AC Milan were held to a 1-1 draw by Sassuolo at the Mapei Stadium in Reggio Emilia. The Rossoneri took the lead midway through the second half through Adrien Rabiot, only for Odenthal to equalise a few minutes later.
After the match, Milan head coach Ruben Amorim spoke to Sky Sport 24 to share his thoughts on the game. Here are his full comments.
The match had several different phases: the middle period was good, but the start and finish were less convincing?
“When we don’t win, we’re never satisfied. There are still many things we need to improve, but we have shown signs of progress. We controlled a large part of the game and wanted to put our opponents under pressure, score goals and take greater responsibility on the pitch. We did well to contain them and manage many of their transitions. We deserved to take the lead, but after scoring, we clearly should have managed the game better, kept more possession and slowed down the opposition’s response. We cannot afford to concede from a corner. It’s clear that we cannot be satisfied when we throw away two points like that.”
Does the team still need to find its identity?
“We need to keep doing what we were doing before the goal and then carry on in the same way, keeping more possession and not allowing the game to become about transitions. Clearly, as you also saw, we wanted to control the game, attack, find the right combinations and play well. Sometimes it’s a question of mentality: you score a goal and you have to keep pushing, because it’s clear that the opposition will try to respond. We should therefore have kept much more possession.”
How is Gabbia?
“I don’t yet know exactly what type of injury it is, how serious it is or how long the recovery will take. It’s clear that Gabbia is a fundamental player for this group, regardless of whether he starts or not. An injury like that hurts, and I could also feel how much pain he was in at that moment.”
Is the team still lacking support for the striker? Amorim said:
“We’re currently working on our build-up play, and you can see that in certain phases of the game. However, we need to work better on our combinations in the final third. At times, they managed to shut us down in midfield and block our route down the left-hand side, and in those situations, we should have started again and looked to find the player inside the pitch a little more often. We’re working on it, and I’d say this is the final step, or at least one of the last steps, towards getting more shots on goal and creating greater danger.”
Does anything change when playing with three or four defenders? Amorim commented:
“In the end, they’re the same players, so you can rotate them and play with three or four defenders. With four defenders, you have more width in the build-up, which allows the midfielders to push a little further forward. It’s up to the centre-backs to play out from the back and take on more responsibility in building the play. Today, we needed to push forward even more, and that’s what we tried to do with four defenders and four attacking players, in order to pin them back further.”
