It’s been a barren start to the year for Milan striker Krzysztof Piatek as he has yet to find the back of the net through pre-season and the new campaign.
While the summer can largely be written off as it’s mostly irrelevant with players ultimately focusing on their fitness levels and adapting to coach Marco Giampaolo, the longer his drought goes on the more pressure will build.
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Piatek was anonymous for the most part in the defeat to Udinese, as he struggled to not only find himself in goalscoring positions but failed to involve himself in general play to offer the link-up option that Giampaolo was perhaps looking for in his 4-3-1-2 system.
That resulted in being dropped to the bench for the win over Brescia, although there were finally positive signs in the latter stages of that game that the Polish international is starting to find his feet again.
First goal will open floodgate
It’s one thing not being in the right positions to score goals and not getting the right service and another entirely to simply have bad luck in front of goal.
Piatek found himself in the latter camp last time out, as he got the ball in the right areas and was agonisingly close to breaking his duck while showing some of the qualities we saw last season.
This is a striker who scored 30 goals in 42 games last season, and that level of consistency and longevity shows that it wasn’t just a lucky first season in Italy, but instead that he is a natural goalscorer with instincts to find the back of the net.
It perhaps took a tweak to the system from Giampaolo to get the players around him in more threatening positions to allow Piatek to play closer to goal, and it’s hoped that they can pick up from where they left off when we face Verona after the international break.
Further, with the expectation that he’ll have Suso, Ante Rebic, Lucas Paqueta and Ismael Bennacer behind him providing support, the ingredients are all there for Piatek to eventually find that first goal and it may well be a case of him opening the floodgates at that point.
As seen in the videos below, the important thing is that Piatek isn’t getting overly stressed or concerned by his form, as he puts his slow start down to simple reasoning and remains confident that it will click into place sooner rather than later.
Piatek asked why he stopped scoring: “In official matches I’ve only not scored in 1.5 matches. After preseason I wasn’t fully physically ready now I am. I wasn’t fresh for Udinese. Giampaolo’s system isn’t easy to adapt to. We have to learn it, it may take some time” [FootTruck] pic.twitter.com/DslUght2c5
— Milan Eye (@MilanEye) September 4, 2019
Piatek on whether he was lucky last season: “I don’t look at it that way. If you score 30 goals in 48 games it’s not luck, if it was 8 goals in 5 or 6 games it could have been luck but this definitely isn’t.” pic.twitter.com/Az11vIJple
— Milan Eye (@MilanEye) September 4, 2019
As noted by Il Milanista, the 24-year-old has received the backing of Pippo Inzaghi who also joked about the ‘No.9 shirt curse’, and that’s ultimately the relaxed attitude that Piatek will have to adopt as he goes searching for his first goal of the season next week.
It will undoubtedly be a huge relief for all concerned when he does find the back of the net, but with the creativity around him and the quality that he possesses, it would come as no surprise if Piatek starts to fire in the goals we need from him as he gets fitter and adapts to Giampaolo’s ideas with the help of tactical tweaks to make our attack as potent as possible.