Once upon a time Milan were winning Derby Della Madonnina 2-0 at halftime. With Donnarumma in net, Romagnoli in front of him and Zlatan leading the force, the game is a wrap… right? NOPE. They shit the bed and their season can basically go to hell at this point.

But, I’m not even going to talk shit about Milan because I feel so sorry for them…and I’m not even a Milanista. It’s easy to say that they suck,they drop points, under-perform and look like dog shit. But I’m looking more into why they suck. They have been struck with a curse… or some sort of juju… or Haitian voodoo.

Milan outplayed inter the first half, pretty obvious and backed up by the game statistics. The Rossoneri switched off the second half and Inter were motivated, but the result could have been different. Zlatan missed an open header inside the 6 yard box. 11/10 times that goes in, except when you play on this season’s Milan squad. He scores that goal, the game goes from 4-2 to finishing 3-3.

This is nothing new though. Even back to the days of Piatek starting striker, yes he was bad, but the chances he missed, he would score them in any other shirt. Kessie has been awful since joining Milan, why is that? because the ball doesn’t want to go in when it comes off his foot. I can count on both hands and feet how many chances he has missed from point blank range. But somehow his tells me two positive things:

Milan, as a team can create these opportunities to score a lot of goals on a per game basis, but when it comes down to finishing, it just doesn’t happen.

Players like Kessie and Calhanoglu are doing the same things they did which made Milan sign him in the first place. (Calhanoglu as of recent has been much better with the addition of Zlatan in front of him). The only difference is that they don’t have the goals to support that. Understandable. Kessie is a player that gets 5-7 goals per season, currently has 1. Hakan, could put up 10 but hasn’t hit near there since joining Milan.

I have personally watched (on tv) Piatek miss 5 easy chances in a single match. Now he is gone.

I say this about a lot of Inter players… The environment is one of the most important aspects of a players success. Inter was a horrible place to play for any good player a couple years ago, players like Banega or Palacio or Dalbert leave and then all of a sudden they become good again. Why? The club doesn’t utilize/treat the player a certain way and it kills them. Milan is currently in that situation, they bring in decent players who can’t fit into the Milan mentality, which right now is chaos. They cant handle the stupidity that goes on. They will probably leave and go back to being decent players.

With a little bit of luck, this Milan team could have been Champions League contenders. To give you a little more of a sense of this bad luck:

Milan have hit the post/crossbar 13 times this season, 3rd most in the league.

Theo tied for most in the league with 3, Calhanoglu, Castillejo, Leao and Zlatan each have 2.

Suso had offered the 3rd most key passes in the league, which hasn’t amounted to much as he has only converted 2 assists to show for it.

The team is capable of converting these chances. It has been there for the taking on many separate occasions throughout the season. The lack of concentration and execution hasn’t been there which ties into a bit of luck needed to catch that clean strike on the ball or could be the difference between a header hitting the crossbar or post and finding the back of the net.

Had Milan not created so many chances, with the quality to back it up, I would not be writing about this shit right now. Piatek is gone, and replacing him is Ibrahimovic, who will add the personality, leadership and quality that Milan has been lacking to bring out the best in the players around him, slowly but surely.