Athekame’s crossing proving to be a weapon for Milan in season finale

Zachary Athekame has certainly responded to the initial criticism in recent weeks by showcasing his great crossing several times, including against Pisa last night. 

Few knew who Athekame was when he arrived from Young Boys in the summer. He was just 20 at the time and didn’t exactly arrive from the biggest league, so perhaps that only made sense. However, there was still some excitement about the signing.

He made his first cameo early on but you could clearly see his inexperience, as well as an overall lack of confidence. The goal against Pisa in October helped send some important signal, but it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that he really got going.

Huge progress made

Indeed, Allegri noticed an important change on the training ground and all of this coincided with Saelemaekers’ injury, which meant the No.24 had to step up in the games too. From Roma onwards, that is definitely what he has done.

While he still needs to work on his confidence, which I highlighted in the ratings last night, his crossing is fantastic. We saw that with the left-footed cross to Nkunku against Bologna, and yesterday he got a lovely assist for Ruben Loftus-Cheek with his right foot.

Photo by Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images

The feeling is that Milan could have a very good player on their hands as the ingredients are there: speed, crossing ability and work-rate. If the confidence can be improved a bit more, then he will also be much more successful in the 1v1s; now he can sometimes be a bit timid.

Saelemaekers should soon be back in action and while he will definitely slot back into the eleven, having a deputy you can rely on is so important. Especially for someone like the Belgian who works so hard every game and thus puts himself at risk of getting injured.