AC Milan fell to defeat for the first time in Serie A this season after a 4-3 loss to Fiorentina on Saturday night.
The Rossoneri largely had themselves to blame given their poor play at both ends of the pitch, as they made costly mistakes defensively and were wasteful in front of goal themselves.
READ MORE: Milan player ratings vs Fiorentina: Tatarusanu, Gabbia and Theo cost Rossoneri
While Fiorentina had their moments and showed some quality too, Stefano Pioli will undoubtedly be left bitterly disappointed with his own side’s performance, and we must now bounce back positively next week in order to get back on track and avoid losing any major ground in the Scudetto race.
Tatarusanu error-prone streak returns
While he has had a decent run since replacing the injured Mike Maignan, Ciprian Tatarusanu has always had an error-prone nature to his game and unfortunately we saw that this weekend.
Matteo Gabbia did have a role to play in the first goal as he should have cleared his lines, but Tatarusanu screaming at his defender and passing blame was uncalled for and not enough to mask the initial mistake.
For a player of his experience and given what is at stake for Milan, those howlers simply can’t happen.
Gabbia caught cold
Unfortunately for the 22-year-old, he endured a miserable return to the starting XI as he struggled throughout, particularly when trying to deal with Dusan Vlahovic, while three of the Fiorentina’s goals involved him on some level.
While he has to be better when he gets an opportunity to play, it’s also important to appreciate the difficulty for him coming in after so long on the sidelines and having to get up to speed with things at this level.
If he wishes to stay in contention as cover, he’ll have to improve. That said, hopefully this performance doesn’t knock his confidence too much and doesn’t give Pioli the impression that he can’t trust him.
Theo sloppiness punished again
It’s long been part of Theo Hernandez’s game that he is capable of playing some sloppy passes in dangerous areas of the pitch.
This time round he gambled on the edge of his own box, lost possession, and Fiorentina scored their fourth which killed our momentum heading into the final few minutes.
Simply put, Theo needs to cut this aspect of his game out. It’s costing us every now and again, and it’s not good enough for a player of his quality.
Ibrahimovic bags goals but Milan need more
Two goals and a forced own-goal, the Swedish stalwart certainly led the charge in the second half and played an influential role in our push to salvage something from the game.
That said, he was largely ineffectual in the first half as he struggled to link play up, while he was also guilty of missing some big opportunities in dangerous positions.
For a player of his class and the importance of his leadership in the side, he has to be more ruthless in front of goal moving forward.
Milan shoot themselves in foot, must now react
While we shouldn’t necessarily need a ‘wake-up call’ given what’s at stake this season and how we’ve done so far this year, this really is one of those moments.
Whether it was complacency or just a lack of sharpness out of the international break, Milan dropped three points this weekend, suffered a first defeat of the campaign and had ourselves to blame for most of it.
In some ways that is a good thing as we can correct it quickly, but Pioli will be frustrated with the result and he’ll know that many of the issues were self-inflicted in this one and so it’s about tidying things up and avoiding making the same mistakes again.
