Stefano Pioli’s Milan suffered a painful 3-0 loss to PSV in their final friendly of 2022, giving them something to think about ahead of the new year.
The Rossoneri deployed a moderately strong starting line-up, using first team regulars like Sandro Tonali, Fikayo Tomori and Ismael Bennacer alongside other squad options like Yacine Adli, Antonio Mirante and Sergino Dest. Other familiar faces came on in the second half like Rafael Leao, Brahim Diaz and Simon Kjaer.
PSV got off to a quick start and took the lead after just eight minutes thanks to Guus Til. Only 13 minutes later, the Dutch outfit doubled their lead through Noni Mandueke, putting Milan on the backfoot with just 21 minutes on the clock.
The Eredivisie side further increased their advantage in the 56th minute, with Mandueke finding the back of the net again.
Various changes occurred in the second half but the Rossoneri were unable to find any consolation, suffering a 3-0 loss. They’ll be hoping to iron out the issues ahead of their first game of 2023 against Salernitana on January 4.
Useless exercise. Mystifying selection of players. Dest at left back and adli on right wing….! As for tomori….continuing the comedy defending theme that has been him all season. Cross goes into the box and he’s supposed to be the left sided centre back. and yet they get a free header, whilst tomori is going walkies marking hot air at the near post. non existent performance.
More questions than answers after this game….
That was disgusting even for a friendly. I hope if possible none of those 11 who started this friendly start against Salernitana in a week. At times it felt like we’re playing against prime Barcelona. I don’t know what they’ve been doing during the break but they looked far from top condition. Adli is not ready for Milan, it’s obvious from all these friendlies. De Ketelaere… we better forget about him this season, and Saelemaekers was the usual, the best of the bunch actually but that doesn’t say much. PSV were compact, pressed well and were effective in attack, all the things we failed at. Their right winger played like Leao minus the attitude (not kidding).
Dutch football in general is on the rise, also Milan normally outside Italy doesn’t look so good, look at both last year and this season CL performance, question is why?
Pioli had some questionable choices in the starting lineup, not least pairing Dest and Adli on the left and the difference with the Theo-Leao pair was from earth to moon. Tomori and Kalulu were terrible and that old man Mirante has no business playing football anymore. Punched one corner towards his own net under no pressure.
Sometimes it feels like without the individual brilliance of Leao, Theo and to a lesser extent Giroud we’re a midtable team.
leao need to go to EPL if he want to win ballon dor. milan wont win another UCL for 20 more years.
Altogether this was pretty awful from Milan. Albeit with missing pieces. But before the WC we were hoping for the break to reset as our results were questionable. But now it seems we’re picking up were we left off.
Not too fussed. It was a friendly and therefore the ‘strange’ choices that Pioli did, trying to see if certain things work or not.
It clearly doesn’t, so better to find out now than against Salernitana.