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AC Milan booked their place in the next round of the Coppa Italia with a convincing 3-0 win over Lecce at San Siro on Tuesday night.
In truth, the game quickly descended into a bit of a training exercise. Milan peppered Lecce’s goal with early attempts, then Jamil Siebert saw red after a VAR review deemed that he had taken Christopher Nkunku down as the last man.
Santiago Gimenez broke his duck for the season not long after the sending off, converting a lovely cross from Davide Bartesaghi. Nkunku also got his first of the season and as a Rossoneri player early in the second half, then Christian Pulisic made sure of things with his fifth of 2025-26.
Marco Landucci took on the responsibility of leading from the dugout as Massimiliano Allegri served yet another touchline ban, but he kept up his perfect record as the stand-in. Now, Lazio await in the last 16 for Milan, but what did we learn from such a one-sided game?
1. Warming up his engines
Nkunku got his first start after joining Milan in the summer and it ended up being a positive performance in the end.
The striker missed a couple of decent chances early on but redeemed himself with an acrobatic finish that got him his first goal in red and black. On top of the goal he was very lively and was the reason Lecce were down to 10 men.
The game itself was in Milan’s control following the red card but we saw that the Frenchman is picking up the pace after Allegri said he only had 20 or 30 minutes in his legs recently.
2. At long last
Gimenez has had to wait five months since his last goal for Milan, and after struggling for confidence since the start of the season finally managed to get a goal to his name and Allegri will be hoping that this will provide a much needed confidence boost and get the striker going.
Other than the goal Gimenez didn’t show anything spectacular as he even missed a couple of big opportunities, but the importance of him finally scoring should not be underestimated as he clearly lacked confidence and the pressure was mounting on him in recent weeks.
3. Solid as a rock
Following the red card for Lecce, Milan had total control over the game so it’s not surprising that they achieved yet another clean sheet, a fourth in a row. Yet, it’s still worth highlighting how stable the back line has been and how good Fikayo Tomori and Strahinja Pavlovic, in particular, have been.
This time around Koni De Winter started ahead of Matteo Gabbia and did a good enough job, whilst Davide Bartesaghi got the nod over Pervis Estupinan and got a lovely assist for Gimenez’s goal. He could have had a couple more too but for wasteful finishing.
In other words, it’s fortunate that Milan are in such a positive defensive form going into the game against Napoli, one that is shaping up to be a very important game despite the season being in an early stage.
#ACMilan under Massimiliano Allegri so far:
➤ 5 wins in 6 games
➤ 5 clean sheets (4 in a row)
➤ 12 goals scored
➤ 2 goals conceded
➤ Top scorer: Pulisic (5 goals)
[via @SkySport] pic.twitter.com/YiLRUKEcRx
— MilanData📊 (@acmilandata) September 24, 2025
4. Mixed midfield
Ruben Loftus-Cheek has had an interesting start to the season, and whilst his physicality has helped him a lot in duels in previous game he struggled to actually produce anything impressive in terms of passing or ball carrying.
Against Lecce, however, he was rather unlucky to not get a goal. He had a shot cleared off the line followed by another attempt that was just wide, and he even hit the post early in the second half. The overall performance was encouraging as he even took a couple of men on, showing his confidence.
Then, Ricci was in the opposite end as he struggled to impose himself on the game. You would’ve expected him to be able to do so easily given the numerical advantage Milan had, dictating the tempo in the regista role.
Despite a few decent passes we didn’t see anything worth mentioning and the Italian will have to do a lot better to get more regular minutes, especially with Adrien Rabiot and Luka Modric already so important.
5. Youthful energy
Zachary Athekame was introduced in the second half, and despite it being hard for us to judge him given the game situation, we did see some positives in his cameo.
The Swiss showed good pace and strength whilst making runs down the flank and we saw a flash of what he is capable of. He is still just 20 years of age and the potential, at least physically, is there. It’s over to Allegri to turn the raw materials into a refined wing-back.
We also saw a bit of Cheveyo Balentien again. The Dutchman is still 18 years old and despite him having played limited minutes we can see that in terms of physicality he is an interesting profile.
He has the pace and flair that is exciting, as well as the frame to make use of it, but the end product is not there yet. It is not too dissimilar to how Leao was at the start.
What is promising to see is that the youngster is not afraid to take on players and try to make those direct runs, and he’ll be another player to watch as the season progresses.
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