Tactical Analysis: Associazione Calcio Milan 3-0 F.C. Internazionale Milano

Date : 31/01/2015
Venue : Stadio San Siro
Competition : Serie A 2015/2016, Matchday 22
The starting line ups:

Roberto Mancini decided to field a side with Samir Handanovic under the posts, behind a defensive line consisting of Juan Jesus on the left, Davide Santon on the right and Jeison Murillo with Miranda between them. Gary Medel and Marcelo Brozovic were the double pivot protecting the defense with Perisic, Ljajic and Eder in front of them interchanging positions on attack, while Jovetic was positioned primarily centrally and moving towards the wings to combine with his teammates.

Ex-Roberto Mancini teammate, player and assistant, Sinisa Mihajlovic, on the other becnch chose his favorite, this season, 4-4-2 formation. Gianluigi Donnarumma was the GK behind the defensive line of Antonelli, Romagnoli, Alex and Abate. Montolivo together with Kucka protected the defense with Bonaventura and Honda on the sides, playing as wingers. Niang and Bacca created the forward duo up front.

Milan’s defense and pressing

Milan’s primary objective was to force Inter to make long balls and win the ball back.
This happened by either taking positions on the field that left no short options to Handanovic to start the short build up, like below…

Or, by trying to force their opponents to press the ball to the wings, where their pressing intensified.
The interesting about these pressing situations though was that, what seemed like a solution on Inter’s problems actually corrected a structural problem in Milan’s pressing. Let’s take a look:

Inter has successfully managed to start a short build-up of their game, the ball has moved to Medel and Milan start to press, matching Inter’s shape ( FWs on CBs, winger on FB, CMs on CMs), leaving however a huge space in front of the defense and a 4v4 where the nerazzurri have the advantage, due to their quality on 1v1s.

When Medel moved between his CDs, though, in order to create a 3v2 against the Milan forwards and start the build-up, Inter were left only with Brozovic at the centre of the field. That meant that only one Milan CM needed to press, with the other one free to protect the area in front of the defense. By doing that, Inter lost a huge free area of the field that was ready to be taken advantage of.

What was a solution to the avoidance of the long ball, proved to take away a big advantage from them, against Milan’s pressing.

When Inter broke their pressing, Milan were content to sit back and defend in an organized manner.

They were positioned as two lines of four, in a very compact and tight shape.

They also chose to be passive against the player with the ball, not pressing, probably to avoid destroying their compact shape.

When you do not press, though, you have to cut the passing lanes that lead to players between the lines, or else a situation like in the below picture will happen.

Not to press, in the defensive third, for the aboveme ntioned reason, was a risk that Mihajlovic was willing to take.

Inter’s problems on offense a defense

Another January game, another game were the problematic face or Inter was too obvious to hide.

On offense, the always present lack of movement, together with the lack of connection between midfield and attack, made life difficult for Inter and easy for Milan.

On the above screenshot, Milan press near the wing Juan Jesus, who has no other choice but to kick the ball long and lose possession.

This was not his fault of course, as Ljajic never made the movement, indicated by the arrow, in order to give the Brazilian the chance to pass to him. This movement, would have enabled Medel to move centrally, where he would have had time and space to either change direction of the play, or find a teammate between the lines.

Movements on the offensive third were also,at many times, absent.

With Jovetic moving towards the direction of the ball to receive it, Inter were at times headless, but that is not the problem if diagonal runs from the wingers, behind the defense, are made.

Of course, as you can see from the above screenshot, that was not the case. With no runs, to enable him to pass behind the defense, Jovetic was forced to either go on by himself against an organized unit, or pass to a player very close to him, who was in a not at all dangerous position.

Again, Jovetic is all alone against the whole Milan defense. No runs being made and no movement towards him to offer a passing option either.

What proved to be Inter’s, biggest flaw in this game, however, was Brozovic’s presence in front of defense.

On paper, choosing a player like Brozovic to play next to Medel , in what was essentialy was a two man midfield, meant that Inter had a player who can react better to an opponent that presses and who can pass or change direction of the game better.

But, unfortunately for Inter, this was not the part of his game that stood out. What stood out was his bad positioning and weak mentality (later in the game, when time was running out and pressure was higher. Losing balls was not so disappointing as his reactions after these incidents that led to him returning late on defense).

What stood out ?

His inability to defend penetrating runs from Kucka, gave his team trouble.

His lack of position and opponent awareness, that made him not cut the right passing lanes and left his defense vulnerable.

Immediately after seeing Medel being pressed and ready to lose the ball, his reaction should have been to cover the space behind him in order not to allow a central pass. This, as you can see did not happen. The yellow triangle indicates where he should have been positioned in order to protect his defense from a pass to Niang or Bacca in front of them.

Above, he chooses to cut the passing lane to Honda, instead of Bacca’s who was the player at the centre of the field and in front of his defense. He should have, instead, covered Bacca in order to force the ball to go to Honda, where he would have been able to press him.

Again, Bacca is all alone in front of Inter’s CBs.

Not to blame everything on Brozovic, there were other “silly” mistakes by his teammates too.

With Inter, organized in a 4-4-2 shape…

The two nerazzurri forwards (Eder, Jovetic) had the task to stay compact centrally in order to force Milan to play wide, where pressing is much more easy, due to the wide line’s presence.

In the above screenshot, you can see, however, the two forwards having a very big distance between them, that allowed a Milan CM to run towards the Inter midfield. This, brought the question to the nerazzurri midfield line, to either press and get out of shape or leave Kucka with time and space to find his teammates in dangerous positions.

Some words about the second half

With the second half starting 1-0, for the rossoneri, Mihajlovic chose to have his team press with more intensity instead of sitting back. A decision that proved to be correct as Inter were as always very sloppy with their possession under pressure.

After Icardi lost the penalty, Milan’s two goals were so quick, that every tactic solution that Mancini wanted to implement was useless. ( bringing Melo on to become a DM and switching Brozovic to the wing for example, or turning to 3-5-2/5-3-2 at the end)

Conclusion

Milan took a much deserved win, not because they are the best team this year, but because Inter were not able to take advantage of their flaws. Mancini’s decision to put Brozovic next to Medel, proved too harmful too.