Soccer

Liverpool bounce back from early scare to take Milan apart in style

Arne Slot’s side went behind at San Siro after a third-minute goal from Christian Pulisic

Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk celebrates scoring against AC Milan at Stadio San Siro. Photograph: Marco Luzzani/Getty Images
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk celebrates scoring against AC Milan at Stadio San Siro. Photograph: Marco Luzzani/Getty Images
Jonathan Liew
Tue Sept 17 2024 - 22:31

Champions League: AC Milan 1 Liverpool 3

A stirring comeback against Milan: say what you like about Arne Slot, but at least he knows his history. Two minutes into this game, perhaps the first genuine inflection point of the new Liverpool era: defeat at Nottingham Forest on Saturday, followed by an early goal for Christian Pulisic that put Milan 1-0 up. So, how are your nerves?

Pretty solid, as it turned out. Abetted by some shambolic Milan defending, Liverpool spent the next 88 minutes methodically taking the seven-time champions apart on their own turf: not always fluently, and not always clinically, but with an encouraging directness and above all an instinctive calm.

Liverpool were happy to have the ball. They were happy not to have the ball. They did not dwell on their missed chances but simply created more. And, of course, it helps when your opponents have the structural integrity of a puri, allowing Ibrahima Konaté and Virgil van Dijk free set-piece headers to put Liverpool in front.

Dominik Szoboszlai completed the scoring in the second half, making good on Slot’s entreaties for him to contribute more goals from midfield. But perhaps the most noteworthy performances were from Cody Gakpo on the left wing and Ryan Gravenberch in the midfield. Gakpo was a total menace: unpredictable in his movement, unstoppable on the ball, cutting Milan to pieces with his forward surges.

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Gravenberch, meanwhile, was the nuclear core of Liverpool’s comeback, continuing his strong start to the season: collecting the ball deep, winning it high, playing a couple of delightful early passes to shift the momentum away from the home side.

Even at the time Milan’s early goal felt like something of an anomaly, almost surreal in its ease and absence of intensity, as Álvaro Morata collected a goal-kick with his first touch and turned it around the corner for Pulisic, taking his first touch too. And fair enough, at this point Pulisic still had plenty to do. But, as Liverpool will reflect when they debrief this goal, probably not enough. Kostas Tsimikas was nowhere, Konaté didn’t remotely get close enough and Pulisic was able simply to scamper towards goal and bury it in the bottom corner.

And perhaps against better opposition sides, a collective lapse like that is enough to lose you the game. But Liverpool always had gears to spare, and Milan are simply not yet good enough or disciplined enough to manage situations like this. “A team that doesn’t move as a team,” was the great Arrigo Sacchi’s damning verdict on a side that has only one win from its first four Serie A games, looking disjointed and faint under new coach Paulo Fonseca. So once the initial wave of euphoria had subsided, Liverpool were simply able to settle, pick their passes, pick their moments.

Konaté atoned with the headed equaliser on 23 minutes, Trent Alexander-Arnold with the free-kick from the left, Mike Maignan coming for it but not getting close, Konaté enjoying a free run. In between times Mohamed Salah twice hit the bar, Diogo Jota stabbed the ball wide from a position in which you would have sworn he would score, and Maignan made smart saves from Salah and Cody Gakpo, who was taking advantage of an early booking for Davide Calabria and turning the left wing into his personal command centre.

Here, on the open pastures of San Siro, the space that was so elusive against Nottingham Forest was now abundant. Not least from the corner that led to Van Dijk’s goal just before half-time. Again it was elementary both in concept and execution: a little preliminary grappling with his Dutch international team-mate Tijjani Reijnders, and then a sudden lurch in the opposite direction, meeting the corner from Tsimikas with a header from four yards.

The maddening part of all this was that Milan are really quite a nice side to watch in full flow: a flawed and dangerous team built largely from young ballers, grizzled old pros and players you vaguely remember playing for Chelsea. Morata, signed from Atlético Madrid in the summer, is a smarter and much tougher striker than many give him credit for. Meanwhile Ruben Loftus-Cheek at 28 is essentially the same player he was at 20, Fikayo Tomori was probably the pick of a ropy back line and Tammy Abraham made a late cameo as a substitute.

By then, the game was gone. There were times when it looked like Milan might just hang in there, take it deep, make Liverpool sweat a little. But an injury to Maignan (diving bravely at the feet of Jota) deprived Milan of their outstanding performer, and before long the teenage debutant Lorenzo Torriani was picking the ball out of his net after a counter-attacking run by Gakpo and a neat finish from Szoboszlai.

The game wound down in low-key fashion, with a fleeting debut for Federico Chiesa and Salah in manic “I must score” mode.

With goal difference likely to be a factor in this heaving 36-team league, perhaps it was no bad thing. But 3-1 it finished, and as a reminder of their own effortless class, it was a pretty good one. – Guardian