MN: Gila already raising the level of Milan’s defence – the two flaws to fix
Mario Gila is already looking like a top signing for AC Milan, but a potential concern regarding his style has emerged.
As MilanNews write, it was clear that Gila is a top defender even during his time at Lazio, but the Spaniard’s way of presenting himself also said a lot about him. First of all, he’s a player who speaks and understands football. Then, he’s ideal for how Ruben Amorim wants to play.
With Amorim we talked a bit about the way we approach football, what we agree on. We talked a lot about his style of play, about things that perhaps I’ve done in different styles of play with the different coaches I’ve had,” he said in the summer during a meet and greet at the Milan Store on Via Dante.
“We exchanged ideas a bit, we talked about having the same way of thinking about football. We think very similarly. I’m very happy, I shared my way of thinking with the coach and he also explained to me how he sees it. I liked it a lot. It was partly him who pushed me to choose this place.”
The need to stay available
In these first three outings, the difference between Gila and his team-mates has been clearly visible. The former Real Madrid man is a practically complete, mature player who has undoubtedly raised the level of the entire department.
He has always been deployed as a right-sided central defender in a three-man defence so far, a position in which he feels perfectly at ease. In the summer, he said: “Amorim tried me both as a central defender and as an outside centre-back.
“I like both positions; they are very different. The central defender is more about positioning and ball control, with a way of moving off the ball that helps the team and covering spaces when the wing-backs move forward.
“It’s a phase I enjoy; I show off my potential, which is speed. As a wide centre-back, I go forward much more. I like being aggressive in that sense. It depends on the game. There are games where maybe you have to control the game more, and I like that; there are games where I can move forward more.”
It’s clear that the 26-year-old has that something extra, even when Milan try to pass the ball into the opposition’s midfield in build-up. He rises high up the centre-right flank and becomes a sort of extra midfielder, ready to become a passing option.
There are always things to work on, however, even if it has been almost all positives to this point. From a technical and tactical point of view, Gila can sometimes be a bit too aggressive in stepping out from the line.
The most obvious moment was against Venezia, when Adams found himself almost one-on-one with Maignan, exploiting the gap left by the Spaniard who was caught in No Man’s Land by a direct through ball. On that occasion, Samuel Chukwueze backtracked and did enough to put him off.
It’s already clear that Gila is a passionate player, always giving 110%, so much so that in these first three competitive matches he’s been exhausted in the closing minutes, asking to be substituted in all three.
Once he’s able to manage this physical and tactical impetuosity, Milan will have found a complete defender the likes of which they haven’t seen in years. But even with these concerns, he’s a player who has raised the level of the defence.
