Milan coach Stefano Pioli spoke about the reason for switching to a 4-3-3 formation against Juventus.
Milan defeated Juventus, with two goals, in the ninth round of the Italian League.
“It was a very strong match, we made a lot of passing mistakes in the first 20 minutes,” said Pioli.
“I can say that Leao needs to work without the ball, because we need him in the defensive work and be ready to sacrifice in the game, and he is close to that, but he has work to do.”
He continued, “Today we worked as a team, which we unfortunately missed in London against Chelsea, and we made mistakes with the opponent’s strength. We know that if we work together we will reap great results.”
And he added, “The reason for the bad performance in London is that we were not sharp enough and made a lot of mistakes without Chelsea pressing us hard in front of us.”
“The Milan-Juventus match is always important in the Italian league, so we started right from the beginning.”
And he talked about switching to a 4-3-3 plan with Tommaso Pobiga in the middle, saying: “The absence of Alexis Salemcris and Junior Messias made us miss players who can play on the sides, and because we wanted to stop the Juventus players from passing in the middle, so we put Liao and Brahim on the edges.”
“We had to expand the spaces in the Juventus defense, as well as strengthen the strength of our midfield,” he added.
And he concluded in response to not relying on Charles de Kitlari: “He can play in the right wing position, but we will not get the best of him. I believe that Brahim has better characteristics, and Charles is still adapting, and I think it is better not to change his position too much.”
The victory raised Milan’s balance to 20 points in third place, equal to Napoli and Atalanta, while Juventus’ balance stopped at 13 points, which remained in eighth place.
Milan reached 30 victories at the San Siro over Juventus in the Italian League out of 56 overall.
Pioli achieved his first victory over Allegri in the 20th match between them, as the latter won 14 and drew 5 before.
For the first time, Milan achieved victory over Juventus and Inter, before the passage of 10 rounds of the Italian League since the 1970-71 season.