Milan vs. Genoa: Post-Game Review

In the 10 years I've been watching Milan play, I don't think I've ever seen a worse performance than tonight's match.

Where do we even begin to describe how poor of a showing that was? A 0-3 whacking from lower mid-table side Genoa on the back of the Juventus win is absolutely unacceptable from Montella's side. Other than Bonaventura, not a single Milan player put in a full 90'. Let's start with the defense, shall we?

For whatever reason, Montella started Andrea Poli, a midfielder who doesn't even start in his own position, over Abate who was stashed away on the bench. Poli was completely to blame for the first goal as he left Ninkovic wide open on the back post. He couldn't pass the ball accurately and even threw away multiple throw-ins to the other side. The 27 year old was gifted a chance to redeem himself by Bonaventura, only to miss the target by a long shot. Romagnoli put in a decent performance until he was completely dismantled by Leonardo Pavoletti for the third and final goal. Paletta took a page out of Bruce Lee's book and took a two-footed flight towards Rigoni and completely missed the ball resulting in a deserved red card. De Sciglio, apart from a few misplaced passes, put in an average performance with few mistakes.

From the midfield, Locatelli looked like a lost school boy playing against grown men. Granted he is only 18, however his last two games he put in monstrous performances. The young Italian misplaced quite the amount of passes and allowed Rincon to run all over him in the midfield. I don't think I heard Kucka's named called until the he put the ball into his own net for an own goal, which is a shame considering how well he normally plays. Bonaventura was the one creative spark Milan had until Suso came on late, and if I had to pick a man of the match for just Milan, it'd certainly go to Bonaventura. He made quite a few slicing runs through the defense only to have lacklustre support from Niang and virtually no support at all from Honda.

Niang, aside from a few decent runs down the sideline, was ineffective and took to diving to try and draw anything for Milan up front. While this strategy is certainly not recommended it unfortunately was the best option they had to get organized in the front. Bacca, who was taken of well too early considering the score was 0-1 when Gomez came in to relieve him (due to Paletta's red). To Montella's credit, Bacca was ultimately marked out of the game, but statistically he is the most clinical striker in Serie A and should not have been pulled. Perhaps subbing Honda could have (and realistically would have) allowed Bacca to make more of a mark on the game. With Honda, not enough can be said to justify him getting the nod over Suso because he was treacherous on the right wing.

Look, we're well aware that certain players may have been tired from Juventus and that Genoa was a much easier side to face on paper, but ultimately Montella beat his own team psychologically. Starting Honda and Poli gave the Rossoneri the notion that this was to be an easy game and when Genoa came ready to play, Milan was punished for their overconfidence and lack of sound play. This was a trap game and bound to be unfortunate for Milan unless they showed up completely ready to play with a level head, and that's not what happen. Milan will take this as a learning experience and look to put in a more positive performance against Pescara on October 30th.