CorSera: Quality trumps quantity – Napoli’s smash-and-grab compromises Milan’s season | OneFootball

AC Milan have been left licking their wounds and questioning what comes next (again) after a damaging defeat against Napoli last night.

Corriere della Sera (via MilanNews) this morning asks the question: ‘Quantity versus quality, who wins? In 90% of cases, always the latter’. This question partly encompasses yesterday’s match, where Milan may have had more possession, more shots on goal and more corners, but failed to score.

On October 30th we are talking about Milan’s title challenge being most likely over. Paulo Fonseca had to deal with several key absences – Theo Hernandez and Tijjani Reijnders above all – but Milan lacked precisely that quality that instead allowed Napoli to be clinical and seize the key moments in the game.

November is still early, there have been only nine games in Serie A and European competitions will have their unpredictable impact, but the truth is in the table. Milan are 11 points behind Napoli (with a game in hand) and have lost three times in the league already.

We are talking about a team where fragility continues to resurface. Yesterday evening against Antonio Conte’s side Milan may have played well, but what they generated in quantity was offset by the quality of the Neapolitans, and the result speaks for itself.

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The newspaper then adds a consideration on the selections: “In defence, three out of four are not the first choice, in the middle the decisive man in the Champions League was missing (Reijnders) and in attack they start without the best of the season, Pulisic, and the one who should be the best of all, Leao.”

Upon entering the field, the two wingers tried to make the difference, though what happened during the first 45 minutes not only compromised the match and the final result, but also the season for Milan in general.

The quality versus quantity discussion can also be extended to the summer, when Napoli decided to bring in a top coach on over double the salary of Fonseca, and spent €150m to help him put his stamp on the squad instantly.