It was a bitterly disappointing night for Milan on Thursday as we suffered a 2-1 defeat to Torino after a four-minute capitulation in the second half.
Krzysztof Piatek struck from the penalty spot to give us the lead after 19 minutes, but Andrea Belotti’s quick-fire double turned things around in a disastrous few minutes.
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The Rossoneri were wasteful in the closing stages as we had chances to take something home, but ultimately it’s now three defeats in our opening five Serie A games of the campaign.
Bennacer unsurprisingly impresses
The 21-year-old was restored to the starting line-up and he didn’t disappoint, especially in the second half as he began to grow in confidence and dominate the game.
From his pressing off the ball and sweeping up of play in front of the defence, to his long-range passing and bursting runs forward, it was a top performance from the summer signing.
Even when he looks like he’s in trouble, he has the awareness and a forward-thinking approach to get out of difficult situations with a quick pass or turn and he undoubtedly has to be a permanent fixture in the XI moving forward.
Suso frustrates again with ineffective display
Barring a late cross swung into the box in injury time which Piatek should have converted, the Spaniard was anonymous and bitterly disappointing yet again.
Non-existent in his tracking back to stop Ola Aina causing Davide Calabria problems, he was ineffective and lacklustre in possession too as he rarely looked like making something happen as he constantly slows the pace of our attacks down.
Despite that, Giampaolo persisted with him and he somehow completed the 90 minutes. It doesn’t seem as though he’ll get dropped so unless he picks it up and starts delivering, there could be more frustration ahead.
Bonaventura makes Serie A comeback
Albeit it was ruined by the result, it was great to see Bonaventura back on the pitch in a Serie A game and getting much-needed minutes under his belt.
Milan were in control up until the point he came on and so perhaps in hindsight this wasn’t the right game to bring him back into the fold, but he showed some good touches as he almost produced a brilliant pass which Kessie went on to fluff his lines with, but was also rusty and will need more time and minutes.
Nevertheless, if it means putting pressure on the likes of Suso and Hakan Calhanoglu for a place in the starting XI, then it’s simply good to see him back in action.
Musacchio prone to mistakes, Donnarumma poor
It’s a similar story for the Argentine defender, as he was solid for the most part and produced an excellent goal-saving tackle to protect our lead.
However, he always remains vulnerable to making costly mistakes. That was never more evident than the first goal as he allowed Belotti to cut inside onto his favoured right foot far too easily, although Gianluigi Donnarumma had to do better.
Switched off again for the second as he couldn’t turn and track Belotti’s run off the ball as he had fully committed to blocking the pass on the edge of the box, and while it wasn’t all down to him, those are key moments where he’s involved in goals conceded.
Questionable Giampaolo decision-making
Milan looked in control up until the 60th minute, but Rafael Leao was replaced and suddenly our pace and outlet down the left flank was taken off the pitch while Suso stayed on.
That was the first turning point in the game as Torino battled their way back, and then the decision to replace Bennacer with Ante Rebic ensured that we lost further control on the game.
In his defence, there were individual errors and glaring misses which he has no control over, but those two changes didn’t have the desired effect and contributed to Milan ruining what was a solid performance up until that point.
It was arguably the best 45 minutes of the season thus far in terms of the performance in the first half, but Milan managed to find a way to throw it all away and so the pressure increases ahead of Fiorentina on Sunday.