Team news: Milan were without Alessandro Plizzari, Davide Calabria, Theo Hernández, Simon Kjær, Ante Rebić, Rafael Leão and Pietro Pellegri, while Napoli had to do without Mário Rui, Kalidou Koulibaly, Konstantinos Manolas, Fabián Ruiz, Victor Osimhen and Lorenzo Insigne. Kickoff time for Matchday 18 of Serie A was 20:45 CET / Italian time at Stadio San Siro.
Goal: Elmas (5′)
AC Milan (4-2-3-1) – Stefano Pioli
Mike Maignan; Alessandro Florenzi (86′ Pierre Kalulu), Fikayo Tomori, Alessio Romagnoli, Fodé Ballo-Touré; Franck Kessié, Sandro Tonali (78′ Ismaël Bennacer); Junior Messias (78′ Samu Castillejo), Brahim Díaz (63′ Olivier Giroud), Rade Krunić (63′ Alexis Saelemaekers); Zlatan Ibrahimović.
Unused: Mirante, Tătărușanu; Gabbia; Bakayoko; Maldini.
S.S.C. Napoli (4-2-3-1) – Luciano Spalletti
David Ospina; Kévin Malcuit, Amir Rrahmani, Juan Jesus, Giovanni Di Lorenzo; André-Frank Zambo Anguissa, Diego Demme (54′ Stanislav Lobotka); Hirving Lozano (77′ Matteo Politano), Piotr Zieliński (77′ Adam Ounas), Elif Elmas (86′ Faouzi Ghoulam); Andrea Petagna (78′ Dries Mertens).
Unused: Meret, Marfella; Zanoli.
Referee: Davide Massa.
What’s krunic doing in Milan line up, why not use Maldini in his natural position so he can grow, why always krunic who can barely pass nor win back the ball I will rather play Bennacer in his natural position than play krunic even as a goalkeeper he has no footballing sense atall
Finally it happened, the right side to be stronger than the left. MIRACLE !!!
Both left and right are mid table quality
bogness let’s face it , should have started kalulu & saladmaker on the right, ballo route looks vulnerable
mat the back like v inter
if thats the official line up then slow krunic better play am and brahim lw. brahim and messias also need to switch positions often in game del bosque’s madrid style so as to confuse the defenders.
also, theo’s gf got pregnant a while back but its been him who always get hyperemesis gravidarum a.k.a. morning sickness. fkn hell
Okay so that’s why Theo’s turned into Antonini… We need him back at his best. Along with Diaz who’s also lost the plot for some reason.
And Kessie… and Bennacer… Jesus, the whole team’s off.
lol, theo might as well get pregnant and its syndromes with the amounts of nonsense injuries and fever he got. as for brahim, he’ll be a star playing winger under better coach. he’s fast, two footed, has knack for scoring. quality player used wrongly
Kessie has turned to shit
like Diaz & Theo
top 4 looking really hard for this Milan team
Stop bagging krunic
he’s been playing with more heart & soul
than kessie Diaz & most of the team
Was that offside handball or a foul haha I’m confused
varfanculo
poli, brocchi, old mexes and paletta also played with heart and soul. this is football not braveheart movie. stop with this “heart and soul” bts nonsense
if eldiott and nazidis wont provide respectable transfer fund like they did leonardo (70m for paqueta and piatek) and would’ve give rangnick (80-100m) then those cheap losers need to go asap
For now our passes are complete garbage.
Brahmin totally off the spark with 0 impact !
No harm in trying Samu
Pathetic! And everyone in the team want a pay rise, for playing like shit. Let’s just switch back to our mid table best, at least that way our hopes are not raised falsely. The management, doctors, players and the coach are all shits.
Kessié really thinks he’s world class is so funny! I have said it times without number,Ballo-Touré shouldn’t be in this team. If milan doesn’t lose Krunic in January, I would be so disappointed with this management.
Like i said last week.
Milan can’t attack without leao or rebic.
They can’t attack through middle, now the can’t attack through the flanks either
Spot on, really bad luck we got both rebic and leao out same time,its killing us. And as u say the number 10 position ain’t effective either, so struggling big time.
True … without Leao & or rebic
weve got nothing in attack at all
We can’t attack without leao and rebik, and pioli can’t even change things up. So we only play long balls without flooding the box. It’s a pity
Krunic needs to go out and Kesse is also not playing well
P Maldini has long way to go !
What baffles me is Pioli’s lack of creativity. It is so obvious that there’s a need for a change in formation but the madman just stuck to his untactful tactics. Its like selecting the players and saying just take to the field and play.
“need better final ball” – commentator, after kessie botched simpe through ball in 1st half like i said, this milan lacks ability to deliver final balls. kessie gave away ball like xmas presents, but at least he tried. brahim on the other hand literally lost the ball every single time he touched it. I wont even talk about his final ball or lack thereof. regarding wingplay, like ive been saying since suso days, to play winger, one needs to be fast or possess nice dribbling skills. krunic possesses none so why tf should he play there? even florenzi, who’s been… Read more »
In general i am not a fan of Florenzi but today he is not playing bad.
florenzi has been one of the better players of milan for the past month. anyone who doesnt realize that doesnt know football if it hits them right in the balls
Kalulu is better sorry
florenzi is a has been & ordinary
Elmas took the piss out of him community inside all game
actually, florenzi, tomori and romag did very well containing napoli’s attack. its toure’s general bad positioning and tonali and ibra’s bad marking during that corner kick situation that did them in. u can check the ratings given by gazzetta etc; florenzi has been one of the better performers of milan since last month. surely kalulu has higher ceiling due to his age and versatility but florenzi is one of the very few players who do their job admirably, just like tomori, maignan etc. look at the stats: numbers of crossing, tackling etc
Milan trails 1 goal and still play like it were 0-0 or they lead already. No determination, no plan, no spark, a lot of missed pass.
AND as USUAL Pioli will wait till 60th minutes to make change.
Pioli shold change Benacer for Kesse
Now coach looking for draw what a display it’s all good
After hakan left, for whatever reason, Milan thought they can rely on diaz alone.
I don’t even want to bring krunic and daniel maldini into the discussion.
Now week after week, the mistake has become more and more apparent.
You are starting to see the light…
Last year we had Hakan and we also had the same bad run of form in mid season. So how do you explain that ?
last year milan were winter champions beating inter AND napoli both on the field and in the table. next time, check ur FACHTS before opening ur filthy sewer
And from there we went to fighting for 4spot thanks to the big drop in form. The same thing is happening this year as well. Great start and a big drop in form. But as usual its too complicated for you to understand it so you just start with your typical childish offencess wheh things dont go your way.
cant you read? LAST YEAR MILAN WERE WINTER CHAMPIONS. meaning, they were doing better AT THIS POINT of the season thus this is not the same thing. and when milan finally dropped points and thus gave up capolista and also lost vs inter in coppa italia in jan and last weeks of 2020/21, its when hakan and/or ibra didnt play due to injuries or covid. u can check it for urself. so yeah, hakan AND ibra were important last season and this season none of milan mf are as effective as hakan. how do u like ur kebab now hakan… Read more »
Is it that hard to comprehend what i was saying?
Last season Milan had hakan and diaz as back up.
This season Milan only have diaz, which is clearly not enough.
And as much as i hate hakan moving to be inter for free, but if i’m not mistaken, he had top assists for Milan, and wasn’t he the best player in seria for last month?
My point is clear, we had him last year and that changed nothing. We experienced the same problems with him in the team last year. So clearly having him now wont really change anything again. Or still wont be enough as you say. The only mistake is that he left for free, we should have cashed in.
“we had him last year and that changed nothing.” anyone who says this clearly doesnt understand football. milan were playing much better with him on the pitch, generating more points and scoring more goals. and they rarely played as bad as this, except vs atalanta when he was absent and pioli the genius compensated by playing meite in his position. hell, they destroyed napoli at their own home. nowadays milan barely register shots on goal ”We experienced the same problems with him in the team last year” and the problems are called injuries and covid. it has nothing to do… Read more »
He is the same player in Inter, sometimes having good games somethimes having bad games. Unconsistent, same as always. (Playing with better players makes everyone look better ofcourse.) You must have forgot about how many times he was critisized here for his mistakes and bad playing in general. There was a reason why people wanted him to be replaced with a better playmaker. Yea if we cashed in it would have been easier to bring a better player, that was my point with the cashing in. But some one was saying all summer long that Managment did a great job… Read more »
“He is the same player in Inter, sometimes having good games somethimes having bad games.” lol, u could say the exact same thing about virtually any player in any sport. that doesnt alter the FACHTS that: 1) he was 3rd highest rated among milan players last season, with highest goal/goalcreating contributions alongside ibra. 2) he’s serie a’s best player for nov, scoring 5 goals and assisting 5 goals in last 7 games while milan cant even generate >3 shots on goal/game lately. losing him is a big lost and anyone who said he’s bad player clearly doesnt know 1st thing… Read more »
Yes Diaz is killing us he’s been so bad
He looks like a little boy trying to play a man’s game ,need a playmaker badly as we said before the season started
I hope my fears are not playing out. I didn’t want Pioli’s renewal as at when it came, not because he doesn’t deserve it but it came at a wrong time. End of the season would have been better to finalize that cos one most interim coaches who were initially doing well sign their contracts, they begin to lose games or have a bad run of form. Solskjaer of Man Utd, is the latest example i can think of. In Pioli’s case, he was on an expiring contract, therefore he was on the edge of his seat. Since after his… Read more »
Pioli is a terrible coach – he took out Messiah who was one of the better players and put Samu who never plays in a game Milan is losing. Stupid stupid coach.
Omg
That is nor offside
Wtf was that.
It was foul on Girou wtf that is not offside
It was Napoli player who kicked the ball not Olivier
Milan don’t deserve a point, that’s the point.
Napoli was also not spectacular
But good enough for an away match and a win. Milan is shot.
Was that a foul on Giroud or was that
handball on kalulu commentator thought
or offside , I’m fucking confused
var is killing football
we should be promoting more goals to make the game more exciting, not looking for bullshit
to disallow goals 5 minutes after the fact
get fucked
Only positives I can take from this,
Messias only threat
Toure pretty good
Florenzi decent
Tomori outstanding as usual got to be one of best cb in world at moment
Romag decent
Saladman better playing through middle
We looked far more dangerous going route 1 to zlatan, maybe stick with it.
The time krunic was replaced there was a spurge of energy ! Enjoyed the last 20 mins irrespective of results
So one thing I’m trying to understand about Pioli, Leao, Rebic and Theo who are our attacking threats are out, then his first choice to replace them is Krunic??? For fuck sake we had Saelemakers , Castillejo and even Bennacer and yet he chose Krunic over them all?? Wow! Just wow!!
Unbelievable decision by the ref to cancel that goal. What a decision
He’s a juventino cunt that ref I remember ,
he enjoys fucking us over that cunt
current serie a assists table hakan: 7 assists barella: 7 luis alberto: 6 berardi: 5 sms: 5 veretout: 5 candreva: 5 pasalic: 5 ilicic: 4 raspadori: 4 none of milan mf are on the top 10 list, and the closest is theo, a freaking lb. like i said, if ur gonna let hakan go (for free to direct rivals no less) then buy de paul or luis alberto or fabian ruiz as replacement. i also said get berardi the italian suso and/or ilicic, one of the best crossers/shooters in serie a. milan played like serie b team tonite because even… Read more »
It is no doubt that with all that injuries and crazy selection (krunic) we are midtable team
milan barely even won vs midtable teams like udinese, sassuolo and fiorentina. this is so much worse than being midtable team
Dude we are playing Empoli next and i am telling you those guys are fast and they run like motherfuckers. It will not be a easy match.
they beat napoli too last week. salernitana, genoa etc are bad but the midtable teams of serie a are ridiculously strong this season
Another loss
Thank you!!!
Exactly what i was trying to say in my previous comment about hakan’s replacement.
Yet someone is having a hard time to see the obvious.
We desperately need to sign a good playmaker
a good right winger & we did neither this management is fuct
correctamundo mate. its grave mistake to let him go for free without getting proper replacement because while brahim is good winger, he’s not an apple to apple direct replacement due to different style of play. also, like u said, when/if brahim cant play, then who’s gonna play am?
Milan’s biggest problem is not that the team has so many players out with injuries. The problem is with a coach who is not smart enough to play to the strength of those at his disposal. When Carlo Ancelotti had injuries to players, rather than they to force the replacements to be clones of the regular, he switched formation to adapt to their strength. Hence Ancelotti’s Milan could play the 4-1-2-1-2 diamond, with two strikers. Or the Christmas tree with a lone striker. When Pioli knew that Samu had a chance of playing, then he should have started him, so… Read more »
Ibrahimovic is old
Giroud is old too
Messias shld be ordinary super sub
Ball you’re shld be playing for saleritana not Milan
Jessie only good for pk
Florenzi is not wat we need
Ibrahim Diaz drop form since
We av a mediocre coach who only rely on the brilliancy of Rafael leap and rebic + Theo Hernandez for results
Krunic has no business on wing
Maldini send paqueta and andri Silva away,, those 2 would av be performing well for us by now.
mate, its paquelme and andriy “the giant” silva, please. also, im glad that milanisti has realized that leaonaldo fenomeno the henry 2.0 is important player for milan. took them good 2 yrs but wth, better late than never.
Most of what you said is Sad but true
Glad i stopped watching at 40. Diaz has too much ego….always touches too many, trying too hard to make impact. A good team player would’ve chosen to make simpler play when needed. Teams had him figured out already.
Send him back at the end of the season and have Adli or someone else in his place to build the team around.
I can’t believe I’m about to say this but – “let’s hope we get a win against Empoli on Wednesday.” Then haul our asses into the Christmas break and come out the other side with a missing squad in place.
When trees are close to one another, the monkey thinks he has skills and jumps around like the best acrobat in this world. This is a way to describe our attackers. Just the absence of Leao has showed our fortress.
All the misplaced passes, playing long balls, toothless attack are all linked to absence of Leao and Rebic.
I can’t believe we haven’t bought a proper right winger all the while !
The ability of a coach to understand that no two players are the same, so you don’t expect them to act or react the same way. Rather than set up the team to play to the strength of the available players, Pioli is trying to get the available players to become clones of the regulars. With Leão out, Pioli wants Krunic to fill the space. That’s stupid. What a smart coach will do is switch formation, so you can play to the strength of the options you have. Without Leão, Rebic and a recovering Giroud plus a 40yr old Ibra,… Read more »
Get fucked ref
You are absolutely spot on mate. Pioli had so many other options than using Krunic in LW. It’s not even Krunic’s fault. It’s all on Pioli. The coach should know his players by now or at least have a solid plan b formation after three years with a team.
Milan need better coach
Pioli: Milan played one of its best games.
Don’t know what to say. Speechless.
January transfer window must be our turning point or it’s over.
Pioli me personally won’t dare to blame him for everything just let the man have full squad then if we keep losing points I’ll start blaming him.
Now to the players; we know since long time ago we don’t have an attacking midfield no striker no right winger kjaer replacement needed no matter what. Just went to bed in the 44th minute just couldn’t bare it
pioli is killing this team with his lack of plan B must he use players out of position, beach this krunic guy and use proper midfield formation even a 4-3-1-2 where Kessie Bakayoko Benacer then Tonali behind Diaz as Ss and Ibrahimovic
Surprising to say, this loss is on Pioli. We had Kalulu, Samu, Bennacer and Salamander on the bench and Pioli saw no one else suitable for the leftwing when he could have just used Kalulu as LB and used Ballo as LW with both Samu and Salamander also at his disposal? We won’t even be in the top 6 by February if Pioli keeps playing Krunic. We are literally playing with 9 players. Krunic doesn’t add anything valuable to the RW moreover he destroys the efforts of other players who tries to attack because he has no clue how to… Read more »
Pioli is not a good tactician coach. He rely heavily on his players. He will fail when many players injured. He must clever to change formation and tactic depend on situation. Sometimes he showed he can do this but mostly he keep using the same formation and force a player to play out of his best position. He should use formation and tactic that most suitable with available players
Here’s what Arrigo Sacchi said about Milan: “The collapse of Pioli’s team cannot depend solely on injuries. This situation is not resolved even with the purchase of players since the clubs are all in debt,” he said (via MilanLive). “It’s a question of the game: the Rossoneri were aiming to move as a team. If the players are 60 metres from the ball carrier, there is no question of a team and this is exactly what is happening at Milan. The distances are critical: for this reason Napoli won, they were more compact. “The Rossoneri are in total confusion. I… Read more »
You guys have started seeing my point, Pioli is a middle table coach but nevertheless he tried within his capacity to move milan forward which we all appreciated
the situation we are now requires a coach who can use his inner experience and iQ to savage the situation ( why did u think Milan beat highly rated Barcelona in 1994 cl final?
pioli has the players who can change every match but he’s blind to know and see them
krunic or what’s his name has destroyed us so many times yet he starts every match
Sell Kessie this transfer window. Call Pobega back. With this rest of schedule, Milan doesn’t need another CB. Gabbia and Kalulu is enough for back up. For RB, we have Florenzi and Calabria.
Bring back Pobega then make Bennacer AM in Brahim place. It will solves the creativity problem -for a while-. If Kessie want to leave, let him leave now rather than going for nothing. And look, if we had to replace him, there is many players whose their contract is expiring in 2022. And the menu is sooo delicious, because there is Pogba, Freuler, Insigne, and Sanchez on the list. For the RM, there is Jesus Corona available for free next year.
I think Pioli summed up this game well – the attitude and aggression was there, the quality wasn’t. And we can talk all we want about the starting formation (Krunic on the left), but ultimately without Leao/Rebic and with Diaz in such a terrible form we lack any serious bite. Doesn’t matter where we play Diaz at the moment, he’s practically useless, and we don’t have anyone on the bench either which is a guarantied difference maker. Everyone is talking about how big of a talent Maldini is, but he’s been rather weak every time he played. And Messih jr… Read more »
Zlatan out injured again, not good.
It was expected
Ibra out. Pellegri out. Giroud not fit. Rebic out. Leao not fit.
Only players who had experience in 9 position are Maldini & Samu.
When you relay on 35 & 40 years old players & your only back up is the most injured player in Europe, that’s the result you will get.
Since we don’t have money, We should call Colombo back. I don’t think we can get Hauge back but bringing Adli could be good. Maybe even Pobega.
I can’t think of a club who’s had most of their front line injured all at same time. Like u say going into season with zlatan, giroud and pellegri was madness, this was nailed on. Why get giroud when zlatan is old, we could have got a young striker from French league cheap who wasn’t injury prone like pellegri.im not sure if we can get adli because the cheap price negotiated was on the fact he stayed another season, pretty dumb for sake of a couple of million probably. We dropped so many points because of this it will cost… Read more »
Yes but negotiating a new deal could help us a lot. Maybe pay them more for half a season. That was pretty dumb since he could have been the AM we are lacking. I should also mention that Pioli is one side of these problems. Bennacer played as AM and he actually played Amazing in this position. But strange enough, Pioli put Kessie as AM. With last year catastrophes in Donna & Hakan deal, plus this year Kessie & Romas contracts. And considering wrong moves with renewing old players and selling and loaning young talents (Hauge, Paqueta & etc.). I… Read more »
Milan needs a coach who is daring and not the scared, playing-safe Pioli. Donna was thrown into the deep end at 16. Diego Lopez from Real Madrid was the first choice then. Why is Pioli scared to summon a striker from the Primeva? That’s why Ibra is out now, because at 40yrs old you can’t run up and down playing games twice a week. Pioli could have brought in a player from the youth team. Chaka Traoré already made his Serie A début with Parma at 16! That kid could have played instead of having Krunic as LW in the… Read more »
Yeah Pioli is always slow at introducing new players to squad. Either from youth team or new signings
We have to go 352 next match while we no left wingers. Theo left wbk, florenzi right wbk and fill midfield (kessie, Ben, tonali,) Giroud messias up front. That means no krunic saladmaker on wing and it gets diaz out of team also with no 10
Not happening. Sadly. Krunic, Diaz salad 🙂 in our now classic 4-2-3-1
So basically take rebic and leao out of this team and we are screwed. I hope management have noticed this
Amen brother !