AC Milan played hosts to Sampdoria last night at the San Siro, with the long awaited return of Giovinco delayed further due to match fitness problems.
This match was in similar vain to the Spezia game where
Milan took domination from the onset, controlled the game and implemented a
very offensive game style. Mike provided the assist to the long run of Leao who
was able to shoot past Falcone a controlled shot to make it 1 to nil in the
eighth minute.
Sampdoria then flooded their midfield with a strong physical presence and it
did initially rattle Milan’s duo ,
before Tonali and Bennacer grew into the contest and by the end of the
game, had very little trouble navigating the midfield. The physical presence of
the game did lead to a few yellows to Milan with Brahim Diaz and Romagnoli collecting
one each , both were due to over eagerness to the contest.
It was nice to see Conti back on the pitch, even if it was in Sampdoria colours, however sadly he had very little effect on the game and when he was replaced just after half time, I realised I had not seen him for at least 30 minutes.
Much like the Spezia game, Milan was able to relentlessly attack the Sampdoria goal, with either missed shots or superb efforts from Falcone preventing an onslaught. Giroud the recent goal scoring machine, played with a hunger of a much younger man, only Falcone’s great efforts and the inability of team mates to pass to him prevented him scoring another.
The introduction of Rebic, Kessie and Salaemakers all provided different results, with Rebic very unlucky to not add to the scoreline on a number of occasions and has hopefully shaken off some of the rustiness from his return, Kessie however was bitterly average, ensuring that he did provide a physical presence on the ball but his contributions to the offensive side of the game, more often than not were wasteful. Salaemakers is always a much better player coming off the bench , he did provide a lot more defensive stability of nullifying Sampdoria’s counter attacks, however he is plagued by two problems which I hope he is able to improve on , his either continuously error prone and wasteful with his ball distribution or his incredibly slow even when dribbling past multiple players.
Overall AC Milan was able to hold out ensure the victory, never really looking in trouble . Other Serie A games that occurred saw Napoli draw with Inter and Atalanta draw with a late Juventus effort. This did ensure that AC Milan finished the round on top, I do believe both results should have been in favor of Napoli and Atalanta as this would have stopped the momentum of both Inter and Juve .In Inter’s case may have contributed to self doubt due to losing a double to Napoli and AC Milan and destabilising their season.
3. Leao
2. Maignan
1.Giroud
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