Last night’s loss to Napoli saw Milan’s 22-game unbeaten run in the league come to an end, their first defeat since January.
The Rossoneri have been reborn under coach Stefano Pioli over the last few years, finally emerging from the depths of disappointment that they’d languished in over the last decade. Paolo Maldini, Frederic Massara and Pioli have worked hard to turn things around in the Lombardy capital and their efforts were rewarded last season with a Scudetto.
As highlighted by Corriere della Sera, Milan’s loss to Napoli yesterday was their first Serie A defeat since January 17, when they suffered a frustrating 2-1 loss to Spezia at home. Since that game, the Rossoneri had won 15 matches and drawn seven, which was enough to secure their first Scudetto in a decade last campaign.
The unbeaten run was a sign of the team’s consistency and ability to dig deep in tough matches, something they’ll be hoping to see again in their next games against Empoli and Juventus.
We don’t need to be worried. The performance was there. Naturally there are errors in details that we need to work on but that’s normal considering the way Milan plays, which means taking a lot of risks.
Replay this match 10 more times and Milan probably won’t lose. It happens that after 22 rounds almost everything goes against you in a match. Napoli are strong but as far as I’m concerned we’re better. Onwards.
I don’t know if others have noticed this, but we’re becoming a little like Man City in PL. Keep in mind that I don’t really like them and our way of playing is different (we are not really interested in possession for one) but I’m making a comparison based on match domination. We have played the strongest and most attacking sides in the league in these 7 rounds and in almost all those matches Milan have dominated for long periods. Opponents defend deep with numbers for most of the match against Milan to survive us and then counter.
Now we obviously don’t have Man City’s perfection in executing everything we do, and we don’t have those calibre of players, but we are forcing our style of play similarity all the same.
Chelsea matches could raise us to another level on so many aspects.
Hopefully Calabria and now Theo recover in good time.