Stefano Pioli was not so much seeing his glass half-full on Saturday night, as clutching an empty tumbler and reminiscing about the wine that used to be in there before the neighbours came round and drank it all. “In the first four minutes, only we touched the ball,” asserted the Milan manager at the end of Saturday’s derby against Inter. The only problem, a detail really, was everything that happened throughout the 86 that followed.
Inter took the lead in the fifth minute, Henrikh Mkhitaryan redirecting a ball from Federico DiMarco back across Mike Maignan. They doubled their lead before half-time with a spectacular goal from Marcus Thuram, who retrieved an overhit pass outside the left corner of the box then cut back inside Malick Thiaw to fire a rocket into the furthest part of the goal.
