Nicola praises Cagliari following Milan draw after ‘three things’ made it difficult | OneFootball

Davide Nicola was understandably quite happy with his Cagliari side’s performance against AC Milan, as they escaped from San Siro with a draw.

The stage was nicely set for Milan as they returned home from their Supercoppa Italiana triumph in Saudi Arabia, with top four rivals Lazio and Juventus having already dropped points earlier in the round.

In the build-up to the game, Sergio Conceicao was very vocal about the need to move on from the trophy win in Riyadh and instead focus on putting together a run of wins in Serie A, to begin climbing the table.

If that was an admission of his concern, it came to fruition last night as Milan failed to beat a team inside the bottom three yet again. Alvaro Morata opened the scoring, but Zortea’s equaliser earned Cagliari a share of the spoils.

Nicola spoke after the full-time whistle in the press conference room at San Siro to assess the game, and his comments were relayed by MilanNews.

Cagliari knew how to react after going a goal behind, was it their most courageous performance?

“I don’t know, I always like to think that my players can do more, because I see them in training. We knew three things: that we were playing at San Siro; that we were facing a team that had changed coach and that brought more pressure on the build-up phase of the game. Thirdly, Milan won an important trophy.

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“We had to play a spirited game. I liked the organisation in the defensive phase: we conceded chances from range or on individual plays. At the same time, we knew we couldn’t build out like at home but we didn’t give up playing, trying to keep the ball a little more. We need performances but linked to points.”

What did you like most?

“The progress is more about attention and choice when you have the ball in your half of the field. We often gave the opponents advantages that were not needed. We analysed this aspect. Today the non-possession phase was very very important: coming here to San Siro and giving up playing means lasting but losing.”

Are you happ?

“They are showing constant growth and can grow more. I am happy with Caprile’s debut, he has functional characteristics for our game. We have a solid group: we still have to get a lot of points and we have to do it by playing in a certain way.”