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AC Milan made it back to back wins and clean sheets in Serie A as they beat Bologna 1-0 at San Siro on Sunday night.
Milan had the better of the chances in the first half with Pervis Estupinan hitting the woodwork and Ruben Loftus-Cheek glancing a header wide from a corner. Then, Strahinja Pavlovic came off at the break and Mike Maignan was subbed early in the second half with both injured.
Nonetheless, Luka Modric stepped up on the hour mark to fire home a cut-back from Alexis Saelemaekers and secure the three points with what was the only goal of the game, just a few days after turning 40.
Restricting Bologna to five shots (zero on target) and making it three clean sheets in four games will please Massimiliano Allegri, but what else can we take from the game? Rohit Rajeev picks out the key tactical points.
Shape in both phases
The performance has been called a ‘typical Allegri win’, but the game wasn’t as closed as the scoreline makes it look as Milan were comfortably the better side.
Milan used a 4-4-2 shape off the ball, keeping themselves extremely narrow denying Bologna space in the centre.
Milan’s main idea higher up the pitch was to stay narrow. They had two reasons for this. One was to block passing lanes to the pivot (usually Freuler) and the second one was to force Bologna to play in the wide areas.
Gimenez and Loftus-Cheek stayed rather passive in the press in contrast to what we used to witness under Pioli, but Allegri’s Milan had a trigger. It was when Skorupski would make a pass out wide to Zortea: this would see Rabiot jump out of line and press him.
Milan had their first counter-attack in the fifth minute and this came from Milan pressing Bologna well with Allegri using a man marking system with all passing options marked by Milan.
Estupinan had a shot which went off the post, but there are question marks about whether he could have passed since Milan had numbers forward.
Italiano’s ploy
Bologna’s offside goal came from a Milan throw-in. They overloaded the wide areas and won the first ball from leading to a shot.
The Rossoblu aimed to exploit Milan’s left half space. This was done by having Orsolini stay wide and having Zortea underlap the winger creating space in the half spaces for midfielders like Fabbian to make runs.
Milan’s midfielders used counter-movements (as seen in the picture) and exchange positions with fluidity to take advantage of the spaces opening up.
The goal comes
Milan’s goal came as a result of a well executed press. Milan successfully trap Bologna to play through their right with well executed press from Gimenez and Loftus-Cheek.
With Zortea advancing he has no clear passing option as all passing option including the back-pass has been blocked off. He tried an audacious through ball which gets intercepted by Estupinan.
With the counter well under way – and Bologna successfully pushing to the flanks – Saelemaekers waited for Modric to make a run. Fabbian was ball watching instead of covering Modric who made an unmarked dart towards the edge of the box.
Control
Although it was a one-goal win on the scoreboard, the Rossoneri felt in command almost throughout barring some odd patches.
Sofascore suggest that Bologna had more passes in Milan’s defensive third than the other way round, but the Rossoneri restricted their visitors to not having a shot on target.
In short Allegri was comfortable to let Bologna have the ball but set his side up in a way whereby they could not do anything with it. That, in a sense, is ‘AllegriBall’.
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