Milan secured a narrow 2-1 win at second-bottom Pisa. However, it was a disappointing day for Niclas Füllkrug, who came on as a substitute after the break but missed a penalty and was substituted early.
Even though AC Milan had one game less than city rivals Inter, the second-placed team was already eight points behind the Nerazzurri. Therefore, a win against second-to-last Pisa was a must in order to close the gap on their big city rivals.
With the two Germans Füllkrug and Odogu initially only on the bench, Milan struggled for a long time to create any danger. Loudly cheered on by their own fans, Pisa closed down the space and threw themselves into every tackle. For a long time, both sides were unable to create any real chances, until former Darmstadt player Stojilkovic suddenly almost gave the visitors a rude awakening. After receiving a pass from Moreo, he was unable to get his legs sorted quickly enough and keeper Maignan was on hand to make the save (30′).
This woke the Rossoneri up a bit and they finally found the dominance that had been expected of them from the start. Slowly but surely, one or two crosses sailed into the opponent’s box until one of them finally led to success. Athekame delivered a pinpoint cross from the right to the head of Loftus-Cheek, who gave his side the lead with a powerful header (39′). With a deserved but hard-fought lead, the teams went into the break.
Füllkrug hits the post
Despite the lead, Allegri made a change after halftime, bringing on Füllkrug for former Leipzig player Nkunku. And the national team striker immediately made his presence felt, first setting up an offside goal by Rabiot (48th minute) and then having a shot from eleven meters out. After a foul by Loyola on Pavlovic, Füllkrug took the penalty, but hit the left post (56′).
Having missed the chance to seal the game, Pisa found a second wind and suddenly pinned Milan back. And so the inevitable happened: after conceding a penalty at the other end, Loyola got on the ball after a weak clearance by Pavlovic and fired home the equalizer (71′).
Modric saves Milan
At this point, Milan had completely lost control of the game and had to regroup—which they did. First, it was Füllkrug who almost restored the lead (81′), before Modric finally saved AC. In the 85th minute, the Croatian played a one-two with Ricci and then shot the ball into the net without hesitation. However, Rabiot put the final nail in the coffin when he received an extremely unnecessary yellow-red card. First, he committed a foul at the edge of his own penalty area, giving the hosts a good free kick opportunity, for which he was already cautioned. After that, he couldn’t calm down and was shown another yellow card for complaining (90-+1).
However, this did not change the result, and Milan narrowly avoided a slip-up in the title race against a relegation candidate and closed the gap on city rivals Inter to five points. Milan faces Como 1907 on Wednesday (8:45 p.m.). Pisa will face AC Florence on February 23 (6:30 p.m.).
