If you’ve watched Milan’s downward spiral in terms of
performances this season, and especially if you’ve seen Napoli’s results
spiraling upwards, then tonight’s loss should not surprise you. You might even say Milan got our just desserts. The score,
however, was like kicking a man when he’s down, with the own goal just another
kick in the face. But as usual, the defeat is nothing in comparison to the
rhetoric of Milan fans on the interwebs. It’s hard enough to lose a game like
that, but when your fans toss around hyperbole and call for everyone’s heads on
platters, it’s just embarrassing. It was a very poor game, a logical step based
on our recent performances. And certainly with fans like this, the team must feel like they’ve been
annihilated.
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| Annihilated. |
The first bullet was a goal by Allan in the 13th minute.
Blame Montolivo for making the backpass when it wasn’t prudent, or blame Zapata
for passing it to Napoli, or blame our entire defense for being caught
sleeping, but no matter who you blame, the goal still counted. 1-0 Napoli. And
that was supposed to be our better 45 minutes.
The second half brought about the complete decimation of our
team. An Insigne goal in the 48th to make it 2-0. Then an exquisite Insigne
free kick in the 68th, the kind we’d be in awe of if it didn’t add insult to
injury. 3-0 Napoli. And the icing on the cake when Ely scored an own goal
trying to clear Higuain’s shot in the 79th. 4-0 Napoli. The biggest margin they’ve
ever defeated us by. Yeah. Annihilated.
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| It was great to see this guy back. If all of our 11 fought as hard as him, the score could have been quite different. |
But why? Well I gave
you my theory on our midfield starting options. Montolivo started with
a wild shot from distance salute to Boateng, who was in the stands with Muntari, so he also made sure
to slow things down and lose the ball a lot, in honor of the ex-Milan midfielder. Just
watch how the "captain" forces everyone to play wide, like leaving them up against the
wall. Or how he barely can be bothered to jog, so everyone else slowed down,
too. Bonaventura was rendered virtually useless yet again at that trequartista
position. I’d chalk it up to lack of experience, except he has played there
before for other teams, and his forced positioning said it all. It all turned too
quickly into a
nightmare at San Siro.
It’s too bad Zapata didn’t realize that Baresi and Maldini
were both in the stands. Or maybe he did and he wanted to give a poor
performance to show how much we miss them? I don’t know, but his inconsistency
absolutely kills me. And speaking of inconsistency, whomever said that Bacca
and Adriano have a good strike partnership, I’d like to see some evidence.
Despite the lack of service due to our midfield playing balls wide only to lose
them and/or lobbing the ball up hoping it reaches someone, they couldn’t find
each other with a flashlight in the sunshine if they were the only ones on the pitch. Which may have actually helped
the scoreline, as Adriano was probably our best defender, often playing very
deep and making clearances like we’d like to see him score goals.
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| When their defense is catching arguably our fastest player, the ending wasn't going to be pretty. |
Mihajlovic humbly admitted Napoli were the better team.
Yeah, you think? Look at their talent at pretty much every position. They’ve
been playing together longer. And their captain isn’t called Montolivo. I’ve
laid out stats and tactics previously as to why this downturn in our form has
coincided with his return, but I cannot emphasize enough my theory that he is
the most pivotal thing affecting our mentality right now. From what he says in press conferences (especially about his teammates,) to
the way he carries himself, the way he plays, and his excessive use of the
anti-grinta on the pitch, he is dragging our team down. We may have seen defensive epic
fails, horrible passes, and other mistakes in this match, but he is the eye of
the storm. And though some of his stats sometimes look good, they don’t tell
the whole story, and are often at the expense of everyone else on the team as well as the result. I know De
Jong may not play as creatively, and he’s had his share of lesser performances,
too, but he always amps up the grinta. The players work harder and play with
more confidence when he is the captain and the regista. And our short game and possession are exponentially improved, too.
I am not sure why Mihajlovic doesn’t see this, other than
when you are thinking tactics, you don’t see something like this that is plain
as the nose on your face. But being riddled with injuries is not an excuse to
play like this. And I guarantee you that if we had to lose 4-0 with De Jong on
the pitch, at least we would lose with honor and dignity.
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| Blocking shots instead of taking them... the best defense is to use your offense? Not sure that's how it goes. |
Chalk it up to tactics, lineup, mentality, injuries, or that
Napoli were simply the better team. Or all of the above. But it doesn’t change
the scoreline or the fact that we have Allegri’s level of fail breathing down
our necks now on the table. It’s not time to fire Mihajlovic. It’s not time to argue about
who played the worst or lament about injuries or what else we could have done. It is time to mourn the
further loss of our dignity and then pick ourselves back up and support this
team. Even if it seems futile. Because losing 4-0 on the pitch at home is
shameful enough. But what I’ve been reading from some Milan fans leaves me
annihilated.
This post inspired by the music of
Lush