Rabiot admits Milan must rediscover ‘solidity’ and criticises refereeing in general

Adrien Rabiot spoke to Mediaset after AC Milan’s defeat to Napoli, highlighting that the Rossoneri need to rediscover the compactness that made them so successful before. 

It was another game with too many goals conceded for Milan, allowing Napoli to find the back of the net twice. It was mostly due to individual errors, with Koni De Winter struggling massively in particular, but it’s also clear that the teamwork isn’t working as well anymore.

Speaking to Mediaset after the game, as transcribed by MilanNews, Rabiot shared his thoughts on the defeat. He made it clear that Milan have lacked compactness lately, which is something they have to rediscover in order to turn the ship around.

A Milan in difficulty without Leao and Gimenez…

“No, I don’t think so. The difference isn’t that Gimenez was there the last month. And we scored even when Leao wasn’t there. It’s not about missing players. We need to regain the compactness and solidity that we have lost a bit in recent games.

“We were a bit light defensively tonight. We had chances and weren’t able to score. We need to do better, and we have to stay calm. It’s disappointing because we could have been fighting for a trophy, but we have to stay calm because we’re doing well in the league and we have to get back to doing well.”

Photo by Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images

On his foul on Politano and the refereeing…

“Nothing to say, it wasn’t a red card. The referee could have done much better, but it’s not just about this match, it’s been going on for many matches. I’m not just talking about Milan, I look at the other matches too.

“It’s disappointing, but they’re not doing well right now. But this match isn’t the referee’s fault, it was up to us. We could have done much better and we weren’t able to win it.

“The lads are disappointed, but we need to get back to the league immediately.We need to keep working and growing, our young players are learning. Nights like these are also how you grow. The season is long, we’re calm.”

Given the defeat tonight, Milan won’t have to play a game on Monday and will thus fly back to Italy tomorrow (or potentially even tonight). They will thus have a lot of rest before the last game of the year, against Hellas Verona on Sunday.