After defeating Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 at San Siro this evening, AC Milan will travel to North London with a razor-thin one-goal advantage in their Champions League round of 16 matchup with the English team.
Brahim Diaz’s early goal was enough to put the teams apart, and Antonio Conte lost in his native country. After their humiliating 4-1 loss to Leicester City in the Premier League at the weekend, this is yet another disappointing outcome for Spurs.
Milan has now won back-to-back matches for the 1st time since the World Cup break after a four-game losing streak during which they were defeated twice by rival Inter Milan and allowed 9 goals to Lazio and Sassuolo.
Theo Hernandez’s excellent, forceful play eventually led to Brahim’s opening goal, and it was down Tottenham’s right side that they also fell behind early on. After out-jumping Christian Romero, Hernandez drove into the box and forced Fraser Forster to make a save. Forster then quickly rose to his feet to make a miraculous second save from Brahim, but the Spaniard continued his run made a diving header to give home side the much needed lead.
Hernandez kept posing a threat to the Spurs defence, especially Romero, who had a disastrous evening and was somewhat fortunate not to receive a harsh penalty for a high challenge on Sandro Tonali.
Spurs didn’t do much, and the closest they came to being a threat came when Son Heung-min was called offside before Harry Kane hit the crossbar.
In spite of Milan missing two excellent chances around the 75-minute mark, the visitors looked content to keep the score at just one.
The moment Charles De Ketelaere entered the game, he had a golden opportunity to score his first goal for the Rossoneri, but he mishandled the ball and sent his header well off target.
A few seconds later, defender Malick Thiaw made another glaring error on a header, wasting another excellent opportunity. Thiaw had an easy task after Leao delivered an excellent ball into the six-yard box, but he failed to keep his header on goal.
In the end, Milan won by a score of 1-0 while Spurs failed to create any chances despite the addition of six minutes of extra time.
Stefano Pioli’s team will travel to Monza this weekend in an effort to get their season back on track after recently slipping out of the top four in Serie A.
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