Napoli has dust AC Milan last little remaining hope for the title as Stefano Pioli’s side crash to 1-0 loss at San Siro.
AC Milan lost 1-0 to Gennaro Gattuso’s side, a back-to-back loss to their top rivals at San Siro. Second place AC Milan were challenging leaders Inter Milan, but are now 9 points behind them in the Serie A table.
Pioli, who attributed the loss to the widening injury list, admitted that his side deserved a draw.
“It was a complicated game, difficult also for the qualities of our opponents. We hadn’t given much, however, without building much. The episode of the goal changed the game. The team deserved a draw, and they tried until the end,” he admitted.
“We paid for absences. They have been going on for a long time. There are players who are playing a lot. These are things you can pay for, but that’s the path we wanted. We wanted to be competitive in both competitions. Now comes the decisive moment of the season we will try to be ready,” Pioli added.
The veteran Coach also admits that playing on Thursday contributed to the loss but will bounce back.
“From Sunday to Thursday, you recover something. From Thursday to Sunday, it is difficult. We had to play a cleaner game, move more.
“It is not the time to think about these things. We have to think about recovering energy and players. Now we have a very stimulating knockout match against a very strong opponent. We will have to field a high-level performance,” he insists.
Pioli revealed a loss is a loss despite AC Milan were reduced to 10men and therefore concentrate on the coming match.
“It’s a defeat that hurts every way the performance was not the best possible. Rebic’s dismissal is situation that must not happen because we paid for him in the last minutes. And maybe we will pay him in the next matches for the disqualification days. From tomorrow morning, we think about the next match with great attention,” he concluded.