I put myself through the misery of rewatching the game after I managed to get through the change curve and remove the emotion involved. Missed 20 mins of it the first time around because I turned it off the moment the ref went to the monitor.
Allegri got his tactics spot on from the start, much like the Villareal game. He knows how to exploit the 4-2-3-1. The quick switches of play to isolate their wing back against our full back and winger along with very intelligent aggressive pressing allowed us to fully dominate the first half. There is a slight drop in momentum when Locatelli goes off. He was doing a stellar job dropping in the channel behind De Ligt at times so that he could go and be aggressive with Dzeko when they went back to front.
Second half, the game changes as they have their goal and they retreat further back with the whole 11 in their own final third at times. They gave us the space out wide, knowing we struggle against the low block and to negate the space we were finding with quick switches of play. Also their back 5 was comfortable defending crosses. Dropping that deep also meant we couldn’t bypass the midfield by playing directly from defence to the front men through the middle when possible as we did so well in the First half.
This 2nd half approach was obvious, Inzaghi did the same in the first game at the San Siro where we only scored through a penalty and created few openings. I’m not too sure what Allegri could’ve done differently with the personnel available.
Negatives:
- another Boneheaded decision has cost us the game. This time it was Morata and AS.
- our forwards continue to not be clinical.
- Cuadrado is the only player who seems to be able to make intelligent off the ball runs.
- Locatelli injury.
Positives:
- Intelligent pressing. We pressed in numbers in rehearsed scenarios. Best it has been this season.
- Dybala was too passive again in a big game. A move to a 4-3-3 next season may be for the best.
- Rabiot probably had his best game. Could be serviceable, but he is unlikely to be dependable and we should offload if there is an opportunity
- De Ligt had another great game imo and should be the leader of this team. He has the mentality, aura, bravery and physical presence at a very young age.