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AC Milan have a very good opportunity to end their Scudetto drought, following in the footsteps of Inter Milan who ended their own in winning the Italian Serie A title last season. However, there have been pertinent questions about Milan’s ability to get to that height.
Despite staying in the Serie A leading pack for the better part of the season, and once and again showing some flashes of brilliance, it doesn’t pass as a surprise to see Milan with underdogs’ odds on Wincomparator, across all the competitions they are taking part in.
Lately, Milan haven lost a lot of matches, but they have also failed to take advantage of their direct opponents’ slip ups. The fact that Milan are still among the title contenders is down to their opponents dropping points, and not Milan doing better. For example, while Inter Milan have failed to win any of their last four matches, losing two, Milan have only managed two wins in the process.
Napoli have caught up with Milan, though the two are top jointly with 57 points, but they should be wary of an advancing Juventus, who are currently fourth, with 50 points. Inter remain a threat too; they have a game in hand and just two points behind the leading duo.
So what’s really ailing Milan? This is a question that has been on the lips of many, with Milan struggling in all fronts on a season they should have gone on to conquer. The first issue with Milan is a lack of leadership on the pitch.
Injuries to key men Simon Kjaer and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have left Milan in a really precarious situation, with the youngsters clearly struggling in decision making. Their mentality has been weak and failing to win winnable games has surely worked negatively on the players’ confidence. In the last two matches, for example, Milan led against Udinese and Salernitana, teams that are struggling, but both games ended in draws.
The attacking woes are also very clear at Milan. In Ibrahimovic’s absence, Olivier Giroud has failed to take the mantle. With his experience, a return of seven goals in 18 league games isn’t good enough. The dependence on Raphael Leao is also wearing down the team, especially when he has a bad game.
Milan have also shown a very worrying trend when facing teams in the lower half of the Serie A; the struggling sides. A case in point is their last two matches. Against Udinese, instead of attacking to put a cushion to their first half lead, Milan sat back to defend and the visitors equalized. The same was the case against bottom side Salernitana which ended 2-2.
These, combined with other factors beyond Milan’s control, really build to the notion that Milan are not in the class to win the league title at least. One such factor is the issue of officiating. Against Udinese, Milan had a clear case against the goal conceded but that was ignored. Still they should have done more to win the game.
All said, two issues that should really concern the Milan hierarchy are the leadership aspect and the fact that they’ve dropped at least 12 points against bottom-half teams.
