AC Milan were held to a goalless draw by Cagliari on Sunday night and in turn missed the opportunity to book our place in the Champions League next season.
The Rossoneri knew that a win would be enough to secure a top-four finish in Serie A, but they couldn’t find a way past a stubborn Cagliari defence and had to settle for a point.
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That means the scrap goes to the last weekend of the season when we face Atalanta away, knowing that we effectively must win that game to avoid seeing Napoli and Juventus take the last two qualification spots.
After such a frustrating and anger-inducing performance on Sunday, it remains to be seen if Stefano Pioli and the players can react positively to produce one more big display this season.
Huge chance wasted
After three consecutive wins with 12 goals scored and none conceded, Milan had positioned themselves brilliantly to wrap up an impressive week with a win that would seal our place in the Champions League.
Instead, we showed little to no quality in the final third and ran out of ideas on how to find a way through Cagliari, who had already been assured of safety earlier in the day.
It was a massive chance thrown away by Milan, and if they were nervous or tense this weekend, it’s only going to be amplified next week when we travel to Atalanta knowing that we really must win.
Key players go missing, inconsistency
After so many stellar performances in the last two games, our influential players went missing in this one and showed no real quality in the final third.
From Hakan Calhanoglu to Theo Hernandez, everyone struggled and it resulted in a bitterly disappointing and frustrating team performance as we simply couldn’t get going.
It was the worst possible time for it to happen, but these same individuals now have to show more character and quality if we’re to get the result we need next weekend.
Tactically shut out
Stefano Pioli arguably got it spot on with his starting XI, as he stuck with the same players who had played so brilliantly in midweek, while it made sense to bring Alexis Saelemaekers back in after serving his suspension.
However, what the Milan boss didn’t manage well was the game thereafter. We struggled to penetrate Cagliari and if anything we ran out of ideas and became less effective as the game went on.
That’s down to the coaching and tactical side of it, as we didn’t look like we had a Plan B or a targeted way to hurt our opponents as we desperately searched for a breakthrough.
Completely different side home vs away
Milan have been sensational away from home at times, and with 15 wins on the road so far this season, we’ve tied the record held by Inter.
In complete contrast, we’ve struggled horrendously at home this year. While it’s too late to rectify it now, it has to be looked at before next season as teams have come to San Siro, set up to frustrate us and it has ultimately worked for them.
It’s not good enough at this level and it could cost us a top-four spot, while we must now rely on our away form to get us over the line.
Major task vs Atalanta ahead
Atalanta are a great side, one that we’ve also struggled to get positive results against in recent times.
They’ve already secured Champions League football and so have little to play for in the bigger picture, but they’ll want to finish the season well and with a victory over us.
With the quality that they have to hurt us, this is going to be one of the toughest matches possible for the last weekend of the campaign. If Pioli and Milan aren’t at their best, it isn’t going to end well and so we have to perfect and replicate the display against Torino to have a chance of coming away with all three points.
