Milan Coach Gennaro Gattuso launches a spirited defence of Lucas Biglia – “he’s been massacred, but on a tactical level he’s crucial”.
The Argentinian midfielder gave the ball away against Napoli, and the Partenopei broke up the pitch to make it 2-1.
Carlo Ancelotti’s side then went on to win 3-2, and the former Lazio man has been heavily criticised for his mistake.
“We have to understand how we move the ball, we like to play up against the opposing player,” Gattuso said.
Milan Coach Gennaro Gattuso launches a spirited defence of Lucas Biglia – “he’s been massacred, but on a tactical level he’s crucial”.
The Argentinian midfielder gave the ball away against Napoli, and the Partenopei broke up the pitch to make it 2-1.
Carlo Ancelotti’s side then went on to win 3-2, and the former Lazio man has been heavily criticised for his mistake.
“We have to understand how we move the ball, we like to play up against the opposing player,” Gattuso said.
“When we escape the first line of the press we have to look forward. The problem with this squad isn’t using the ball, and therefore not on open pitches.
“Biglia’s been massacred, but on a tactical level he’s crucial. When he picks up the ball he sometimes turns back the way, he knows he has to improve that but our problem is not using the ball.
“We made a mistake, mistakes can happen, a player can make a mistake. Mistakes will happen. The problem is that when it went to 2-1 no-one moved anymore.
“If you want to impose your football then you can’t do things by half. The most serious error wasn’t by Biglia, it was the fundamental concept that was wrong.
“That ball should have gone out to Calabria. We need to make sure we always stay in the game, we can’t afford to just abandon the pitch.
“After it went to 2-1 it felt like we weren’t on the pitch anymore.”
Yet Gattuso had some harsher words for new signing Tiemoue Bakayoko.
“All I meant was that coming to a new league isn’t easy, then some of you wrote that I slaughtered Bakayoko.
“This is a squad which has improved a lot, and I’m happy.
"The mistake I made was rushing to change Biglia, we lost the balance in that position. In recent weeks I've only tried Bakayoko at mezzala, not really in that deep role.
"With that change I made a mistake and I paid the price.
"I was misunderstood, I've never spoken badly about these players. I wasn't insulting [Bakayoko], I just said it will take time to play this way.
"It's my fault too, because I put him in a role where I've only tried him one or two times in the past 15 days."
Gonzalo Higuain failed to score on his Rossoneri debut, following an €18m loan move from Juventus this summer.
“Go and look how much Higuain touched the ball,” Gattuso advised.
“When defenders and midfielders are getting goalscoring chances it means work has been done behind them. If Higuain had scored in the last 10 metres we’d be talking about something else.
“He’s crucial, he makes us play better, but we have to exploit his ability in the final 20 metres. I’m really happy with his performance though.
“On the second goal every player touched the ball, there were 27 passes. That shows that the team has quality, but you won’t get anywhere with quality alone.
"Service to Higuain? [Hakan] Calhanoglu can help with that, we've seen many times that he can play dangerous balls through the middle.
"When we tried to find Higuain we lost the ball a few times, when we get near the goal we need to find him a bit more.
"We didn't get it forward often enough, but it's really difficult against Lazio, they don't let you get it forward."