Milan 1 Inter 0
Title race back on in Italy? This was a make or break game for Milan if they wanted to at least try and get back into the title race and you could feel how important this game was before kick-off with the San Siro bouncing to try and give Milan that slight advantage against the league leaders and their fierce rivals. The first half was back and fourth with Inter dominating the ball and Milan looking to counter with the first real chance of the half falling to Henrikh Mkhitaryan who just ran through the Milan midfield into the box one on one with Maignan but hit a very tame shot straight at the Milan goalkeeper to keep the sides level, then just a couple of minutes later Youssouf Fofana played a brilliant through ball into Pervis Estupinan on the left-hand-side who fired the ball into the roof of the net past Sommer to give Milan the lead in the 35th minute. Inter continued to dominate in the second half but really struggled to create anything meaningful whilst Milan’s defenders relished the opportunity to clear cross after cross from Inter as the clock ticked on to 90 closing the gap to the top to 7 points in the Serie A.
Big win for Milan who complete the league double over Inter. Milan knew they had to win this game to give themselves a shot of a title race in Italy and they played their hearts out for the full 90 tonight. I don’t think they were excellent particularly going forward were Leao and Pulisic had pretty poor games in my opinion but it didn’t matter in the end as Pervis Estupinan scored his first goal for Milan at the best possible time with the only goal of the game. Defensively Milan were excellent with Pavlovic-Tomori-De Winter all having brilliant games to limit Inter to mostly half-chances on the night, in addition their midfield was brilliant as well with Modric yet again the pick of the bunch along with Rabiot and Fofana who didn’t stop running all night, the big task now for Milan is putting a run of 4 or 5 wins together to really put some pressure on Inter who do have a couple of tough games coming up, are they capable of putting that run together? I’m not sure.
Cristian Chivu loses yet another big game. This has been a trend all season long for Inter who’s level just seems to drop of a cliff when they face the big teams in Italy, they got lucky with that red card against Juventus a couple of weeks ago or else the gap would be even closer to Milan who they haven’t beaten in six matches now. The strike force of Pio Esposito and Bonny showed their inexperience as both Lautaro and Thuram missed the game with injury and sickness, then you look at the midfield with Barella putting in yet another poor performance in what’s been a pretty horrific season personally from him along with Mhkitaryan who missed an absolute sitter to put Inter in the lead just before Milan scored. Inter will still probably win the league this season but there is still massive problems that they have to fix over the summer if they want to sustain the success they’ve had over the last few years.
Allegri has given Milan that much needed defensive solidity. It’s not always pretty but one thing that Allegri prides himself on no matter what team he’s at is defensive solidity and that’s what he’s brought to Milan so far this season. Milan have conceded the least goals in the Serie A so far only conceding 20 goals in 28 matches and that has made sure at the very least Milan will be playing Champions League football next year as well as an outside chance at the league if Inter slip up over the next few months. The Juventus side that Allegri took over from Conte was imperious in the Serie A creating a near monopoly on the league over 9 seasons with Allegri winning 5 in a row and Milan will hope he can do the same for them if he stays for the next few seasons.
Can Milan close the gap at the top? So the gap is now 7 points to Inter at the top and Milan have 10 games to try and close that gap at the top even further. Next for Inter in the league is Atalanta at San Siro whilst Milan have a trip to Lazio so the gap could easily go back to 10 points knowing just how inconsistent Milan have been so far this season, at the same time Atalanta have been in good form recently but do have Bayern Munich during the week in the Champions League so could go into that game tired on Saturday. Inter are still massive favourites for the title in Serie A but have shown massive fragilities throughout the year, particularly in the big games in the Serie A and Champions League so that game against Atalanta on Saturday is huge to try and get back to winning ways, we’ll see how Milan get on against Lazio on Sunday, a big week ahead in the Champions League to come before then, looking forward to it.