Home Defeat to Atalanta Extends Worrying Trend for AC Milan and Inzaghi

On Sunday at home against Atalanta, Milan looked like they were playing together for the first time. 

But it's halfway through the season, and the Rossoneri lost 1-0, once again dropping points to a team hanging below them in the standings. It’s a new year, but it’s the same disappointing result.

Atalanta scored what was only their fifth away goal of the season. This is a team with just two wins out of 10 games on the road. They have the second-worst goal-scoring record in Serie A, and yet Atalanta scored the only goal of the game on Sunday.

"We will try to improve," coach Filippo Inzaghi told Sky Sport Italia (h/t Football Italia) after the match.

He keeps saying things like that, but Milan only regress. They have only won once in their past six Serie A matches, and that one victory came against Napoli.

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It’s a mighty struggle against the bottom 10 teams, of which Milan have only beat four.

They collected just four points from matches against Empoli, Cesena, Cagliari, Sassuolo, Torino and Atalanta. That is dire. That is a sign of a team that cannot impose its game on its opponents.

Milan are better than these teams. They just don’t show it.

Inzaghi has not squeezed the best of his players, nor has he established any productive game plan. They play with a 4-3-3 formation, but there is no creativity or imagination. There is no order to their style of play. This is not a team: it just looks like 11 individual players.

The weaknesses are many. Milan cannot defend against the counter-attack or any set pieces. They are far too slow in midfield. Once they hit a wall—as they did against Atalanta—they don’t know how to get around it. 

Once Jeremy Menez loses the ball, he starts walking like he doesn't care—a lot like Mario Balotelli. And when the midfielders overcommit, there is a huge gap left behind. That’s how Atalanta scored: Maximiliano Moralez stole the ball from Menez, glided up the field without a problem and slipped an easy pass to German Denis for the goal.

This is a group of players without any cohesion.

Inzaghi has failed his players here—no matter how poor some of them are. He has had enough time to teach them to play in a certain way. Instead, they're always scrambling.

Make no mistake: Milan were never expected to challenge for the Scudetto with this team, and Inzaghi was never expected to do wonders. But they were expected to make progress. That has not happened.

Inzaghi’s squad does not know how to play with the ball, and they are disaster without it. Everything seems to happen by chance. 

Maybe that’s why Stephan El Shaarawy is struggling so much. He has no support. Milan keep on looking for attacking players—they signed Suso from Liverpool this weekend—but it is obviously the midfield that needs a fix. 

This team is broken, and until they stop putting bandages on the same wounds every single year and until they start playing with purpose, they are going to keep losing to teams they should beat.