Stefano Pioli confirms Milan will ‘certainly play with three at the back’ in their next few games and a look at the fixture list might explain his approach.
The Rossoneri were defeated 1-0 in the Derby della Madonnina by rivals Inter, barely an improvement on the 3-0 Supercoppa Italiana loss in Riyadh three weeks ago.
The change of tactics to 3-5-2 with Rafael Leao on the bench failed to change matters, as they didn’t have a single real shot on target.
Asked if this was just to mirror Simone Inzaghi’s system, Pioli insisted this is the plan going forward.
“We will certainly play with three at the back over the next few games, then we’ll see about our shape in the attacking phase,” said the coach in his press conference.
“The plan was to wait for Inter in our own half, but then push the team up once we won back possession, but this didn’t happen.”
Rafael Leao was named Serie A Player of the Season on their way to the Scudetto, so even with the contract dispute, it seems strange to drop their best player to the bench for two games in a row against Sassuolo and Inter.
“I made the choices that I considered to be best. Divock Origi was meant to work making vertical passes for Olivier Giroud. I don’t think it was necessarily Origi’s fault tonight, but we sat too deep, made too many mistakes playing out from the back and were ineffective going forward.”
Looking at the fixture list, there may well be a reason why Pioli is sticking to the three-man defence, because the next two matches are also against teams who traditionally play with three at the back.
They face Ivan Juric’s Torino in Serie A on Friday February 10, then Antonio Conte’s Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League on February 14.
Both those games are at San Siro and it remains to be seen how the pressure will get to the players if things begin to go wrong again.
Monza and Atalanta after that also play with a three-man defence, so Milan won’t face a back four until Fiorentina on March 4.