How a misreading saw Musah hooked early: Tactical analysis of AC Milan 2-2 Fiorentina | OneFootball

The European train has left AC Milan behind as they dropped yet more points in a torrid league season, this time drawing 2-2 with Fiorentina at San Siro.

Milan fell behind yet again under Sergio Conceicao in what was another dreadful start to the game. Fiorentina were firmly in control after a Malick Thiaw own-goal – his third of the season – gifted them the lead before Moise Kean was on hand to hammer in a cross from Dodo.

Tammy Abraham ensured that the deficit was halved going into the break as he fired in a Christian Pulisic assist, and then substitute Luka Jovic levelled in the second half. Both sides had chances to win it, but Mike Maignan and David De Gea made crucial saves.

One point does very little for the sides in ninth and eighth place respectively. Though it was a good advert for Serie A (maybe not for defending), it perhaps also showed why both are unlikely to get a top four spot. Rohit Rajeev has the tactical analysis from the game.

Getting it wrong again

It’s no secret that starting Yunus Musah proved to be another disaster, but why did Sergio Conceicao attempt to do it?

Well, we start from the fact that Fiorentina attempted to block Milan’s passing lines in the centre by over-crowding. Fiorentina’s shape (3-5-2) allowed them to do so.

Whenever Milan were on the ball Milan, Musah would play as a wing-back and this allowed Walker to play as a deeper centre-back who could find players between the lines.

Not only did they block the middle of the field, but Musah playing wide meant there was confusion. Pulisic was left marking nobody, Youssouf Fofana had to cover for Musah whenever he drifted wide and this meant there was literally always a player free in the middle (usually Mandragora).

This was the concept that led to the second goal. Mandragora was virtually unmarked as he was pressed by nobody and was allowed to make a switch. There are mistakes on the defenders side too but it looked like Milan were playing with nine outfield players.

Musah’s selection wasn’t only limited to this tactical misreading. Earlier Fiorentina had forced him into an error: when he was on the ball Fiorentina blocked off his passing options and it forced the American to lose the ball for the first goal.

With Musah playing wide right, Milan’s positional rotations got severely affected. Reijnders would drop into the double pivot to build up play, but Fiorentina had him outnumbered four to one.

It forced Conceicao to have Pulisic drop into midfield, which meant that when the opportunity came for counter-attacks, Milan were a man short in terms of getting forward.

Picking up the pieces

From there, Milan set about having to salvage something from the wreck, a common theme. The first goal came from some clever individual moves, as the video below shows.

Then, Conceicao brought on Luka Jovic, which surprised some as Santiago Gimenez was on the bench. Yet, Jovic restored balance: he came on as an attacking midfielder and would drop alongside Fofana and Reijnders to stop Fiorentina’s central dominance.

Even off the ball, having an extra person higher up the pitch meant Mandragora didn’t have a free reign of the central areas, and Fiorentina had to drop Gudmundsson into midfield for build-up.

Basketball game breaks out

Fiorentina’s 3-5-2 system meant that they were easily able to outnumber Milan’s left flank in a three-versus-two situation.

The counter-pressing from Milan was so horrible that if La Viola won the ball back in the middle third, they were basically allowed to counter-attack without any challenge or opposition.

Third-man combinations thanks to the clever movement of Reijnders gave birth to the chance seen in the clip below, and it is one area where Milan seem to be getting better.

Gimenez is having a rough time with the Rossoneri after a red-hot start, but he is still contributing: his off the ball run cleared space for Tomori’s pass to Jovic to latch on to.