It’s almost Serie A time in Italy and AC Milan Women’s team will host San Marino Academy in round 13 looking to keep up with Juventus and to maintain a secure 8 points advantage over third-place Sassuolo. But, instead of points, let’s focus on another important number in the game: goals.
After 12 rounds and only 5 goals conceded so far, Milan has the best defense in the league and, with no question, the dynamic duo of defenders Laura Agard and Laura Fusetti are doing a great job, but goalie Mária Korenciová is the main reason Milan has been able to keep so many clean sheets. However, we are going direct this piece to the opposite side of the field.
Attacking-duo dependency
According to FIGC, Milan’s attack managed to score 25 times this season and Giacinti is responsible for 10 of those, followed by Dowie with 6. It means that the 9 goals left are spread among the other players, which indicate that the Rossonere basically rely on the front duo to find the back of the net for them.
Lack of accuracy upfront
Milan have 148 shots in total this season where 66 were on target, and then 25 of those really found the back of the net. Thus, a 16,9% accuracy, which is lower than Sassuolo’s 17,3% and Juventus’s 21,4%. In addition, of those 25 goals, 7 of them were scored with left-foot efforts, 21 with the right foot and 4 from headers. Surprisingly, those 7 left-footed goals are shared among Giacinti (4), Grimshaw (1), Dowie (1) and Tucceri-Cimini (1), the only natural left-footed player among them and yet, she scored from a set-piece. As for the headers, half of them belong to Dowie (2) and the other half is split between Giacinti and Spinelli.
Dangerous inside the box, not that much outside it
In addition, 23 of the 25 goals were scored from inside the box, while 2 of them from outside of the box, both from set pieces, which means, this team does not try out long-range efforts enough.
Looking at these figures we were able to draw some conclusions. For starters, they really must be more accurate in front of the goal and increase this percentage of accuracy. Also, midfielders and wingers should step their offensive game up, get in action and try to score through long and mid-range efforts or assist the strikers with long passes and crosses in order to improve the figures of header goals.
Image credit: acmilan.com
