Following the Rossonerri’s scoreless stalemate against Juventus at the Allianz Stadium, Milan coach Stefano Pioli gave his insight on the match in a post-match interview, after attaining a point in a hostile ground despite undergoing a rough patch of form.
“We are going through a delicate moment, reacting like this, with this desire to sacrifice ourselves and obtain an important result, against a strong team that wanted to get closer in the standings, I think the boys interpreted the match very well,” commenced Pioli whilst speaking into the microphones of DAZN Italia, via MilanNews.
The Rossonerri were extremely underwhelming in the final third as they lacked creativity and were unable to pose any threat to shot-stopper Wojiech Szczesny, failing to tally a single shot on target against the opposition this evening.
Although Pioli’s side were quite impressive defensively in the first 45, Milan struggled to remain intact and managed to share spoils with the Bianconeri due to the miraculous heroics of Marco Sportiello in-between the sticks.
As a result, Milan remain in second with a total of 70 points, five points ahead of third-placed Juventus, and have yet to obtain a win in their last five matches across all competitions.
After a devastating couple of weeks in which Milan were eliminated in the quarter-finals of the Europa League from Italian compatriots Roma, as well as having lost their sixth consecutive Derby della Madonnina, which resulted in Inter sealing the league title in the Milan derby for the first time in history in Italian football, Pioli was quite pleased with how his men responded to the series of disappointing events when providing his analysis of the match.
“It is clear that we can do better from the point of view of finalization and the last step, I think we sacrificed a lot to obtain an important result. There was a particular atmosphere, there weren’t our fans to support us. We fought until the end, it was a good reaction.”
“Their left-wing chain has experienced, skilled players. We tried to move them a little by changing some positions. In the first half we had a good performance, then in the second half the energy dropped a bit and Juventus brought in a lot of attackers and crushed us. We defended with a lot of spirit and determination. Not losing is a positive result for us.”
When asked about Milan’s source of inspiration despite having no chance of attaining any silverware, Pioli explained:
“We work on our pride, on the desire to do well until the end, on our seriousness. We wear an important shirt, we have to do well in these four matches. We will have three at home and one more here in Turin against Torino. We have to do well until the end, we owe it to ourselves, to the fans and to the club.”
