Ranking AC Milan's Top 5 Players for November 2015
November was an up-and-down month for AC Milan. They only played four competitive matches thanks to the international break, and the results were vastly different.
They bookended the month with a pair of dominant victories, 3-1 over Lazio and 4-1 over Sampdoria. They were the kinds of wins that the Milan teams of a decade ago would record on their way to the top of the table.
But in between those two victories were a pair of lackluster performances. Against Atalanta, a midfield that was short on creativity was totally overrun, and were it not for a brilliant goalkeeping performance by 16-year-old Gianluigi Donnarumma, the Rossoneri would have been blown out of their own building. Instead, they escaped with a goalless draw.
They then visited the Juventus Stadium—a place they have never taken points from—and fell 1-0 to the four-time defending champions on a wonder strike by Paulo Dybala. Juve's excellent defense made sure that Milan's attack totally stalled for the second straight week.
In this month of peaks and valleys, some players distinguished themselves more than others. Which ones stood out? Today, we're going to look at Milan's five best players from the of November.
All statistics are from WhoScored.com unless otherwise noted.
5. Alessio Romagnoli
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Alessio Romagnoli cost Milan €25 million this summer. Considering the fact that he's only 20 years old, he came in needing to make a major impression to justify that fee.
He started to do so last month. He's not a volume tackler, instead using positional sense and intelligence to deny the ball to the opposition and move attackers where he wants them to go when they do have it.
He's been adept at getting the ball away from his goal this month. WhoScored statistics for his individual games show he's combined for 20 clearances, including seven at Juventus.
Together with Alex and Philippe Mexes, who played in the former's stead when he was knocked unconscious against Lazio, Romagnoli spearheaded Milan's best defensive month of the year. Opponents only scored three times in November, and Milan kept their first clean sheet of the season.
Romagnoli is starting to show just why he was so expensive to buy—and could prove worth every penny by the end.
4. Luca Antonelli
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Luca Antonelli is like a good American diner—never flashy, sometimes overlooked, but always great quality.
Antonelli started all four games at the left-back position and was consistently excellent. If you add up his statistics from the games against Lazio, Atalanta, Juventus and Sampdoria, he averaged 3.5 tackles and three interceptions per game, as well as 15 total clearances.
Antonelli has served as an anchor on the defensive left since his arrival from Genoa in January. His mistakes are rare, and he augments his defensive contribution with effective overlapping runs.
He provided three key passes against Samp and another against Juve, helping Giacomo Bonaventura and M'Baye Niang to press the attack down the left side.
Ever steady, Antonelli has been one of the best players on the team for quite some time, and that didn't change in November.
3. M'Baye Niang
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A foot injury kept M'Baye Niang out for much of the season's opening act.
Finally healthy, he got a chance to play on Nov. 7 when Giacomo Bonaventura, who had been playing on the left wing in Sinisa Mihajlovic's 4-3-3, was suspended for yellow-card accumulation.
The young Frenchman was lively from the get-go, testing Marco Sportiello with several dangerous drives from distance before a lack of match fitness saw him tire out. But the performance earned him more playing time.
The 20-year-old was shackled along with the rest of the team by Juve, but then broke out when Sampdoria came to the San Siro.
Played up top with Carlos Bacca in a new-look 4-4-2, Niang's stats were eye-popping. He assisted on the opening goal and then scored the next two himself—the first from the spot and the second after he intercepted a short goal kick from Emiliano Viviano. He finished with six shots and three key passes to go along with the bigger counting stats.
Having since sealed Milan's Coppa Italia win on the first day of December, Niang is going to make things complicated when Mario Balotelli returns from a sports hernia.
A breath of life in the front line, Niang will be a major player going forward this season.
2. Giacomo Bonaventura
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It was another fantastic month for Giacomo Bonaventura, who has been Milan's best outfield player this season by some margin.
Bonaventura began his month with a man-of-the-match performance against Lazio. He assisted on Milan's final two tallies of the evening, the first with an exquisite free-kick delivery and the second with a through ball to Bacca.
The one negative of that game was the booking he received, which kept him out of the next game against Atalanta. His absence was keenly felt. The team simply doesn't have a creative spark without him.
In his last two games, he's been pushed back into a box-to-box role to cover for the absence of Andrea Bertolacci. He's more effective when he plays closer to the strikers, but he still managed a goal against Sampdoria, earning another man-of-the-match award from WhoScored in the process.
Bonaventura continues to play fantastic football, and he will be Milan's most important player going forward.
1. Gianluigi Donnarumma
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It was a huge surprise in October when Sinisa Mihajlovic benched Diego Lopez for 16-year-old Gianluigi Donnarumma.
The teenager had impressed in preseason, but no one ever thought he'd be playing meaningful games, especially considering that Lopez was the easily the team's best player last season.
Lopez struggled a bit early on, and shortly after his benching, he retreated from the club to get treatment for knee tendinitis.
That has given Donnarumma the starter's shirt full-time, and he has rewarded Mihajlovic's faith.
According to Squawka.com, Donnarumma has averaged 2.75 saves per match and has been successful on 95 percent of his attempts to claim crosses.
He is the owner of Milan's only clean sheet this year, and boy, did he work for it. He made a string of world-class saves—four in all—that kept a rampant Atalanta team from scoring. Without him, La Dea would likely have walked out of the San Siro with a 3-0 win.
Instead, the game ended goalless. He played well again against Juventus, parrying away a tricky deflection off a free kick and controlling his area in a way that evoked the other goalkeeper named Gianluigi across the field.
An exciting glimpse of the future, Donnarumma's form could make Mihajlovic's decision difficult if he continues to play like this when Lopez returns. If he keeps this up, the future could be now.
