AC Milan 1 - 0 Pescara: Match Recap

AC Milan had the chance to rebound from the terrible 3-0 loss to Genoa a few days ago and they absolutely didn’t let it go. Vincenzo Montella sent on the field the best starting XI he had available, with Jose Sosa and Gustavo Gomez replacing Juraj Kucka and Gabriel Paletta respectively, who was suspended.

The Rossoneri had a difficult start defending against Pescara’s aggressiveness and were forced to utilise a lot of long balls that didn’t lead to anything good. It took 15 minutes for them to wake up and show something positive, but they wasted everything they managed to produce, especially when Carlos Bacca missed a huge opportunity on a beautiful pass by Suso at minute 17.

Pescara planned to slow the Rossoneri down, force error sand then create something with quick counterattacks and they did a good job until half an hour into the game. Then Milan started to play like Milan should be able to and finally dominated that game. They missed two great chances with Mattia De Sciglio, who shot right into Bizzarri’s hands after a bad clearance, and M’Baye Niang who hit the post.

Sosa, who was almost invisible throughout the entire first half started the second half with a sweet pass to Niang, who missed another good chance. A few moments later, Giacomo Bonaventura made it 1-0 on a good free kick form just outside the penalty area and Milan finally took the lead. That was a good way to start the second half, but it didn’t last long, since Pescara immediately had a couple of good opportunities to equalise and the Rossoneri were lucky to keep the lead.

Montella made an interesting move by replacing Niang with Mario Pasalic after 60 minutes of play and slightly changing his tactical approach, making it more a 4-5-1 than the classic 4-3-3. The team still looked solid even if they stopped attacking like they did before this substitution and allowed Pescara to keep the ball more, waiting for an error.

However, it felt like the game could change at any moment since Pescara never stopped trying to find a goal and Rey Manaj got really close to score, but the referee caught him offside. After a tough 7 minutes of added time the Rossoneri finally got away with the win and they should thank Gianluigi Donnarumma and a solid performance by the entire defensive line for that.

It was not pretty, but the three points are all that matters.