Milan swept Wolfsberger aside 5-0 in a friendly, including a splendid Rafael Leao lob, while Yacine Adli contributed a goal and an assist.
The Rossoneri had almost a full squad at their disposal, missing Divock Origi, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Tommaso Pobega, while Daniel Maldini is making his loan move to Spezia.
Yacine Adli was used in the trequartista role behind the strikers, although he dropped deeper at times too, and continued to impress with his one and two-touch approach.
Rafael Leao repeatedly threatened in the opening stages, going close with several shots, before breaking the deadlock with a sensational lob over the goalkeeper, having controlled the Davide Calabria ball over the top with a great first touch.
The second came moments later, Adli pulling across the six-yard box with a pass that Ante Rebic just had to tap in at the back post.
Junior Messias replaced Leao for the second half and was on the scoresheet within 10 minutes, ready to tap in after Theo Hernandez blazed past a defender.
Alexis Saelemaekers saw his attempt cleared off the line on a Rebic assist, but Adli was ready for the rebound and gave a fist-pump celebration for his first goal.
Matteo Gabbia made it 5-0 with a header after Stefano Pioli made numerous substitutions, while Antonio Mirante had to make a couple of saves to maintain the clean sheet.
Image: @acmilan Twitter
Wolfsberger 0-5 Milan
Leao 39 (M), Rebic 42 (M), Messias 57 (M), Adli 60 (M), Gabbia 66 (M)
Milan: Maignan (Mirante 61); Calabria (Florenzi 61), Kalulu (Coubis 77), Tomori (Gabbia 61), Theo Hernandez (Ballo-Toure 61); Bennacer (Bakayoko 61), Krunic (Tonali 61); Saelemaekers (Gala 77), Adli (Brahim Diaz 61), Leao (Messias 46); Rebic (Lazetic 61)
Needed to see this Milan after the last friendly, even though one wrong player (Brescianini) was the main culprit on that night. Granted the opponent was weak, but not to the point where scoring 5 past them is a simple thing. We looked good.
Just some random things :
Kalulu was as fine as ever. I’m all for bringing another defender, not because I don’t rate Gabbia, he’s been very impressive lately, but because I think we need five center-backs, but with respect to that potential new signing and Kjaer, who I love, Kalulu and Tomori must remain the starting pair.
Leao scored a fabulous goal. Not gonna lie, that goal and some of the moves are easily worth 7m a season IF produced on a regular basis, but I guess we already knew that.
Adli is already 10 times more effective and thus 10 times the player Diaz is. It’s obvious early on that Diaz is going down the pecking order. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Adli is ready to be our starting AM every week, it just means Diaz is that bad. Adli will get there though. Very promising.
Saelemaekers is a good player, but he remains incredibly wasteful in front of the goal. He’s not a goal scorer and that’s a fact everyone (himself included) should accept.
Rest of the players were good and all of them looked fit enough at this stage, though Lazetic is nowhere ready to be a part of Milan squad yet. We knew he was an investment for future and he needs to go play somewhere on l.o.a.n. Gabbia has every right to play for Milan and he’s getting better and better, but I keep wondering how much he can improve with a full season of games under his belt if he goes to a smaller team temporarily.
@ MIlan Fan How did you manage to post such a long comment? I cannot seem to post anything.
@ Milan Fan Thanks for another greater review! Just on the squad size, are you saying that a club actually needs more than 2 players per position? A modern squad needs 2.5 players per position. At CB I would have thought having 3 players covering 2 positions would be ideal as it would minimise rotation. This is what most of the great sides did. The Juve BBC defence used to swap Cáceres in for one of those. It didn’t matter that Cáceres was not at the same level, what mattered was the familiarity.
@ Maldini’s Heir
I have learned to avoid FI’s trigger words. It’s really frustrating that they don’t do anything about it. Never mind a.s.s , you can’t even write l.o.a.n or many other normal words for some reason.
Regarding squad size, yes I believe a team need more than two but just for the center-back position. Midfielders, wingers and attackers can play each other’s roles if absolutely necessary in case of crisis possibly with a tweak in formation and tactics, but they can’t play center-back. You need at least two healthy center-backs at all times. Football is not the the same as 80s and 90s when teams would go on to win with small squads, as they didn’t have to play so many matches and injuries were less frequent. This is a World Cup year, too. Sure we could be fine with 4 center-backs for the most part, probably nothing will happen, but if three of them are unavailable at any point in time even for a month … it has happened before.
Some time back, Liverpool lost a lot of points at one point when they lost some of their starting defenders to injury and had to play random people in defense.
They even conceded 7 from Aston Villa if I remember correctly.
@ Milan Fan Interesting perspective on CBs. I wasn’t really talking about the 80s or 90s. The BBC was in the last 10 years. And it was the same for Barca, Real, Bayern and, yes, Liverpool. Pique and Ramos played over 30 league games each season at the top. If a team gets injuries no amount of squad players will fix things. The squad players will never be at the same level (why would a top player sign as the 5th choice CB?) and with so many players hanging around the manager will be forced to rotate which will disrupt the side. Personally I believe a team needs more options in attack because that is where they need options to change things. The defence should be changed as little as possible.
As for l.o.a.n.s, I hate them. Most l.o.a.n.s (and indeed transfers generally) do not work out (in that the player does not play at the same or higher level at their new club). So many players have had their careers ruined by moving around too much. It’s extremely difficult to find the right conditions for success. That’s why most of the top teams have played together for long periods with minimal changes only with key improvements. Look at Real now – they still have players playing for them who were there 10 years ago. Personally I’d like to see l.o.a.n.s either banned or limited to once. It would force clubs to either back players or move them on, and reduce the turnover. Now a reserve league would be different.
@Maldini’s Heir
You are not wrong on your points about center-backs. I’d like for the starting pair to ideally start 80 to 90% of the matches together, too. I just think in a World Cup year it doesn’t hurt to have a spare center-back. Kjaer, Tomori and Gabbia may not all be injury prone per se but they do get injured throughout every season, and while most of the time you don’t need a fifth center-back, if those injuries happen simultaneously, you’re in deep trouble and are going to lose points for sure. We missed three center backs a few seasons ago and had to slot Kessié at one point.
Regarding l.o.a.n deals, I do agree that it should be abolished for established players. Personally I would ban l.o.a.n deals for players over 23 years of age. For players under 23, it could work wonders and protect the top teams who otherwise could not play their youngsters while also helping the smaller sides who can’t really afford those top prospects.