Sampdoria 1, Milan 0: No Excuses

If only Gigio hadn’t made that error. Or if Orsato had called the penalty. Or Gattuso hadn’t benched Paqueta and Kessie. Or if the weather had been different. Or if your horoscope had been different. If Milan want Champions League, they have got to play well enough to win despite mistakes or ref calls or VAR reviews or whatever. If Milan want Champions League, then they have to step it up now. No excuses.

"Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe s**t"

This game was decided in less than a minute. Literally, Rodriguez threw the ball in to Romagnoli, who passed it to Gigio, who then passed it straight to Defrel, who easily shot it around our young keeper. 1-0 Sampdoria. It was the mistake that we had been waiting for. Many have criticized Gattuso for building up play from the back, and if your goalkeeper is touching the ball that much, then that mistake was going to happen at some point.

The rest of the game was spent with Milan desperately trying to get a goal back, but seemingly not knowing how to do that. Without the defensive and passing abilities of Kessie, our midfield was virtually impotent. And without Paqueta’s creative abilities as well as the strength and ability to hold onto the ball and pass as well, we only got nine shots off in total, even if five of those were on goal. Compare that to Samp’s 16 shots, and Milan did not deserve this match.

How many defenders does it take to take Piatek down?

Gattuso’s subs were interesting. Subbing Conti on for Rodriquez at the half was smart, seeing as how Rodriguez had not been 100% fit after International duty and was clearly struggling. Calabria did well after moving to the left, even coming up with a nice clearance in the final minute of the game. Pulling Suso off for Cutrone was a bit weird, seeing as how missing Castillejo was and how much Suso was contributing at the time. But Castillejo did do more when he moved to the right. Paqueta on for Biglia made more sense on the pitch than on paper, as the young Brazilian did much to change the game in his short 20 minutes on the pitch.

Much is being said about Orsato, specifically for not giving a penalty late in the game when Piatek went down in the box. But VAR review clearly shows that Murru did get a slight touch on the ball, so it was actually the right call. So were the four yellows he handed out to Milan players good calls. I don’t know why Milan fans are complaining about not being given something that was never ours in the first place.

Yeah, it was kinda like that

There are so many excuses we could make for this game, but none of them give us the three points we lost out on. With “nine finals” left, Milan need to be better. No more mistakes. No more trying to earn a ref call or a penalty. No more questions about lineups or tactics. We have the players. We have the abilities. We have played well before, we’ve also been lucky before. But we need to fight hard enough that luck doesn’t matter. If we want that Champions League spot this season, we need to earn it. Period. No more excuses.

This post inspired by the music of Meghan Trainor’s “No”

Our next match is

Serie A Week 30

Udinese vs. Milan

Tuesday, April 2 • 19:00 CST (1pm EDT)