Breaking Down How AC Milan Can Get Consistent Quality from Luiz Adriano

On July 2, 2015, AC Milan purchased two strikers. The first, Carlos Bacca, cost €30 million to bring over from Sevilla and was the true jewel in the team's summer transfer activity.

The second, less heralded acquisition was Luiz Adriano. Picked up for €9 million from Shakhtar Donetsk, Adriano's signing left the people who did register it scratching their heads. Serie A represented a massive step up for a player who had spent almost all of his career in the Ukrainian Premier League. An even more pressing question was whether the Brazilian could coexist with Bacca, who plays a similar style of game.

Adriano has had a tumultuous time at Milan. He started well, scoring in Milan's win over Perugia in the third round of the Coppa Italia in August and was man of the match in their first league win of the season, over Empoli, registering a goal and an assist. But it took him two months to score in the league again, and he lost his starting position when M'Baye Niang came back from injury in impressive form in November.

Niang is out until the Coppa Italia final in May—at the minimum—meaning Adriano has the opportunity to regain that spot again. With Mario Balotelli out of form and Jeremy Menez potentially in the doghouse after supposedly refusing to warm up during the game against Lazio before the international break, per La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Football Italia), an opportunity could be there for Adriano to succeed.

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In order for him to do so, Milan would need to put him in the right positions to get the best out of him. To do that, they need to do two things.

The first is to play him more regularly. Any player needs consistent playing time to get into form, and Adriano has had anything but. He started seven of the first eight games of the season but only three times since, and he missed about six weeks with an injury from the end of January to the middle of March.

That might've been decent timing, as he had been the subject of a transfer saga that saw the Rossoneri try to flip him to Chinese Super League club Jiangsu Suning for a profit less than half a season after signing him. The move fell through, detailed by ESPN FC, but his injury layoff allowed him to let off the steam of that craziness away from the field.

If he's going to be an impact player in the homestretch, though, he needs to play every game to try to get into a groove. If his game time continues to be spotty, he won't be able to lock in.

The other thing Adriano needs is something Milan have struggled to provide for their strikers all season. He needs service.

Like Bacca, Adriano isn't the kind of forward who can create his own goal. He attacks space and makes one or two touches tops before either shooting or laying off to a teammate. He's quite good at the latter when the opportunity comes.

But the problem remains that the opportunity must be given to him—rarely does he make them himself. That's a problem at Milan. The team has suffered from a severe lack of midfield creativity all year long. Giacomo Bonaventura has been the only man capable of creating for his teammates on a regular basis, although Keisuke Honda has seen an uptick in form in the second half of the campaign.

But it's barely been enough. According to WhoScored.com, Bacca has averaged just 1.9 shots per game this year, not what a top striker such as him would expect. Adriano's average is only 1.1. The difference between the two is accuracy. Bacca has scored 14 league goals because his shooting accuracy has been clocked by Squawka at an impressive 67 percent. Adriano, on the other hand, has hit the target 44 percent of the time.

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The less accurate of the two strikers, Adriano will need consistent, quality service to be able to enjoy success over the homestretch. But coach Sinisa Mihajlovic will have to find some way to get him that service in order to make him into a consistent contributor.

Adriano has the ability to score goals in bunches. Last year, he scored nine times in seven UEFA Champions League games for Shakhtar and 21 in all competitions. But he scored those goals with an excellent creator in Alex Teixeira—a luxury he does not have at the San Siro.

He could be an important contributor for Milan down the stretch. But the only way he'll be able to do so is by playing regularly and getting the service he needs. If they fail him on either of those points, he'll just be more dead weight on an already bloated roster.