AC Milan head coach Massimiliano Allegri was interviewed by DAZN at the end of the humiliating 2–0 defeat against Sassuolo. These are all of his statements.
Extremely negative moment. Milan did not get the approach and game management wrong before, today it was the complete opposite. What happened to this team?
“It is a matter of having approached it badly. After 4 minutes we conceded a goal, but above all the second-half goal, even with ten men, after one minute you must not concede it. Unfortunately it is a moment like this, we have wasted a lifeline. Now we have a week to prepare for the match in Bergamo. We certainly cannot throw away ten months of work done in a certain way.”
The feeling is that everyone wanted the ball at their feet. Little technical cleanliness, even in positioning there was little clarity…
“Technically we made a lot of mistakes. A Sunday to forget, it must give us the strength to restart from Tuesday and prepare well for the match against Atalanta.”
Is Champions League qualification at risk? Allegri replied:
“It’s not that it is at risk. I have always said I would be very happy to achieve it even on the last matchday because every day I live the team and I live the moments. We have never had moments of difficulty, this is one, and we must be good at staying calm, taking responsibility, and working for a week to prepare for the match against Atalanta.”
Is there anything positive to tell the fans today?
“The message is that ten months of important work have still been done. Now we are in the final stretch and unfortunately the second half of the season has not been very good. But what has been done cannot be changed. We all have to prepare the remaining matches together. Until the end we must stay in it; even in difficult moments you have to work to overcome them.”
Did you say anything to Tomori about the red card?
"Playing with ten men for 70 minutes was not easy, but these are things that happen in football. The important thing is to lift our heads and recover quickly. Thinking about what happened today or in the 16 matches of the second half of the season is useless; what matters is getting two results out of three to try to reach the Champions League."
The fans are very worried and disappointed…
"I understand them because everyone wanted to reach this target quickly. Football is also this. Getting caught up in anxiety is no use; what is needed is to work with great attention and a sense of responsibility."
On Nkunku’s substitution at the end of the first half:
"I wanted to push the game forward as much as possible because we were one goal down and therefore to give more balance, but it was not useful at all because after one minute we conceded and went 2–0 down."
