GdS: How Milan have kept scoring goals despite ‘paradoxical’ striker situation | OneFootball

One of the perplexing things about AC Milan’s season has been how the team have continued to score goals in bunches without having a prolific striker.

As La Gazzetta dello Sport write, Milan’s moment is also quite paradoxical. Against Udinese they scored four times without any contribution from the centre-forwards: goals by Leao, Pavlovic, Theo, Reijnders completed the rout.

Broadening the picture, Milan has scored in 11 consecutive games, despite their strikers having scored no more than 12 goals in total in Serie A. Morata has five, Abraham three, Jovic two and Gimenez two. This is strange. Another oddity: the starting No.9 (Gimenez) has not actually started for a month.

The comparison between the strikers of the big teams is tough. Let’s take the strikers of Inter, Napoli and Atalanta, the best teams in the league. Retegui has scored 23 times and is in a league of his own, but all the clubs – except Milan – have a player in double figures.

Let’s look at the data per 90 minutes. The Milan players don’t even reach six touches in the area per 90 minutes (Morata 5.7, Abraham 5.16, Jovic 4.62, Gimenez 4.41), while Lookman is over 8, Thuram and Retegui are close to 7, Taremi and Arnautovic go over 6.

Looking at precision, the trend doesn’t improve. Abraham and Gimenez, Conceiçao’s theoretical first choices, have a conversion rate close to 10%: one goal every 10 shots. Arnautovic is at 44%, Retegui, Lukaku and Thuram (like Jovic) are close to 25%.

Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images

So how have Milan always scored since February? Tijjani Reijnders has scored 10 goals in the league and no other midfielder among the big teams has scored more than six. The Dutchman is going through a metamorphosis, as the stats show.

Compared to his first season a t Milan under Stefano Pioli his shots on target have more than tripled from 0.25 to 0.87 per game. Shots in the area have almost doubled: from 0.64 to 1.15. The conversion percentage has soared: from 10% to 23%.

There are obviously other reasons other than Reijnders. One: Jovic and Abraham are in a good moment. Two: Leao has recently found moments worthy of his reputation.

Three: Milan have much more fun attacking than defending, despite their coach’s DNA leading in the opposite direction. Four: they have a natural ability to find solutions when they have to come from behind.

They rarely close a game – or rather, a half – without conceding and creating a big goal opportunity. Milan are like that, take it or leave it, and the neutral public takes it because with this team on TV it’s always fun. The Milan fans don’t, they want more control.