The last few games have been quite alarming to me honestly. The team looks tired as fuck. We seem uninterested in dominating the opponent and allowed the opposition to create a lot of good situations in front of Donnarumma. No idea if it's Pioli's magic wearing off or the opponents got used to our style and know what to do now, but we have not impressed in a single game in 2021.
Benevento - played well until the red card. Nothing impressive but looked good enough for a comfortable win. Then the red card came and we shit our pants. Yeah, I know it is not easy to play with a man down, but this is part of the sport. You can't let such a bad team dominate you for 60 minutes. They created enough to win. What saved the game for us was Leao's wonder goal and Caprari missing the penalty. This game could've easily ended as a draw.
Juventus - outplayed in every aspect. We did not create enough to expect anything different than a loss.
Torino - again not impressive. Leao's goal came after good build up and then Brahim earned a penalty that could've been not given. Minutes later a similar situation went our way when the ref did not whistle a penalty for Torino. Looked like a correct call, but we all know they could've given it. Another game with tricky moments going our way.
Torino (coppa) - again not impressive. Needed penalties to beat this mediocre team.
Cagliari - controlled the game but again could not close the game as a big team. Stupid red card that made us play defensively. Donna with a massive save 1v1. Probably the best game in the period
Atalanta - not much to say. Outplayed and dominated for the whole game.
Inter (coppa) - 1 shot on target iirc. Dominated big time after the red. The ref fucked up on multiple occasions but this is not changing the fact that we again struggled to creat enough. Tatarusanu kept us alive. Could've lost 5-1.
Bologna - softly said not impressive. Needed 2 penalties to win against the worst Bologna side in the last years. In the final minutes fucked up and could've dropped points.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying anything bad about the team or Pioli, but it is a fact that we've been grinding wins this year with a loooooot of effort against shit teams and lost literally every derby - goal difference 2-8. Before that the same torment against Sassuolo and Lazio again with many things going our way (unprecedented 7th second goal + last second winner). Before that 2 draws against 2 of the worst teams in the league with Donna saving our ass in the last minute against Genoa. This is a total of 12 games in which we did not see the usual performance. Managed to get a lot of points but if we do not change the way we play we will start dropping points sooner or later.
I know that many players were missing and Pioli had to get creative to fill the holes, but still, if we are really going for the Scudetto we should improve our performance.
Another thing that bothers me is that the team looked dead physically. I know we played 3 games extra but that was in September ffs. Now we have 8 days of rest before Crotone. And only Kjaer will be missing. Zero excuses to not smash them comfortably with dominating performance.
every game is different story but true is we are not impressive like we were.
bold part is funny to read... no comment
example - tonali was bad in 2men midfield, he started to play better same time benna was out for 1,5 month so tonali plays all the games. question is how you want to dominate anyone with tonali-kessie playing all the time without serious rotation when other team use 4-5 changes??
other example - attack against juve: hauge-leao-samu and only sub is diaz
from our games only real terrible performance was atalanta - games against juve and inter went as it was expected (against juve shit squad, against inter after red it was end because of weak available subs)
point is pioli wants to play attacking football and press opponents for most of the time and its not possible with so many injuries (no subs, lower quality and more chaos because of lacking stability in any formation -attack/mid/defense).
injuries- except chaos- force more minutes of other players and also drain mental side of our players (weaker players mean regular starters need to give more). if you play with kalulu you expect some mistakes and you remember you need to cover his side more, etc.
and then kessie is out and you use calabria there and its game after the game for this season. theo trying to much way too often but for some time we didnt really have much quality in attack so we rely more on his runs...
point is pioli could/should play more compact with less open space in defense but for some reason he doesnt - maybe he prefers and our players prefer to play like this.
no we will see how we gonna play when we wont miss so many players.
