AC Milan found themselves in a situation where they had to make a sacrifice in the attacking department due to Malick Thiaw’s red card against Juventus.
Stefano Pioli, the Milan manager, explained his rationale for substituting Christian Pulisic.
The Rossoneri were left with 10 players at San Siro, with Thiaw, the German international center-back, receiving a red card just five minutes before half-time. This situation forced Pioli into making significant tactical choices.
While he had the option to maintain his faith in the players remaining on the field and make minor adjustments, Pioli chose to bolster the defense by substituting American forward Pulisic and bringing on Pierre Kalulu.
Despite Pulisic’s evident displeasure at being substituted, Pioli defended his decision, even though Milan went on to suffer a 1-0 defeat.
Pioli told DAZN of why Pulisic had to make way on the back of an untimely dismissal: “I removed an attacker to maintain the same defensive structure that we had prepared during the week. I decided to make [Rafael] Leao and [Olivier] Giroud work against the three Juve defenders and maintain the defensive set-up we had, as there were some good reference points against them.
“We believed that the contribution of the midfielders like [Yunus] Musah and [Tijjani] Reijnders, or Giroud holding up the ball for Leao, could allow us to continue being dangerous in attack. The second half started pretty well, but then we lacked a little intensity above all in midfield. It’s also true that we allowed Juventus barely any chances, so with a little more intensity I feel we could’ve taken home a very important result even down to 10 men.”
Manuel Locatelli netted the only goal of the game for Juventus just past the hour mark, with Weston McKennie and Tim Weah able to celebrate picking up three points in a domestic meeting with United States international team-mates Pulisic and Yunus Musah.