We’re edging towards the end of the season and Milan fans are still asking the same questions about their strike force that were being asked at the start of the season: can Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexandre Pato play together?
In fact most of the time one of the strikers has mostly shone when the other was absent, whether that had been due to injury or suspension.
This weekend’s game against Fiorentina has shown glimpses of a blossoming partnership between the two, but in the end were those anything to really go by?
The problem between the two is as simple as it is complicated. The reason why Ibrahimovic and Pato struggle to combine is because they are both prima punti (centre forwards).
It’s only logical after all that any tactical setup should pair up a prima punta to a seconda punta (second striker). The strange thing is that it is the Swede who would most easily adapt to the seconda punta role. Indeed his sheer size, strength, and ability to hold the ball up make him an obvious choice for the prima punta role.
On the other hand his passing ability, his vision, his ability to unlock defenses, and long range shooting ability are all qualities a seconda punta would possess. In contrast Pato possesses pace, finishing and dribbling ability but without the all-around play to really create goals for others on a relatively consistent basis. As such, if the two had to be combined, it would be best to play the Swede behind and allow the Brazilian to spearhead the attack.
Of course the problem is Pato lacks the physicality – despite having bulked up considerably this year – and most importantly the ability to play with his back to goal, as a proper prima punta should.
Another issue, and in a way the most pertinent of all those listed so far, is that Ibrahimovic is not a player who is most willing to accommodate others when it comes to sharing the spotlight. Of course the counter-argument might be that the Swede has provided 11 assists this season.
But Ibrahimovic, without going as far as calling him a selfish player, will not always accommodate his movement in and around the penalty area in order to allow others to get into better positions. We saw this during his time in Spain when the Swede played at Barcelona.
In a team where Lionel Messi is very much the top dog and the team plays for the Argentine, the Swede struggled to accept the hierarchy and was offloaded as a result of it. We can indeed see this in the differences between the Swede and Samuel Eto’o, when the Cameroonian played for the Spanish Giant.
When at Barcelona, Eto’o would often drift off to the wing in order to allow Messi to come inside and score the goals. In fact, Messi’s goal scoring exploits that season were very much a result of that altruism from Eto’o. Ibrahimovic did not show that same willingness, and so Josep Guardiola deemed him a player who did not fit the system and offloaded him, despite his undoubted ability.
This indeed becomes a problem. Pato’s game is not well rounded enough and so the Brazilian can only best have an impact when inside the penalty area. Yet the presence Ibrahimovic [as a prima punta] impedes Pato’s ability to do so. The solution is not as obvious as working out the problem on the training ground, although that can do no harm of course.
In the end however, I do not believe that there is anything natural about a partnership between Ibrahimovic and Pato. The fact is that Milan plays differently when either of them are on the pitch. When Ibrahimovic is on the field the game is more elongated and direct as the team plays him in much more vertical spaces.
Conversely, there is much more focus on a shorter build-up in order to play Pato in the best possible positions and capitalize on his pace to run in behind the defense.
In my opinion, it is not possible to play both Ibrahimovic and Pato in the same starting eleven. Very much like it has become an issue of the Rossoneri’s former coach, Carlo Ancelotti, at Chelsea to combine Didier Drogba and Fernando Torres, I believe it is best if both [Ibrahimovic or Pato] were played alternatively.
The fact that both bring in different dimensions to Milan’s play makes them excellent options when a change of tactics is needed against certain types of oppositions. But if a partnership is to be found between the two strikers, I think there is a good chance of it happening if Milan were to find a proper trequartista (playmaker). Kevin Prince Boateng has been a great deputy in that role, but it is clear that this is not his natural position.
If Milan were able to acquire the services of a Javier Pastore, Hernanes or even the recently much-linked Paulo Henrique Ganso, such an addition would go a long way into creating fluency in the final third and indeed between Ibrahimovic and Pato. After all it was Carlo Ancelotti who had found success in a similar situation when at Milan in 2002, and when Rui Costa [as the trequartista] accommodated the pairing of two prima punti, Filippo Inzaghi and Andriy Shevchenko.
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