'We weren't ready to play football!' - Ruben Amorim tears into Ac Milan players after humiliating Ferencvaros defeat at San Siro

Ruben Amorim launched a scathing assessment of his AC Milan side after they slumped to a shock 2-0 Europa League defeat against Ferencvaros on Thursday night. The Rossoneri boss questioned his players' mentality and professional responsibility as the Italian giants suffered another setback in their continental campaign.

Amorim was left furious following his side's lacklustre display at San Siro, where a second-half brace from Lenny Joseph condemned the hosts to a damaging defeat. The result leaves Milan in a precarious position in the Europa League standings, having now suffered three defeats in their opening four group stage matches during what has been a difficult European cycle.

Reflecting on the performance immediately after the final whistle, Amorim admitted he was stunned by the lack of intensity shown by his squad. "There’s no explanation. There’s nothing I can say, especially about the first half. I don’t remember another first half like it. It’s about ambition, concentration, desire. We gave away opportunities, we gave away stupid gifts. We weren’t prepared to play football tonight," the manager told Sky Sport.

Amorim opted to rotate his starting XI significantly, making six changes from the team that had recently secured a victory in the Derby della Madonnina against Inter. However, the gamble failed to pay off as the fringe players struggled to adapt to the rhythm of the game. Even the second-half introductions of high-profile stars like Luka Modric and Christian Pulisic could not spark a comeback for the home side.

"It’s hard to explain. We simply weren’t ready to move from the derby to this other competition. When you play for Milan, you have a responsibility, and you can’t show up like that. I probably didn’t ensure the team took to the field ready either. We’re not ready to be competitive on two fronts. We need to work on our way of looking at football and how we approach matches. There are no excuses tonight, there’s nothing I can say. I usually have a lot to say in defence of our team, but not tonight. We need to be more humble and understand what happened," Amorim added during his post-match media duties.

With the pressure mounting, Amorim highlighted defender Strahinja Pavlovic as the standard his other players must strive to reach, praising the Serbian's work ethic in training sessions. The coach expressed concern that the team is suffering from the same psychological hurdles that plagued them in the previous campaign.

Amorim speaked with a final warning to his underperforming stars, stating: "Maybe I did something wrong these past two days, but not mentally. This team had similar problems last year. We have to find a solution. Tonight we weren’t ready, we weren’t brave. If we don’t win, we’ll have to do everything we can to turn things around, and we didn’t see that. Everyone needs to train like Pavlovic. He’s ready to die in training. He’s a good example."

He concluded: "Sometimes when players don’t start, they struggle. But there are no excuses; we should have won even with those who started. We have to fix this! We can’t just assume it’s going to be like this. We should have done so many things better tonight. Just being better on second balls would have been much better. We weren’t in the game tonight."