Gennaro Gattuso admits Milan’s stalemate with Sassuolo was “a missed opportunity” and explained his tactical experiment. "We had to gamble."
The Rossoneri had the opportunity to close on the top four after Inter and Roma both lost this weekend, but instead scraped a 1-1 draw with Sassuolo.
Matteo Politano had put the minnows ahead at San Siro, but Nikola Kalinic blasted an equaliser in off the underside of the bar.
Gennaro Gattuso admits Milan’s stalemate with Sassuolo was “a missed opportunity” and explained his tactical experiment. "We had to gamble."
The Rossoneri had the opportunity to close on the top four after Inter and Roma both lost this weekend, but instead scraped a 1-1 draw with Sassuolo.
Matteo Politano had put the minnows ahead at San Siro, but Nikola Kalinic blasted an equaliser in off the underside of the bar.
“I don’t think it was an issue of one or two strikers, because we created a great deal in the first half and overall had over 20 shots on goal. What we lacked was vehemence and determination,” the Coach told Mediaset Premium.
“At the end of the day, we were even lucky to get a point, as we had gone behind. You can give all sorts of reasons for fatigue, but the fact remains we were sluggish in the final third.”
Gattuso gambled in the second half by throwing Andre Silva on for Ignazio Abate, moving to three at the back.
“We tried a 3-3-4 formation, as there’s this dream of the Champions League and we have to gamble to the end. It might not be very organised, which is something I don’t like, but in the circumstances we had to try.
“I went with this system to create width with Suso, but we did it in a very chaotic way and it was rather improvised. That’s my fault, as we didn’t practice it enough in training, but we had to gamble.
“Patrick Cutrone has specific characteristics, he has to run into space, stretch the opposition out and hold up the ball. We developed moves today, as we have done in other games recently, but don’t manage to really hurt our opponents. We all know strikers live for the goal and get sad when they don’t find the net.
“We had over 20 shots on goal, sometimes the ball goes in and sometimes it doesn’t. We had chances, we had lots of 50-50 issues, but it can happen after four or five months that someone’s legs feel heavy.
“The important thing is not to seek alibis, because we’ll go nowhere with them. I think we missed a big opportunity here to stay within reach of Champions League qualification.”
Alessio Romagnoli limped off with a thigh problem within five minutes, while Leonardo Bonucci will be suspended against Napoli after picking up a yellow card for dissent.
“We have other defenders, we have Zapata and Musacchio, so we’ll play with whoever we have at our disposal. I won’t stand here and seek controversy.”