Stefano Pioli has finally achieved his first professional win against Massimiliano Allegri, as he saw his AC Milan side immediately respond to their second defeat of the season with a 2-0 victory over Juventus.
More importantly, he’ll be rejoicing after watching his players secure their first clean sheet since late August, although the main takeaway from this high-profile fixture once again came from the rock-solid mentality they have put on show, with a kind of attitude that ended up crashing all Juventus‘ hopes of walking away from San Siro with points.
AC Milan hold firm against Milik and Vlahovic
After showing a previously unknown fragility, which saw them concede at least one goal in all of their last seven games across all competitions, AC Milan had their defence to thank in their clash against Juventus. It was Fikayo Tomori who scored a crucial goal that broke the deadlock for the hosts when the game was in the balance.
Beyond that, the Rossoneri’s rearguard was also presented with the challenging task of limiting Juventus‘ strikers.
In fact, the Bianconeri looked more and more willing to involve both Dusan Vlahovic and Arek Milik in their play, as if Massimiliano Allegri had realised how much the team can benefit from their contribution in the build-up.
Notably, it was the Polish international who enhanced the visitors’ offensive game at times, as he knows how to make the most of his technique and experience in order to help the ball progress with quality until the opponents’ box.
Luckily for Milan, both Tomori and Kalulu‘s aggressive attitude didn’t look affected by the magnitude of the names they had to face, also helping Matteo Gabbia to play with confidence during what was only his first start of the season.
Juventus highlight huge gap to the top
Although the Diavolo certainly deserve to be praised for once again putting on display their impressive unity, which is helping them sail through complicated times just as they did last season, their work was certainly helped by Juventus‘ mild reaction after going a goal down.
Once again, Massimiliano Allegri’s side proved unable to keep consistency throughout the game – while their approach was far from bad, it was clear that their strategy was based on breaking the Rossoneri’s flow and possibly getting an early advantage to then protect until the end.
However, it currently takes much more than they showed to make this stubborn and confident AC Milan side bow their head. If such a display marks the gap between the Bianconeri and the best that Italian football can offer, then Juventus have a long road ahead until returning to the top.
