Fight for four or let four? AC Milan, who dropped the chain, made the old mistake again

Held to a draw at home by Salernitana, Milan suffered a two-game winless run in the league and failed to take advantage of rivals dropping the chain to extend their race to the top.

Not long ago, Napoli manager Spalletti said "crazy words": "We are the only team in Serie A that plays French Europeanization. "Where does bald confidence come from? Answer: Peers. After 26 rounds in Serie A, only Napoli have scored three points from the top six teams, and the leaders have already lost 20 points to fourth-placed Milan. Looking around at the crowd of heroes can not play a single one, how can Spalletti not swell?

In this peer background, Milan's face is the most sufficient. Of the last six teams, Milan played the last and had the most rest time in this round, and Salernitana, who face at home, are still hovering on the edge of the relegation zone, and on paper the home team's victory should have been in hand. In the first leg of the season two months ago, Milan wasted a chance to take away three points, and now they are back at home with the courage to reach the last eight of the Champions League, what is the reason to let the victory sideline?

Needless to say, Pioli always had a tradition of capsizing in the gutter. Looking at this season alone, Milan drew away from Lecce and Cremona, lost at home to Sassuolo, and frequently lost points to the latter team. Milan's journey to defend their title came to an early stage, with weakness and poor away games being the two main sticking points.

All out-of-town classes are stateless

Tonali did not come off the bench until the second half, with Milan fielding an all-foreign squad for the first time in Serie A history.

Pioli knew his own affairs, so he did not dare to raise the slightest in the use of troops. Before the game, the Milan newspaper Gazzetta put on an own goal, saying that Pioli would continue to give Origi the opportunity to integrate in the starting lineup, and the result was that the starting position was still Giroud in the center. The boss's starting 11 also set a record: it was the first time in Serie A that Milan had sent out a full foreign starter.

Milan have been suffering from muscle injuries of late, with Dias suffering muscle problems last week and Messias tired for the same reason after the Tottenham game. Pioli had to replace Salemarkles at right-wing-back and gave Tonali a break in midfield, with Bennaser and Krunic as starting back-backs.

The lineup hasn't changed much, but Pioli is still experimenting with details. The Champions League carried Tottenham, and Milan's performance convinced Tottenham star Kane: "To be honest, we really can't play Milan. "With the affirmation of his opponent, Pioli seems to have the confidence to dominate me again. Milan's biggest change in the opening period was the forward insertion of Jaff and Kalulu, leaving Salle Markles in the back to fill the central defender position and take care of the central defense.

Jaffe's frequent forward design in the opening stages increased Milan's attacking manpower in the front, but it had little effect under the close defense of the away team.

Pioli's design is quite bold and deeply intentional. He guessed that the newly appointed Paolo Sousa would be on the road with a solid defense, so how to break through the dense defense in the face of the opponent's full retreat will be the main tone of Milan's game. Therefore, he arranged for Jiafu, who is a tall horse, to cut into the box to compete for the high point, and gave Kalulu, a full-back, more permission to insert the cross, in order to seize the opportunity to open the situation as soon as possible. Once Milan grabbed the lead, they could safely use Leo's speed to fight back and take the initiative of the game into their own hands.

But Pioli still miscalculated two things: one is that this way of adding high ground and attacking manpower to the front line is a double-edged sword, and the negative effect is that the increase in the front court means that the back air defense is weak, and Bennaser has to frequently retreat to the right side of the defense to fill the gap left by the two. His threatening opportunity to counterattack with a broken ball in the first half was caused by a failure to fill the defensive position on the right flank. Pioli, who is accustomed to using irregular formations to create local advantages in actual combat, has buried a hole in the defensive end, resulting in frequent leaks when the team responds to rapid counterattacks.

Dias was closely watched by his opponents on the offensive end and lost the ball in confrontations on several occasions.

The second is that the state of the players in the team is too bad, which directly caused the scene in the first half of the game to be completely out of control. Some of this bad state is due to tactical targeting: for example, Salernitana saw that Dias was not good at confrontation, and frequently organized grabs when he received the ball, causing Dias to make five mistakes with the ball, and Milan was difficult to complete the offensive advance smoothly in the front position.

There are also mistakes caused by the players themselves, such as Jaffe's failure to play his own card without opposing the pressure, giving the opponent the opportunity to face Menion single-handedly. Fortunately, the quick reaction of Meignan turned this single knife into invisible, avoiding the team's passivity on the field.

Milan, who is immortal, waits for the blessing of hope. Giroud's header before half-time finally relieved the more than 70,000 fans who were watching the game. It was Giroud's third Serie A goal in 2023, and coincidentally all three came from headers. It is also the highest figure in the five major leagues of the same period, tied with Ossimon of Napoli and Deutsch of Bundesliga Union.

Olivier Giroud scored with a header from the opposing centre-back. It was Milan's sixth set-piece goal of the season, accounting for 14% of the total goals.

Olivier Giroud has played 1,522 minutes in all competitions this season, more than double the number of Origi (646 minutes) who also played as a centre-forward. Even though Origi has endured a long period of injury in the early days of his arrival, the difference in playing time between the two still shows that Giroud is an indispensable number one in Pioli's forward line. Grand Giroud can be trusted at a crucial time, both good and bad for Milan. The season will enter its final intensive period, with the national team competition plus the league and the Champions League entering the closing phase, and Pioli will have to prepare for Giroud's alternatives. The Frenchman, who voluntarily claimed his fifth yellow card, will take turns out for the next away game against Udinese, when it will be in doubt who can replace him and destroy the team.

New combinations meet old problems

Giroud solved the problem of how to break through the defense, allowing the Milanese to see the tilt of the scales of victory. Unexpectedly, at this moment, the familiar scene played out again: in the 61st minute, Salernitana's attack from the midfield to the goal, the whole process only went through three passes, and at the moment of Diarya's goal, the central defender Tomori still did not return to the defensive position.

The Milan defence leaned heavily left in the moment of the opponent's counterattack, and was easily scored by the opponent to equalize the goal.

Responding to the opponent's quick counterattack after active pressure does not guarantee the integrity of the formation, and Pisch Milan often encountered it in the era of defenders. After switching to 3 central defenders, Milan once put the stability of the defensive personnel in the first place, and the defensive first mentality avoided the recurrence of similar problems to a certain extent. Now the style of play tends to be active, and the empty space is exposed again.

The idea of a balance between attack and defense is only a theoretical requirement in football tactics, and it is difficult to achieve in reality. Whether the tactical design is more offensive or defensive, it should be adjusted according to the time and according to the changes in the situation on the field. Milan's sloppy approach to Salernitana reveals that the team is half a beat slower in the tactical unity of offensive and defensive transformation.

Milan struggled to fight back in the second half, having already given two precursors before conceding the goal. The first time was Dias, who had repeatedly conceded the ball in the front court in the first half, fell into the same situation in the 50th minute, but Milan's two back positions were already standing, and Salernitana's quick counterattack could not be played; The second time was when Giroud took the initiative to pull people to delay the opponent's attack during the retreat. Giroud's action, the outside world interprets that there is a suspicion of shuffling, and it is not very tenable in common sense. Active shuffling should usually be done in the final stages of the game to avoid self-defeating cumulative yellow cards and double yellow penalties in a single game. Giroud's initiative to pull people is most likely because the French sense that the other side is in danger of forming a counterattack, so they carry out tactical fouls.

Florenzi's return could be an important addition to Milan. His performance at right-wing-back is exciting.

Pioli's failure to give the team a steady command at this stage is actually puzzling. Dias, who was in poor form in the first half and had been targeted and pinched, was not replaced at half-time, and had already revealed dangerous flames at the start of the second half, but Pioli still could not smell the danger. This delay may be temporary, but the result is heart-wrenching. Milan completely missed every attacker from the right to the middle in this defense, completely exposing Meignan to Dia's gun. Such an amateur defensive posture made the 71,800 Milan fans watching the game frown: The bubble of Milan's defensive improvement has been punctured?

It may not be completely punctured, but the perception that the team's defense has been cast into an iron plate is certainly not accurate. From this angle, a draw against Salernitana in exchange for Pioli and Milan's cognitive clarity is not a bad thing. Jiafu's activation makes up for some of the team's defensive shortcomings, and does not mean that the 3 central defenders can completely solve the team's defensive problems. To strike a delicate balance between the offensive and defensive ends, Pioli needs to constantly adjust according to the facts. If Milan had shown the defensive mentality of the second half against Inter, the game might have been a different outcome.