Gennaro Gattuso already had our attention.
How could he not, after steering a Milan team that began 2018 in the bottom half of the table to seven wins and two draws in nine games? Under his stewardship, the Rossoneri had climbed all the way to joint-sixth, as well as progressing to the Coppa Italia semi-final and Europa League last-16.
Still, this weekend’s victory at the Stadio Olimpico was something different. Milan had not won away at Roma in Serie A since 2011: back when they had Alessandro Nesta and Thiago Silva anchoring the defence, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic leading the line.
A 2-0 scoreline did not flatter them. Gattuso has been hailed for restoring the energy and commitment of this team, but what stood out here was their tactical coherence, lining up in a compact and deep-lying 4-3-3 that offered Roma no space to play through. After Patrick Cutrone gave Milan the lead early in the second half, they barely gave their hosts a sniff of goal.
All credit to the new manager, then. But perhaps a little nod to his predecessor, as well. Franck Kessié seemed to throw shade at Vincenzo Montella after the game, observing during a post-game interview that “we took care of the tactical side with him, too, but we didn’t work hard during the week. Now we work a lot in the week, and you can see the results.”
And yet, in a roundabout way, Montella played a key role in Sunday’s victory. It was he, back in the summer, who insisted that Milan keep hold of Cutrone. Terms had been agreed on a tongue-twisting loan deal with Crotone, but Montella intervened after observing the academy graduate’s progress through a barnstorming preseason.
Still only 19 at the time, Cutrone had scored the first goal in the first practice match of Milan’s summer training camp. He took just two minutes to grab the opener in their first friendly, against Lugano, as well. Then he stuck two past Bayern Munich in Shenzhen. Cutrone carried on into August with goals in Europa League qualifiers against Universitatea Craiova and KF Shkëndija.
None of which could guarantee him a place in the first team. Not when Milan had committed close to €65m to the signings of André Silva and Nikola Kalinic. Cutrone did start, and score, against Crotone and Cagliari in August, yet still found himself back on the bench after that. Even Gattuso, when he first took over, made the Croatian his first choice to lead the line.
Cutrone has never complained. It is not in the nature of a young man who was quite ready to accept that move to Crotone. The only thing that really seems to upset Cutrone is the impossibility of putting the ball in the net every time.
“In training, if I don’t score a goal I get mad,” he told La Repubblica back in August. “On the pitch, the team comes first, but a match in which I fail to score does still make me angry all the same.”
Happily, it has not happened too often lately. His goal against Roma was his fifth in the last seven games. Cutrone is not always an elegant player, seeming to score every week with a different body part, be that a heel, shoulder or – as with the one he got away with against Lazio – even a hand. But the regularity with which he arrives in the right places at the right times is astonishing.
Montella is due some credit here, too. Cutrone spoke in the aforementioned interview about how his then manager had taught him to move inside the box. Going back further, he had the good fortune to be coached by Pippo Inzaghi in the Milan youth team. The story goes that he even beat his mentor in a first-to-five volley-scoring competition after training one day at the age of 16.
Gattuso will not easily permit his young forward to get big-headed. Cutrone is Milan’s leading scorer with 14 goals in all competitions, but the manager insisted on Sunday that he still “needs to get better, needs to play a tidier game”.
It is right to keep everyone’s feet on the ground. If the season ended today, Milan would still miss out on European football, as a result of the head-to-head tie-breaker with Sampdoria. You can forgive Milan’s supporters, though, for the excitement they feel right now about a player who joined their academy system at the age of seven.
Gattuso deserves credit for incorporating the homegrown with the lavishly acquired. Milan’s second goal on Sunday was scored by Davide Calabria, a player who rose through the ranks alongside Cutrone. Another of their former youth team colleagues, Gianluigi Donnarumma, continued his improving run of form in goal.
At the same time, Leonardo Bonucci offered steady leadership from centre-back: no longer trying to do too much as he was earlier in the campaign. Lucas Biglia set the tempo in front of him, and Kalinic set up the second goal – having previously drawn a good save from Alisson himself – after coming off the bench.
It all adds up to an impressive collective, a team playing as well as anyone outside the top two. Milan’s catastrophic first-half of the season means that there is still no margin for error in the pursuit of a Champions League berth. But if Gattuso had already commanded the attention of the watching public, then a win like this one will sharpen the awareness of those teams running just ahead of Milan as well.
Talking points
• Outside of Milan’s win, the biggest story in Serie A this weekend was a game that did not happen. Juventus’s fixture with Atalanta was abandoned due to snow – denying the Bianconeri a chance to move ahead of Napoli, who play on Monday night, at the top. It would have been a good time to face Atalanta, too, as they recovered physically and emotionally from their Europa League heartbreak against Borussia Dortmund. Manager Gian Piero Gasperini had selected three players who were yet to start in Serie A this season.
• Lazio profited from Roma’s slip to move third, with Ciro Immobile extending his advantage on top of the scorers’ chart. He now has a goal every 84.5 minutes in Serie A this season – the best strike-rate of any player in Europe’s top five leagues.
• For the quality over quantity crowd, though, how about Duvan Zapata’s outrageous coast-to-coast for Sampdoria against Udinese?
• This could have been a weekend for Crotone to pull clear of the relegation scrap. Instead, they lost 3-2 at home to Spal and now are just one point clear of the drop zone and two ahead of 19th-placed Verona – who won at home to Torino. One for the Leeds United fans out there: Spal’s last six goals have all been either set up or scored by Mirco Antenucci.
Serie A results
Bologna 2-0 Genoa, Internazionale 2-0 Benevento, Crotone 2-3 SPAL, Verona 2-1 Torino, Sampdoria 2-1 Udinese, Fiorentina 1-0 Chievo, Sassuolo 0-3 Lazio, Roma 0-2 Milan, Juventus P-P Atalanta. Monday fixture Cagliari v Napoli
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Napoli | 25 | 40 | 66 |
| 2 | Juventus | 25 | 47 | 65 |
| 3 | Lazio | 26 | 31 | 52 |
| 4 | Inter Milan | 26 | 21 | 51 |
| 5 | Roma | 26 | 19 | 50 |
| 6 | Sampdoria | 26 | 12 | 44 |
| 7 | AC Milan | 26 | 7 | 44 |
| 8 | Atalanta | 25 | 8 | 38 |
| 9 | Torino | 26 | 4 | 36 |
| 10 | Fiorentina | 26 | 3 | 35 |
| 11 | Udinese | 26 | -1 | 33 |
| 12 | Bologna | 26 | -5 | 33 |
| 13 | Genoa | 26 | -6 | 30 |
| 14 | Chievo | 26 | -20 | 25 |
| 15 | Cagliari | 25 | -13 | 25 |
| 16 | Sassuolo | 26 | -31 | 23 |
| 17 | Crotone | 26 | -24 | 21 |
| 18 | SPAL | 26 | -23 | 20 |
| 19 | Verona | 26 | -27 | 19 |
| 20 | Benevento | 26 | -42 | 10 |
