Beating them at their own game: Tactical analysis of AC Milan 1-0 Udinese | OneFootball

AC Milan got back to winning ways in Serie A at the weekend as they beat Udinese 1-0 at San Siro in a game that was full of controversy, something that particular fixture always seems to be.

Milan started the game well and took the lead through Samuel Chukwueze’s first league goal of the season as he buried a feed from Christian Pulisic following Noah Okafor’s infield run, but Tijjani Reijnders saw red before the half-hour mark for what was adjudged to be a last-man challenge on Lovric.

However, the Rossoneri defended resiliently as Udinese sent cross after cross into the box. The away side thought they had snatched a point in the 95th minute (of 103 that were actually played) when Kabasele bundled in a scrappy goal, yet VAR came to the rescue to determine it offside.

Paulo Fonseca named a bold starting line-up for the game with a brand new centre-back pairing of Malick Thiaw and Strahinja Pavlovic, then Filippo Terracciano replacing the suspended Theo Hernandez at left-back and Christian Pulisic at playmaker.

The end result was three points, which Fonseca hopes will ignite some confidence in his team ahead of a very tough run of games that come thick and fast. Rohit Rajeev has a tactical analysis from Saturday’s game.

Attacking Udinese’s shape

Udinese off the ball used a 5-3-2 system, which also became a 5-2-3 depending on their marking assignments.

Milan used Mike Maignan’s ability with the ball at his feet to break the Udinese high press, as they used three men to go man-to-man and press. When Maignan stepped up to play he caused an overload. Later, when they were pressed on the wide areas, he would act as the pivot to switch play.

One interesting thing was how Terracciano played as an inverted full-back. It shows how Fonseca did his homework over the international break since Filippo is a right-footed player who has played mostly on his ‘weaker’ side.

With the Italian inverting inside it allowed Noah Okafor to stay wide, which caused Udinese a constant problem and stretched their defence. All of this was only until the red card of course, which changed the game completely.

The use of third-man runs was done very well by Milan. In the sequence below, when playing down the right side, Emerson Royal fires the ball up the line to Chukwueze, who has his back to goal but has dragged his man out.

The Nigerian lays off to Youssouf Fofana first time and – sensing the interchange that was about to happen – Morata is quickly in motion running into the vacant space down Udinese’s left.

Morata’s run before Okafor’s cut inside and pass to Pulisic is pretty underrated

Off-ball structure

Another interesting thing was Milan’s out-of-possession structure against Udinese. Instead of the 4-2-4, Fonseca’s side pressed in a 4-3-3. This was because Iker Bravo would sit back and cause Milan issues by overloading the centre of midfield, so the coach ordered Pulisic to sit back.

After the red card Milan went to a 4-4-1. Markstatsbot estimated Milan’s defensive height at 38m.

There is some irony regarding how usually it is Udinese who come to the San Siro to play a low block in defence, but on Saturday it was Milan who used the same tactic against them to hold their lead with 10 men.

Corner analysis and conclusion

One of the few positives from Milan’s difficult start to the season has been the goals scored from set pieces, which has become an added weapon for the attack. As we have been doing in each analysis, we have picked out a set piece below.

Overall it became one of those nights for Milan where it was purely transactional, i.e. a mission to get the three points and move on as quickly as possible. After the early goal there may have been some ideas about killing it quickly and making substitutions to manage workloads by resting key players, however the red card changed everything.

That’s what can make analysing a game like this hard, because the only truly transparent patterns are at 11 vs. 11. Over an hour of the game was played with Udinese playing direct into the box and usually being inaccurate with their crosses, and the other key talking points were to do with the officiating.