Allegri: ‘Milan focus on top four, Fullkrug impact off the bench’
Max Allegri welcomes Niclas Fullkrug’s impact on Milan, scoring the winner off the bench against Lecce, and continues to focus on a top four finish rather than the Scudetto.
The Rossoneri had dropped so many points against the smaller clubs this season, including recent back-to-back draws with Genoa and Fiorentina.
It looked for a while as if they’d run into another brick wall at San Siro with a series of incredible Wladimiro Falcone saves, but battering ram Niclas Fullkrug came off the bench and three minutes later scored the winner with a glancing header on Alexis Saelemaekers’ cross.
This was the sixth goal from a substitute in Serie A this season, more than any other team.
Allegri can count on Milan bench players
“The most important thing is that with five changes available in modern football, substitutions become decisive. At certain moments of the match, a player like Fullkrug brings freshness into the box,” Allegri told DAZN Italia.
Can Fullkrug play alongside both Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leao from the start, or would it risk unbalancing the team that Allegri has set out?
“Fullkrug hadn’t trained much for West Ham and got this knock to the foot. I think we can play lots of combinations involving Fullkrug, Pulisic, Leao and Nkunku, but what we need to do is have more precision in the final passes, show more patience in the build-up, be sharper and quicker rather than too frantic in the final third, which is what we were doing tonight.
“Lecce were backing off us and we needed more half-moon runs to avoid their offside trap, instead we kept getting caught up in it, as we were hasty. Lecce worked really hard in the first half and inevitably lost intensity after the break, so we ratcheted up a gear in both our pace and the speed with which we moved the ball.
“I looked at the statistics, Lecce conceded almost half the total goals this season in the final 15 minutes. That means they are good at working hard, keeping the game open, but then they run out of steam.”
Ardon Jashari and Samuele Ricci started in midfield this evening, resting Luka Modric and Youssouf Fofana, as it was one of the rare weeks where Milan had more than one game to play.
Check the Football Italia Player Ratings for Milan 1-0 Lecce
“When you have games close together, they stress you more mentally than physically,” noted Allegri.
“Jashari did well with his passing and the intensity of his work-rate, Ricci did really well in a role that I think is his natural one as a mezz’ala. We have a good spirit, and when you play a match with 15 players rather than 11, it becomes easier for everyone.”
This result means Milan take advantage of the slip-ups elsewhere to consolidate second place and break three points clear of Napoli, staying within three points of leaders Inter.
What Allegri was perhaps even more content with was the fact they are now seven points clear of Juventus in fifth, as he continues to insist the Champions League spots are their real target this season.
“We’re halfway to the target that we set ourselves. When we are mathematically in the top four, then I can look beyond that, but as of today the quota for a Champions League place is 74 points, while with Inter’s form it is going up to 86-88. That’s just mathematics, where teams are now, if you think they’ll average two points per game, that is where they will end up,” insisted Allegri.
Milan had started the season with a home defeat to Cremonese, but are unbeaten in Serie A since then with 12 wins and eight draws.
It is the longest positive streak in the top flight since Fabio Capello’s era from September 1992 to March 1993.