Fabio Capello did not like what he saw from AC Milan on Tuesday night as they were beaten by Liverpool in the Champions League, saying they play ‘without courage’.
The home side took the lead at the San Siro after just three minutes but went on to lose the match 3-1 thanks to goals from Ibrahima Konate, Virgil van Dijk and Dominick Szoboszlai.
The Premier League outfit were certainly the more dangerous of the two, registering 23 shots to AC Milan’s eight.
Capello, a legendary figure at Milan after winning four Serie A titles and the Champions League as manager of the club, was not impressed at all.
The veteran Italian boss said his old club lacked leadership and courage, leaving him with little confidence in them.
‘I feel sunk watching this Milan, without reaction, incapable of making three passes,’ Capello told Sky Italia. ‘We continue to play football attached to the goalkeeper, who has touched the ball more than [Alvaro] Morata.
‘Without courage you don’t go anywhere. Then it is clear that everyone plays but there is no leader. Do you know who was the leader tonight? [Tammy] Abraham.
‘[Rafael] Leao’s only play came at the end. You have a player who can cause problems for the opponents and you don’t serve him. The first ball touched came in the 20th minute. All this makes me have little faith in this Milan.’
Milan boss Paulo Fonseca didn’t like what he saw from his side either, saying they ‘stopped playing’ after falling behind.
‘We played against Liverpool, who are a huge team. We started well, both attacking and defending, but then we conceded two goals from set plays that changed the game,’ said Fonseca.
‘We lost our mental balance because when the team lacks confidence, we develop problems and don’t do what we prepared in training. I told the players, you cannot make those mistakes in this kind of game.
‘At the same time, I have to admit Liverpool are more of a team right now than we are, we need to keep working to have not 20 good minutes, but 70, 80, 90 minutes playing our football. After we conceded the second goal, the team stopped playing, and it became difficult after that.’
Liverpool manager Arne Slot was thrilled to see his team bounce back from a shock loss to Nottingham Forest at the weekend and even felt they started the game well despite conceding an early goal.
‘It sounds a bit weird if you play three, four, five minutes and we already conceded one chance, which was offside, and then afterwards you concede a goal [and] that I’m going to tell you now that we didn’t even start bad,’ he said. ‘I think we took control of the game from the start. But in the first five minutes we also lost the ball from two choices that were not the best to make and then they could counter-attack us.
‘Afterwards we dominated possession even more and that didn’t lead to counter-attacks from them. Although it sounds weird to say that we started well if you concede two chances, but we took control of the ball from the start of the game. Except from the first five minutes where they had two counter-attacks, I think we dominated possession and created chances as well.’
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