AC Milan hold on to beat Brescia

AC Milan made it three successive wins in Serie A on Friday evening with a 1-0 victory over Brescia at the Stadio Mario Rigamonti.

Ante Rebic’s second half strike was enough to take the Rossoneri up to sixth place in the Serie A table in a contest that they again struggled to create clear cut chances for large parts of the game.

The contest started at a frenetic pace as Milan controlled possession and Brescia worked tirelessly to close down any space available in the middle of the park.

Despite the Rossoneri’s early dominance it would take nearly 20 minutes for them to create any meaningful chances.

First, Ismael Bennacer’s long range volley flashed just wide of Jesse Joronen’s goal and moments later Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s header forced the goalkeeper in to his first save of the evening.

Although the Biancazzurri spent the majority of the first half on the back foot they posed a constant threat on the break and would create themselves two fantastic opportunities against the run of play.

Sandro Tonali found himself unmarked at a corner but he could only place his header wide of Gianluigi Donnarumma’s goal, before Florian Aye eluded the Rossoneri back line to meet a ball in to the box but the Milan goalkeeper got down well to save his headed effort.

Ibrahimovic would see the best chance of the half fall at his feet just before the break when Theo Hernandez’s low cross found him unmarked six yards out but the former Swedish international failed to find the target when it seemed easier to score than miss, much to Joronen’s relief.

The Biancazzurri started the second half the better of the two teams and Ernesto Torregrossa nearly opened the scoring on the 50 minute mark when his volley from 12 yards out went agonisingly wide with Donnarumma rooted to the spot.

Torregrossa thought he has given his side the lead only moments later when he deflected Tonali’s long range effort past Donnarumma only for the assistant referee’s flag to spoil the celebrations.

Milan were looking all at sea defensively and Torregrossa would again force Donnarumma in to action twice in a matter of seconds as the Leonessa continued to assert their dominance on proceedings.

The hosts failure to convert any of their chances came back to haunt them in the 71st minute when against the run of play Ibrahimovic’s ball in to the Biancazzurri box led to a goal mouth scramble and substitute Rebic was on hand to slam the ball home to give the Rossoneri the lead.

Samu Castillejo thought he has doubled the visitors lead when he beat Joronen with ten minutes remaining only for a foul by Ibrahimovic in the build up seeing the goal chalked off.

Theo would have the final chance of the evening when his long range effort thundered off Joronen’s bar as the Rossoneri held on to take all three points back to Milan.