Stefano Pioli has blasted Milan’s mistakes in an enthralling 4-3 Serie A defeat at Fiorentina on Saturday night. The Rossoneri wasted a glorious opportunity to put Napoli under pressure and go alone at the league summit, courtesy of several dreadful blunders.
Second-choice goalkeeper Ciprian Tatarusanu gifted Fiorentina an early lead, dropping the ball at Alfred Duncan’s feet for the easiest of tap-ins. Despite enjoying much of the possession and creating several decent chances, Milan conceded another goal before half-time through their former player Riccardo Saponara.
Matteo Gabbia lost sight of in-form striker Dusan Vlahovic for a split second, which was enough for the Serb to round past Tatarusanu and extend Fiorentina’s lead on the hour mark. Though Milan looked like a doomed outfit at that moment, Zlatan Ibrahimovic stepped up to the plate to bring the Rossoneri back into the game.
The Swede notched up a quick-fire brace, leaving Milan with over 20 minutes to pursue an equalizer. However, Pioli’s men failed to use that momentum to turn the game on its head. Instead, Theo Hernandez’s lapse of concentration allowed Nicolas Gonazlez to dispossess him of the ball on the edge of the box, with Vlahovic pouncing on the rebound to restore a two-goal cushion.
Lorenzo Venuti’s own goal in the 96th minute served to ease the pain for Milan, who suffered their first Serie A defeat of the season. Last season’s runners-up have no one but themselves to blame for a lackluster result at Artemio Franchi, as they shot themselves in the foot a bit too many times.
During the post-match interview, Pioli urged his players to learn from this defeat and try to improve in the upcoming period.
“It was a very unusual match. We played well in the first half and shouldn’t have been 2-0 down, but this is football, we didn’t score our chances and were made to pay for errors,” Pioli told Sky Sport Italia, as relayed by TUTTOmercatoWEB.
“The second-half performance was more of character, trying to avoid defeat and get it back on track, but if you concede four goals, it is inevitably more likely you will lose. And we lost.
“The incidents took us to this defeat because they scored four goals with five attempts. We should’ve been more focused and scored more of our chances. There was a gap to get back into it, but we weren’t sharp enough to bring home the positive result.
“In my view, we should feel the pain of this defeat and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Even in this defeat, I believe this team is very strong and we will learn from these lessons going into the future. Losing hurts, conceding four goals hurts, but we proved that the game was open until the very end. If we hadn’t conceded that fourth goal, we could’ve got it back on track.“