Franck Kessié’s performance against Lazio divided Italian media, while Sandro Tonali was the best player at Stadio Olimpico last night.
The Italy international scored a late winner against Lazio, helping the Rossoneri return to the top of the table following Inter‘s win over Roma on Saturday. The victory keeps Milan‘s title hope alive, although Simone Inzaghi’s men have a game in hand and can move one point clear of their city rivals if they beat Bologna on Wednesday.
Tonali was the best player on the pitch, according to the primary Italian sports papers: Gazzetta dello Sport, Corriere dello Sport and Tuttosport. His overall performance was more than convincing as he put in quality and quantity. The late winner was the icing on the cake and ‘the most important goal in his career’ wrote Corsport.
Franck Kessié, on the other hand, was not as convincing, at least per Gazzetta and Tuttosport. According to both papers, he was the worst Milan player on the pitch along with Pierre Kalulu. Kessié was rated 5 by both papers which highlighted that the Ivorian midfielder had been too naive during the game and was among the responsible for Ciro Immobile’s goal in the first half.
Il Corriere dello Sport offered a different view and rated Kessié 7/10, the same as Rafael Leao and Olivier Giroud (MVP Tonali was rated 8/10). Despite being too sloppy on Lazio’s opener, Kessié bossed the midfield in the second half, justifying a high rating from the Rome-based paper.
That’s because Kessié was awful in the first half (useless for 60 minutes really) but played the last 20 , 25 minutes very well.
Kalulu was at fault on Lazio’s goal, but after that played another good match. I rate him higher than Tomori for this match.
@Milan fan.
Tomori is the left sided defender, and again he was caught out marking space. Kalulu being the right sided defender had to come in to get close to Immobile, but the fact is that it was Tomori who was at fault. He and 4 others were also guilty of spacial marking on Lautaro’s first goal last tuesday. Kalulu had a brilliant game, and Calabria surprised me offensively. This being as he has been almost non existent offensively for a while.
Milan miss a lot when Kessie is not on the pitch. Hid presence and physicality was critical, and he contributed a lot defensively.
They are good defenders – fast and strong. But they are young and sometimes get caught out of position. Once they have this down they will be more solid.
Kessie already has one foot out the door.
@Acm1899.
Of course. No defender is perfect, but just the spacial marking can sometimes look really silly.
I understand, but we need him. I’d love to see the stats but I doubt if anyone ran more than him last night.