can be argued that it worked because below Milan were outnumbering Juve’s midfield 4v3.

Juve’s main threat came from their left side thanks to Cambiaso being an attacking full-back. Musah started as the right winger to help Emerson, yet Cambiaso and Yildiz still caused a fair bit of danger off the dribble.

Management concerns

We know that this Milan side lacks balance, because we saw in the Cagliari game that when the handbrake is taken off they are capable of conceding three goals to a side that had previously scored nine all season.

However, with his selection decisions and even his in-game management, Fonseca was not bold enough and seemed to be more worried about dropping one point than gaining two. Against a damaged Juventus team that only ever wanted a draw, there were some odd calls.

Tijjani Reijnders’ position in a 4-4-2 in the non-possession phase (a good part of the first half) did not allow him to show his quality between the lines, neither in the transition phase nor in regular possession.

Rafael Leao’s narrow position together with Alvaro Morata did not pay off. His best moments come when he is able to start wide and attack the area, getting in isolation with the opposition full-back/centre-back, and he was only able to do that once.

Morata meanwhile reverted to type, drifting away from the Juve box in order to try link up with his team-mates, without having any real meaningful touches nor creating anything.

Yunus Musah being played wide on the right was the most symbolic selection though: Fonseca was thinking about containing Juventus rather than magnifying Milan’s strengths.