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AC MIlan only came away from their clash against Genoa with one point, though you could argue it was a rescued point after a late equaliser and a saved penalty. Anyway, it’s clear that everything didn’t work tactically.
Massimiliano Allegri and his men headed into the game with a lot of confidence, having beaten Hellas Verona and Cagliari before. Furthermore, the gaffer was able to field the strongest possible XI (as many would label it), with above all Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leao together.
Despite this, Genoa created difficulties for the Rossoneri and punished them with one of their few chances in the game. Of course, it had to be the loanee Lorenzo Colombo as well, making the most of pretty poor defending from Matteo Gabbia in the box
A point was rescued in the end but as our tactical analyst Rohit highlights below, there were quite a few things that Milan could have done better on the night…
General shapes of both teams
Daniele De Rossi tasked Vitinha with man-marking Modric and he followed him everywhere. No matter how the Croatian tried to find space, the Genoa man stayed tight and denied him rhythm and time on the ball.
Whenever Genoa had the ball, they would sit with a back three. Milan only pressed with two forwards, though, making it easy for the Rossoblue to bypass the press given the 3v2 advantage. With Norton Cuffy pushing high on the left flank, it pulled Bartesaghi and created space on Milan’s left flank.
With Allegri choosing to play with a deep line, Colombo was easily able to create a separation between Milan’s two lines of defence and move into space to score.
How the changes affected the game
When Fullkrug came on the pitch, he started stretching the Genoa defence vertically, creating space between the lines for Pulisic and Leao.
Milan also shifted from their 3-5-2 to a 4-3-3 in an attempt to overload the wing areas, which meant Genoa committed more players to prevent that space from opening up. However, this led to space in the box instead, with Pulisic left unmarked in the box.
Where Milan fell short
Milan made a total of 49 crosses in the game but sadly, Genoa were able to deal with most of them rather comfortably. Before Fullkrug came off the bench, nobody made an attempt to make a run to the front post to get a flick on.
Another area where Milan struggled was the lack of runs. Stretching the pitch, especially inside the box, helps to declutter a deep block. However, no player attempted to make runs into the areas highlighted, to stretch the defence or pull out defenders to create gaps.
Data from the game
Rounding off with some stats, Milan played with a high line, especially in the second half, as they were in pursuit of two goals. In the ground duels, Genoa prevailed and this was mainly due to the fact that they won every second ball against the Rossoneri.
Then, of course, the fact that Milan had 32 shots in the game and only eight of them ended up on target says a lot. The Cagliari game was a masterclass in effeciency but this one was truly the opposite, once again questioning Milan’s firepower up front.
Milan were beaten in ground duels by Genoa. This was mainly due to the fact that Genoa won every second ball as compared to Milan. pic.twitter.com/AQQfmqQpJC
— Rohit Rajeev (@keralista) January 10, 2026
English (US) ·