Sarri wants Pjanic to get 150 touches in a game. So, how much did he get yesterday?
he made 45 passes in the first half, missed only one of them. he faded after the hour mark, and finished the match with 69 passes. some of our players passed a lot yesterday, bonbon made 76, dybala 73, de ligt 70, cuadrado 67. as for the accuracy, pjanic was among the most accurate players with 97%, only buffon (16/16) and rabiot (12/12) did better. he attempted no long passes, and i bet it's a technical choice: sarri is admittedly afraid of the counters after an inaccurate long ball by especially a midfielder.
also what
@JCK said: passing without end product is pointless. we as a team created very little with all that possession. we had 63% of possession, we made 617 passes vs milan's 368, still, milan had more shots (21-14), find the target more times (11-4), and they had more chance of winning despite losing the possession battle (not that they wanted to win that anyway) and winning less duels (50-61). stats like number of passes doesn't tell too much.
bottom line: i think his form is purely down to his physical condition. guy started well in the first half, faded quickly after the break. he clearly needs some rest. i really hope he's benched vs brescia.