AC Milan 3-0 Empoli: Reijnders brace inspires Rossoneri to much-needed win | OneFootball

AC Milan took care of business in front of their home fans on Saturday night as they ran out comfortable 3-0 winners against Empoli at San Siro.

The deadlock was broken by Alvaro Morata who broke his run of two months in the league without a goal, firing in after a blocked shot fell into his path.

A second came just before the break, with Tijjani Reijnders also profiting off a loose ball in the area. In the second half he doubled his tally, using Rafael Leao’s run well and finishing from 18 yards.

It was a job well done for Paulo Fonseca’s side given the pressure they were under coming into the game to not only win, but to be a bit more convincing at both ends.

Paulo Fonseca chose to make six changes to the starting line-up with Emerson Royal, Malick Thiaw and Matteo Gabbia coming into the defence. Yunus Musah started on the right, with Rafael Leao on the left and Alvaro Morata leading the attack.

Milan dominated the ball and the territory in the early stages of the game, without creating anything too clear cut. Some nice interplay on the edge of box saw Leao surge to the byline and stand up a cross, with Emerson Royal having a shot blocked that drew penalty appeals which were rightly waved away.

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The Rossoneri carved Empoli open with a beautiful move down the left side as Leao fed Theo Hernandez who sent Morata in behind, yet the Spaniard dragged his shot wide. The replays suggested the Milan loanee Vasquez got a touch on it in the Empoli goal, though no corner was forthcoming.

Quick movement of the ball was proving to be Milan’s biggest weapon early on, and Tijjani Reijnders was the latest to let fly after some nice work again from Leao in a central area. He loaded up a rocket of a shot that swerved wide via a deflection.

In the 19th minute, Milan got the goal that their pressure was beginning to suggest would come. Emerson squared to Leao inside the box whose shot was blocked into the path of Morata, who was waiting to sweep in at the near post from about 12 yards to end his two-month league goal drought.

Despite taking the lead, Milan seemed to press even higher up the field and had chances to quickly double their advantage. Pulisic got the ball inside the box and really should have squared to Reijnders who would have strolled through on goal, yet he leant back and fired well over the bar with Leao also free. Moments later, he again didn’t find a team-mate in a better position, which is unlikely the American in fairness.

Things didn’t seem to click for Pulisic or Leao in the first half in truth. The Portuguese winger should have done better than rolling a shot straight into the hands of Vasquez after a quick counter from a free-kick.

After a couple of heroic blocks from Goglichidze and Viti, Empoli’s resistance was broken as Milan got a second just before the break. A cross from the right by Morata was not cleared and ended up at the feet of Reijnders, who waited for the ball to fall and fired into the bottom corner just inside the far post.

Photo by AC Milan

The first chance of the second half went to the away side and they were unlucky not to get themselves right back into the game. A rising strike from Maleh around 20 yards out beat Maignan but didn’t beat the crossbar, rattling the woodwork and bouncing away to safety.

Milan should have put the game to bed just before the hour mark when a cut-back seemed to be perfectly in the path of Musah to strike from deep inside the box. However, the midfielder dummied it to nobody rather than hitting it.

In the 69th minute, the Rossoneri did get their third of the evening and it was Reijnders who doubled his tally for the night. Fofana led the counter-attack and played it wide to the Dutchman, who profited from an excellent decoy run by Leao to simply roll it in from the edge of the box.

With 15 minutes left Fonseca made a wise triple change. Gabbia had been booked so he came off for Strahinja Pavlovic, while Fofana would have missed the Atalanta game with a booking so he was removed for Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Musah for Samuel Chukwueze was the other change, then a few minutes later Tammy Abraham replaced Morata.

The San Siro crowd would get one final bit of excitement as they welcomed Francesco Camarda onto the field, as he took the place of Leao to signify a change to two strikers. The 16-year-old’s first action was to try an overhead kick from a cross, though he didn’t connect sweetly with it.