Milan took on Lazio yesterday evening in the Serie A curtain raiser. Massimiliano Allegri was in bullish mood that his side would come out with a win. Before them however stood a Lazio side that seriously re-tooled during the summer mercato and added the likes of Djibril Cisse, Miroslav Klose, and Lorik Cana as their most high profile recruits. Edy Reja was himself very confident that the Aquile could come to the Champions home and shake up the San Siro.

Given how the game panned out in the opening minutes, it seemed that the Lazio boss had a good point in being so confident of his side's chances. Lazio dominated the play and bossed the midfield. Reja's starting 4-5-1 formation was getting the best of Milan and the Rossoneri were pinned back. Despite struggling for cohesion in their build-up play, the first and best chance of the opening minutes fell to Milan as Zlatan Ibrahimovic played in Alberto Aquilani but the Italian was unable to convert after being denied in 1v1 by Albano Bizarri. However, all of Lazio's good pressing soon came good as Stefano Mauri floated in a cross that Klose plucked out the air and fired home past Christian Abbiati. Soon after it was the other new signing who came to the fore as Cisse leapt high above the Rossoneri defense to head in another glorious Mauri cross. It was 20 minutes into the match and the champions were already two goals down and with a mountain to climb.

In effect Milan's struggles originated from Lazio flooding the midfield, a lesson Reja doubtlessly picked up from the Supercoppa when Inter really had Milan under the cosh in that game's first half. Alessandro Nesta was having a particularly poor game, having been beaten both by Klose and Cisse for the two goals. Ignazio Abate spent most of the first half defending and worried about Cisse's pace coming from the left. Luca Antonini really struggled against Abdoulay Konko who got the better of him more time than not. His task was made all the more difficult with Mauri sliding to that side and double-teaming the Italian fullback, thus making him indecisive and difficult for him to decide whether to challenge or not. In effect, both of Mauri's assists came from Antonini's left wing after he had failed to be closed him down fast enough. The whole of the defense struggled in fact and there reigned a real air of disorganization and panic, which was uncharacteristic of what had been Serie A's best defense last season.

Milan responded however and channeled what had to be the wounded pride of champions to get back into the game via a four-minute blitz. At the half-hour mark, Aquilani played Antonio Cassano in with a ball over the top, who then squared it for an easy Ibrahimovic tap-in. Mere minutes later, It was Aquilani's corner that found Cassano's header which he guided in the opposite bottom corner. It was 2-2 before Lazio could even react, and Allegri will have been pleased of his side's response. From then on, it was all Milan as the Rossoneri piled on the pressure throughout the remainder of the match. In the end however, with Cassano hitting the post and an inspired Bizarri denying both Kevin Prince Boateng and Ibrahimovic, Milan had to settle for a single point.

The turnaround Milan were able to engineer was not all down to sheer force of will however. The Rossoneri were helped out by Reja's tactical switch following his side getting the lead. As mentioned before, Lazio flooding the midfield with five players as Inter had during the Supercoppa paid great dividends in disrupting Milan's play. However, upon going a goal up, Reja committed the same mistake Gian Piero Gasperini had. Gasperini had set up his Inter side in a 3-5-1-1 formation but then switched to a four-men back-line when Inter went up through Wesley Sneijder's free-kick. What Gasperini essentially did was remove the fifth midfielder to add an extra defender to protect his lead. In effect it allowed Milan to get more of the ball and dominate the midfield area as more space became available. In Reja's 3-5-1 setup, Cisse was the extra midfielder, as he played wide left and turned into an auxiliary striker on the counter-attack. When Lazio took the lead however, Cisse joined the attack to play closer up top with Klose, and thus changing the formation to a more classic 4-4-2. Like it had been the case with Gasperini, the degradation of the five-men midfield was advantageous to Milan and allowed the Rossoneri to put their stamp on the game and reverse the run of play.

On the one hand Allegri will be pleased that his team were able to roar back with such aplomb. Milan dominated proceedings and despite the disappointment of a mere point at home, the Rossoneri created a lot of chances and were unlucky not to have won the game. On the other hand however, Allegri will be disappointed by the fact that his team once again had a very lackluster start to the game. It seems to have become one of the Rossoneri's bad habits indeed when it takes them 15-20 minutes to rev up their engine. Furthermore, the circumstances of the reversal should also be a worry for the Italian tactician, as this five-men midfield template seems to be something the Rossoneri has tended to struggle against in their games so far this year. It is something Allegri will be addressing in training surely, but overall, he should certainly be pleased by what was a good showing in the performance and character of his team.