AC Milan 2-1 Bologna: Brace bags the points for Milan!

It’s a happy day for Milanisti and Italian football alike with former player Rino Gattuso getting his first win as manager of the Rossoneri. While Bologna had their chances, it was a joy to watch Milan build chance after chance from the midfield, only to have that joy change to anger when the end product wasn’t there. There must’ve been 5-6 balls that went across the face of the Bologna goal that no one was there to meet. Luckily, that’s more easily fixed than the defense. There were defensive errors made by almost every player out there, with a lack of communication creating too large of gaps for opponents to exploit.

All that being said, Milan looked the better team out there, and Gattuso showed tactical prowess with the way he organized his side today. Milan’s first goal came through a lovely ball from Abate, which Kalinic headed back to Bonaventura who smashed it into the net (with a little help from a deflection). Truth be told that was about as effective as Abate and Kalinic were as they didn’t make great cases for their positions today barring the instance. Bologna’s goal came after Destro duped Musacchio and found Simone Verdi all alone who made his former side pay with a well-placed shot that Donnarumma could do nothing about. The poor defending saw 7-8 red and black shirts fail to completely mark 3 blues.

After Milan were unable to break the deadlock in the 60’, Gattuso brought on Cutrone and switched to a 3-5-2, and Cutrone was just missing the goal to go with his performance. He made good runs by finding space the way he’s shown to do so well, and had a lovely flick that Kalinic should’ve made the run for. After the switch, Borini operated as the right wing back and found Bonaventura’s head with a lovely cross to make it 2-1 for the Rossoneri . Here’s Bonaventura’s eventual game winner:

With Kalinic’s woes came Andre Silva, who did his best to get involved in the play but wasn’t as effective as he’d hoped to be. Bologna did well to create for themselves, but Donnarumma was in fine form to deny another goal, and the defending in the last 10 minutes (where they’ve typically been poor this season) was surprisingly assured and sent the fans home happy.

Milan will start their Coppa Italia venture Wednesdsay (12/13) against Hellas Verona, and then will travel away from home meet them again the following Sunday (12/17). With confidence from this win and Verona’s status as a relegation candidate, Milan fans are hoping for performances that are indicative of more positive results in the future.