AC Milan 1-3 Liverpool (Pulisic 3′ | Konate 23′, Van Dijk 41′, Szoboszlai 67′)
SAN SIRO — Sometimes football reminds us of its beautiful simplicity.
After days of debate about Arne Slot’s rotation policy and tactical transition, Liverpool’s opening victory over AC Milan in the revamped Champions League came from sticking it into the mixer for the big men.
Christian Pulisic was given the freedom of San Siro to fire home the opener inside three minutes in a shock start for Slot’s men, but the heavy artillery of Ibrahima Konate and Virgil van Dijk rolled forward to turn the game on its head before half-time with copy-and-paste six-yard headers from set pieces.
It was no more than they deserved for a robust retaliation to a slow start, with Mohamed Salah rattling the bar twice and Mike Maignan forced into several sharp saves before Dominik Szoboszlai – who Slot had asked to raise his goal output in the week – made it three after the break from a quick counter to end hopes of a fightback from the dwindling hosts.
Saturday’s shock defeat to Nottingham Forest led to calls for Slot to rotate his side for their second game of a run of seven in 22 days, having named the same eleven for three games in a row.
The Dutchman obliged, but only with two tweaks as Kostas Tsimikas and Cody Gakpo came in for Andy Robertson and Luis Diaz. Back on home soil, Federico Chiesa waited patiently on the bench for his debut.
One on-pitch criticism the Reds hoped to quickly address was to move the ball quicker and with more purpose after a frustrating afternoon at Anfield against Forest, but instead they were left reeling when Pulisic exchanged passes with Alvaro Morata and dribbled from the halfway line into the box unchallenged before picking his spot.
Liverpool looked stunned and failed to muster a chance until Salah’s crossbar-rattling shot on 17 minutes seemed to shake them into life.
Slot’s side started to see a lot more of the ball and push into dangerous areas, but while some slick movement and quick interchanges caused problems for the Milan defence, it was the route-one approach that proved decisive.
The two centre-backs, Konate and Van Dijk, headed in from six yards from set pieces teed up by the two full-backs, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Tsimikas, before the half-time whistle.
In the interim, Salah thundered another effort off the bar and Maignan, who twice went down for treatment on a leg problem, was forced into sharp saves on Salah and Gakpo, while Diogo Jota steered a simple finish wide.
It was a galling end to the half for a home support that was much reduced after many decided not to buy expensive tickets after a poor start to the campaign under new coach Paulo Fonseca.
The clearly struggling Maignan was eventually brought off after clattering into Jota when smothering the striker’s finish early in the second half, giving 19-year-old Lorenzo Torriani the chance to make his professional debut on a daunting stage.
Sadly for the teenager, it wasn’t long before he was picking the ball out of the net for the first time as a senior player, as a quick break by Liverpool led by Gakpo was finished by a Szoboszlai tap-in.
Player of the match – Cody Gakpo
- The Dutchman seized his chance with a display full of attacking endeavour. One assist only tells part of the story.
It wasn’t to be a contest to compete with those of years gone by between these two decorated European giants, and the scattered empty seats only grew in number as the clock ticked down towards full-time with the home fans seeing few signs of a dramatic recovery, with Rafael Leao hitting the woodwork late in injury time as good as it got.
One final positive for the boisterous Reds fans stuck up in the rafters of the Curva Nord was seeing summer signing Chiesa finally come on for his debut – to the jeers of the Milan fans – if only for a few minutes of stoppage time.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/Y1637c5
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