Sakic: “The attitude was good but we were unlucky at times, we can never give up, Menez sacrificed himself”

Nenad Sakic believes a Milan win over Chievo would’ve been a fair result and explains why Mario Balotelli was overlooked on Sunday.

Sakic was on the bench today as Sinisa Mihajlovic watched from the stands, serving a one-match suspension for insulting an official during Milan’s loss at Sassuolo last week at the Mapei Stadium.

The Rossoneri assistant coach saw his side play better than they did against Sassuolo but it was still not enough to beat 10th placed Chievo away. It now seems that Milan’s best chances of achieving Europe is through the Coppa but for that they will either need to win it or at the very least finish in 6th place.

“We knew that Chievo are a well-organized and physical team,” Sakic told Sky. “In the first half we had to attack more but we also didn’t risk anything. In the second half we played much better and had many chances including two wood-works. We didn’t have luck and we hope that in the next games it’ll get better.

“If we had won today then we wouldn’t have been stealing anything but unfortunately we were unable to convert our opportunities. The attitude of the players was positive and they tried. Let’s move on one game at a time and we hope to finish as high as possible. The formation? We prepared for this match with 4-3-3 in mind and then Kucka got hurt [during the warm-up]. We decided to use 4-4-2 with Menez

“When he was subbed out he was maybe angry with himself but there’s nothing more there. Mario Balotelli? He played last week and he didn’t play today. We replaced Menez with Luiz Adriano because we needed a player who sacrifices himself and who would pressure Radovanovic.”

Sakic also spoke in the presser: “We knew Chievo would play the long-ball and that they’re a dangerous side from set-pieces. Having said that, they didn’t cause us too many problems. The situation in attack? Menez is returning from a serious injury and he is not yet 100%, but he did his best for the team and sacrificed himself. Bacca is a penalty-area predator and if he had received a bit more service, he might have scored. Donnarumma? He took a knock and he will now have a check-up. We hope it is nothing too serious [the tests showed nothing wrong and he’ll be back in training tomorrow].”

“The attitude was good, but we were unlucky at times,” the former defender added. “We can never give up. We need to keep preparing well for each match and give our all in training. There are 9 games to go and 27 points up for grabs. We cannot take our foot off the accelerator and we cannot lower our guard.”

Milan’s next match is next Sunday against Lazio at Stadio San Siro. Sassuolo are just 4 points behind the Rossoneri whose good run came to an end last week and are now trying to recover.