Everything AC Milan Fans Need to Know About New Signing Mattia Destro

Mattia Destro is not the defender or midfielder that Milan need, although they still need both. He is the No. 9 they’ve been missing for years.

On the surface, Destro did not look like a necessity. He joined a team with lots of attacking options—but he completes that attack.

It was missing a clear frontman, someone to lurk inside the 18-yard box and preoccupy defenders.

Destro is only 23, but he has played for Italy at every level. He fits into any long-term plan, unlike Giampaolo Pazzini, Milan’s only other true striker. 

But it’s not just youth that Destro brings to the Rossoneri. During his time with Siena and Roma, he has proven that he is a quality finisher who takes chances.

“He is a modern striker, able to find space in tight defences and also to run into space,” former Siena coach Giuseppe Sannino told Tutto Juve in 2012 (h/t Football Italia). “He is not your classic static centre-forward in the box. Because of these characteristics, he becomes precious for his teammates and difficult to mark for opponents.”

In many ways, Destro is like his new coach. Filippo Inzaghi tested the limits of the back line and probed for different ways to score. Not every goal was pretty, but many of them were big.

That Milan have relied on a false nine until now is a bit ironic.

Jeremy Menez leads the Rossoneri with 12 goals. However, six of them are penalties, and the 27-year-old Frenchman has a tendency to drift in and out of games and dip into the midfield. Menez has a lot of freedom when he is on the pitch, and it’s not necessarily a good thing.

Silvio Berlusconi wants the opposite. The Milan president has stressed that he does not want his forwards to play like Mario Balotelli. “To shoot on goal, you need to stay close to the box,” Berlusconi told Corriere dello Sport (h/t 101 Great Goals). “I advise the attackers: don’t do like Balotelli. In order to shoot and score, stay close to the goal.”

Once this season, in a draw against Cagliari, Milan did not register a single shot inside the penalty area. Destro can change that.

Let’s look at the numbers. Of the 38 goals he has scored in his career, 36 have come inside the penalty area. Destro also has a 28 percent shot conversion rate over the past two seasons. And at one point last year, per James Horncastle of BT Sport, only Sergio Aguero and Lionel Messi had a better goal-per-minute ratio than Destro across Europe’s top five leagues.

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36 - Mattia Destro has found 36 of his 38 Serie A goals from inside the box. Nine. #ACMilan

— OptaPaolo (@OptaPaolo) January 29, 2015"

This is a striker who knows his position and knows what to do with the ball. He is the opposite of Menez. He is going to get goals, and he doesn’t need to take penalties to get them.