Three matches, and the same number keeps coming back
Zero. Goncalo Ramos put nothing on target at San Siro on Wednesday night, and that makes it three games in a row.
Benfica won 2-0 in AC Milan’s Europa League opener. Lukebakio caught the hosts cold in the 16th minute, Sudakov hit the post eight minutes later, and Kaminski settled it just past the hour.
Milan had been listed among the five or six sides expected to go deep in this competition. Their own supporters whistled them off.
The Italian press skipped the diplomacy. La Gazzetta dello Sport called it “AC Milan’s worst European performance: no fight, Benfica win 2-0.” Sport Mediaset went with “disaster”. Sky Sport Italia, marginally kinder, settled on a “bland first half”.
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Four touches in the box, in ninety minutes
Ramos started and stayed on for the full match. Four touches inside the area. Three attempts, two of them headers, none of them on target.
Then came the comparison that really stung. Adrien Rabiot arrived in the 73rd minute and had six touches in the danger zone. Seventeen minutes on the pitch.
“Ramos’s stats do not match those of a striker paid more than 70 million euros, bonuses included, this summer,” La Gazzetta wrote. The former Paris forward has one goal in five appearances across all competitions.
Amorim picked the team, too
The striker is not carrying this alone. Ruben Amorim named a side without a natural playmaker and left Pulisic, Rabiot, Modric and Moreira watching. It returned nothing.
His own verdict afterwards was not much of a defence. “I don’t know if it’s a mental problem but it’s the second time in a row that we’ve been flat in the first half,” Amorim said. “We struggle to create chances, and if we start badly and concede, we lose our heads. The defence? It’s all connected. We’re not organised.”
Milan are sixth in Serie A. The calmer voices in Milan will point out that it is September. Ramos has one more fixture to change the conversation before anyone stops being calm.
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