AC Milan Advances in Coppa, but Lack of Quality Depth Is Brutally Exposed

AC Milan dodged a major bullet on Tuesday. After pummeling Sampdoria 4-1 on the weekend, the 18-time Italian champions and seven-time European kings needed 30 extra minutes to put down Serie B side Crotone 3-1 in their Coppa Italia clash.

The Sharks are having an excellent season, and new coach Milan Juric has guided them to second in Serie B—a 14-place improvement over last year's finish. They will likely go into the winter break with a great chance to gain promotion to Serie A for the first time in their history.

It's also worth noting that none of the Milan players that Sinisa Mihajlovic sent out to start the match started against Samp.

But for a Milan team to come so close to crashing out of the Coppa against a second-division team is unconscionable. The Rossoneri were sloppy. They created precious few true opportunities from open play, and their play at the back at times bordered on the absurd.

But let's go back to a previous point for a moment. Mihajlovic took the match against a lower-division opponent to rest his top unit and give his scrub team some action. You can't fault him for the idea.

For a team that doesn't have European obligations to meet, Milan have an absurdly huge squad. With a game against lesser competition on the slate, large-scale rotation seems like a logical decision.

But Tuesday's game made one thing abundantly clear: Numbers do not equal depth. Having the bodies to plug in if someone is injured or suspended is one thing. Having a player who can do so with quality is quite another.

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Take a team like Juventus. They employ three of the 15 best center backs in the game. If they play a four-man defensive line and something happens to Leonardo Bonucci or Giorgio Chiellini, Andrea Barzagli would be ready to step in with no drop-off.

If two of those three were to go down, they can call on one of the best young defensive talents in the world, Daniele Rugani, who played every minute of last season for Empoli without being booked. That's depth.

By contrast, if something happens to one of Milan's starting pair, Alessio Romagnoli and Alex, they'd have to rely on Cristian Zapata, Philippe Mexes or Rodrigo Ely—none of whom have inspired much in the way of confidence this season.

It was the former two of that trio who started on Tuesday, and who were the main culprits in Milan's disjointed performance. Zapata in particular was atrocious. Throughout the game, Raffaele Palladino and—after he left injured—Ante Budimir were given cavernous openings to latch on to through balls.

The first time it happened, 15 minutes in, Palladino could only muster a tame poke toward Christian Abbiati's goal. Ten minutes later, it set up a shot at the top of the box that the Milan goalkeeper was forced to parry and was lucky that the rebound didn't get to a lurking attacker.

By the end of the half, Crotone was shooting the gaps between Zapata and whichever full-back was closest with impunity.

The Colombian reached his nadir in the second half. In the 68th minute, he again left a gaping hole between himself and Mattia De Sciglio. Budimir burst through it and then turned Zapata around easily before beating Abbiati low to the far post.

With 10 minutes left in the game, Budimir made the exact same run. Zapata gave chase and made an awkward challenge in the box. Slow-motion replays suggested that it may indeed have deserved a penalty kick and a red card for the denial of a goalscoring opportunity, but referee Michael Fabbri waved play on.

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Zapata wasn't the only player who failed to impress. Mexes often found himself in awkward positions. Jose Mauri, who some fans have been hoping would break into the first team as a badly needed midfield creator, was totally absent from the game. He was physically outclassed and, with the exception a few tame shots from distance, he made no impact at all.

Keisuke Honda also continued to disappoint, never really finding the right ball from a passing standpoint. All it seemed he could do was cut inside and look to shoot—but always a few moments too late.

Aside from the opening goal—a well-taken strike by Luiz Adriano, who took a through ball from Andrea Poli and rounded goalkeeper Alex Cordaz with a single touch—the Rossoneri didn't really seem dangerous until Mihajlovic introduced some of his regular starters.

M'Baye Niang nearly managed to combine with Adriano for a shot two minutes after his introduction, but Crotone created enough traffic to disrupt the move. Five minutes into extra time, he got free behind the defense but needed another inch to his legs in order to get to Adriano's fizzing cross.

Eventually it was another substitute, Giacomo Bonaventura, who saved the favorites when he buried a fantastic free kick from just inside the penalty arc in stoppage time of the first extra period. Cordaz couldn't even move as it spun over the wall and curved away from him.

It was Niang and Mihajlovic's last change, Riccardo Montolivo, who combined to seal the game five minutes from time when they capitalized on a bad giveaway that created a three-on-two situation.

Yes, this was Milan's second unit. If all is well, this group will never be on the field at the same time again. But for all of your reserves to play such a collectively bad game is a worrying thing.

Injuries, suspensions and bad form will eventually keep some of Mihajlovic's top players out as the season wears on. If the caliber of player he has to fill those holes can barely beat a second-division club, he could be in for some long games.

Milan certainly has the numbers to cover any holes that may open up during the season. But the downgrade from the first-choice squad to the men behind them is, on the evidence of Tuesday's game, so huge that to say they have the proper depth is foolhardy.

Mihajlovic needs to start saying his novenas now. Any long-term injury, especially to a center back, is going to take a huge toll on this team.