Team Focus: Milan's Fragile Defence in Need of Strengthening

Prior to the kick-off of Milan’s Champions League play-off second leg against PSV Eindhoven at San Siro in late August, the Curva Sud unfurled a number of banners. One in particular drew the attention of those in attendance. It read: “A defence and a midfield to reinforce. There isn’t anything else you should be thinking about.” 

Just what were Milan thinking then? At the time they were putting the finishing touches to bringing Alessandro Matri back to the club. For those who don’t know, he’d come through the academy and had been allowed to leave for Cagliari six years ago. Some fans had a gripe with that.  Paying Juventus €11m for a player who had once been on their own books made the club look a little foolish. Others, however, were more concerned with whether Milan really needed another centre-forward or not? 

Sure, Giampaolo Pazzini was still out for a few months, but they’d been told Andrea Petagna, the youth team graduate, would cover for him. Time would indeed tell that Milan did need Matri. The injuries suffered by Stephan El Shaarawy and suspension Mario Balotelli received after the 2-1 defeat to Napoli left them short up front. But, as he’s often reminded, he’s still yet to score and so the question remains: could the money invested in him not have been better spent on areas of the team that, even with everyone fit, were crying out for improvement? 

The weekend before the visit of PSV and completion of Matri’s transfer, Milan had opened their Serie A campaign with a 2-1 defeat to newly promoted Hellas Verona. Both goals were scored by Luca Toni. Both were headers. PSV’s Tim Matavz had scored one to clinch a draw for his side in the first leg of their play-off at the Philips Stadion four days earlier. This was an all too familiar story. 

Milan conceded 15 headed goals in Serie A last season, the most in Italy’s top-flight. They let in 12 from set pieces too, a high they shared with Fiorentina and Sampdoria. The expectation was that Milan would make strengthening the backline a priority in the summer transfer window. 

Evidently a different conclusion was drawn in the club’s transfer strategy meetings. Because unless you count the acquisition of Jherson Vergara, a promising but raw Colombia Under-20 international with no Serie A experience who was brought in to replace veteran compatriot Mario Yepes, and also Matias Silvestre, a flop at Inter who was only signed after Daniele Bonera suffered an injury that ruled him out for the start of the season, then the defence went unenhanced. 

Milan’s attitude baffled many observers and was a cause for general perplexion. 

“Milan continue to pursue trequartisti and strikers without so much as looking at defenders,” wrote Paolo Condò in La Gazzetta dello Sport. “Where there was once Pippo Inzaghi and Andriy Shevchenko came Ibra. A short while after his goodbye arrived Mario Balotelli: That all makes sense. But what was once the realm of Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini, then Alessandro Nesta and Thiago Silva, today comes to be governed by Cristian Zapata and Philippe Mexes. How will they improve that sector? With Keisuke Honda [the CSKA Moscow playmaker with whom the club were linked throughout the summer]?” 

To be fair to Milan, you can make a case for their inaction. It’s a tenuous one, true, but their side of the argument deserves to be heard. After all, Zapata and Mexes did begin to inspire confidence in their ability towards the end of last season. A lot of the credit for Milan keeping seven clean sheets in their last 12 league games of the 2012-13 campaign went to them. Believe it or not, while hardly honoring the tradition of truly great centre-back partnerships at Milan, it did at least threaten to become a decent and serviceable one.

Perhaps that’s why vice-president Adriano Galliani, sporting director Ariedo Braida and coach Max Allegri didn’t consider upgrading it. Remember, Milan’s defence was the third best in Serie A last season, not bad you might argue considering the loss of Nesta and Thiago Silva and the traumatic start to the campaign they had. 

Still, the 39 goals they conceded matched the porousness shown by Leonardo’s naive, but let’s face it, much more entertaining 4-2-fantasia Milan side in 2009-10. To add another layer of perspective, you have to go back 12 years when a back-three composed of Maldini, Roque Junior and a past-his-best Jose Antonio Chamot had 46 put past them [and in an 18-team Serie A too] to find a worse defensive showing by a Milan team. And contrary to what the club thought in the summer, it doesn’t look like getting much better this season. 

Goalkeeper Christian Abbiati has been beaten 13 times. Only the bottom two, Bologna and Sassuolo, have had to pick the ball out of their own net more. Down in 12th, it’s to the frustration of everyone with a passion for Milan that the same mistakes keep being made and too often as well for them to be in genuine contention for the Scudetto or even qualify again for the Champions League if you consider the pace Roma, Napoli and Juventus have set off at. 

To Matavz and Toni, you can add Bologna’s Jonathan Cristaldo and Diego Laxalt, Napoli’s Miguel Britos and Ajax’s Stefano Denswill as players to have nodded goals home against Milan this season. They have conceded more headers in Serie A [5] than anyone else and only Cagliari and Parma have as poor a record at defending set-piece situations [4]. Denswill’s goal for Ajax - a header from a Lasse Schöne cross following a corner - was emblematic of this Achilles heel of Milan’s. 

Afterwards, an angry Allegri gave a withering assessment. “We either don’t mark on corners or we mark badly,” he scoffed. Lapses in concentration, distractions, individual errors - incidentally only Fiorentina [6] have made more leading to shots for the opposition than Milan [4] - have proven costly. 

In mitigation, the inability of MilanLab, an institution once considered at the forefront of injury prevention, to do exactly that has complicated things for Allegri. Rarely over the last couple of years has he been able pick his first choice starting XI week in, week out. That lack of continuity, the ever changing composition of the defence, midfield and attack from one game to the next, goes some way to explaining why Milan often appear to lack the understanding necessary to defend well as a team. 

After losing a friendly to Caen 3-0 at the weekend and another 1-0 on Wednesday to their youth team, the Primavera, coached by Pippo Inzaghi, whom many believe Milan are grooming to be Allegri’s successor, a ritiro was called. The first team squad, including the injured, will live at Milanello and will not be allowed to leave - unless they aren’t selected - from now until after Saturday’s game against Udinese. They’ll do double sessions in the meantime to put right what keeps going wrong. The hope is that it will focus the minds. 

In belated recognition that they need to fortify the defence, Milan have agreed to loan Adil Rami from Valencia. Unavailable until the transfer window opens again in January he will train with Milan as he’s out of favour at Mestalla after criticising coach Miroslav Djukic. Reunited with Mexes, they were France’s first choice centre-backs under Laurent Blanc, and had great chemistry - a public bromance - going undefeated in 12 of the 15 games they played together. That’s the sort of solidity Milan want them to replicate. 

It’ll be interesting to see if they can. Milan of course will have to wait until after Christmas to find out. Honda might be under the tree as well. For now, however, considering Milan will be without Mexes for the next four games while he serves a suspension for violent conduct, the mood around San Siro isn’t optimistic about an improvement at the back. Their defence, it seems, is likely to get worse before it gets any better.

How can Milan solve their defensive problems? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below