AC Milan booked their place in the semi-finals of the Coppa Italia as they ran out 3-1 winners against Roma in an entertaining game at San Siro on Wednesday night.
Milan did the bulk of the work in the first half as Tammy Abraham netted a brace against his parent club, the first with a towering header and the second a composed one-on-one finish.
Artem Dovbyk did score early in the second half off the bench to reduce the deficit, but new signings Santiago Gimenez and Joao Felix linked up after coming on to restore the two-goal lead.
The result means that Milan have a two-legged semi-final to come against the winner of Inter versus Lazio, which will be played next week.
Head coach Sergio Conceicao made two changes to the line-up that drew with Inter on Sunday, as Youssouf Fofana replaced the now departed Ismael Bennacer in midfield, while Alex Jimenez started over the fatigued Rafael Leao on the left wing.
There weren’t many chances in the opening few minutes but there was no shortage of crunching challenges, with Manu Kone and Christian Pulisic taking rough tumbles just a few seconds apart after some firm but fair challenges from opponents.
The first opportunity of the game went o the away side and it came from the first corner. Saelemaekers’ delivery found the unmarked head of Dybala, who didn’t really test Mike Maignan.
As Milan began to get on top in the game, they took the lead through the Roma loanee Tammy Abraham. A ferocious shot from Tijjani Reijnders was only parried to Theo Hernandez, whose cross to the back post was perfectly headed back across goal by Abraham and nestled into the net.
Roma set about in search of a rapid leveller, and they weren’t too far off being gifted one by Maignan. Shomurodov collected a nice flick from Dybala on the edge of the box and hit a rising central shot that the French goalkeeper seemed to flap at while trying to catch, though thankfully it landed on the roof of the net.
Milan missed a huge chance to double their lead on the counter-attack from a Roma corner. A routine didn’t work out and it allowed Jimenez to blitz forward, creating an eight-on-three break, yet Theo somehow stepped on the ball right at the decisive moment on the edge of the opposition box.
The chances continued to fly in and Milan needed the woodwork to deny their visitors just as they did three times on Sunday night, with Pisilli having a glancing header denied by the crossbar. Moments later, Maignan made a good low stop to tip Dybala’s stinging drive away.
Tomori continued his excellent performance in the derby by producing two marvellous interventions towards the end of the first half, the first on Shomurodov and the second on Dybala.
After withstanding a few waves of Roma attack, Milan got the second goal a few minutes before the break and again it came through Abraham. The move started with a sweeping pass from Musah to get out of the press, then Theo took it forward and slipped in the English forward, who finished confidently for his second of the night.
Roma brought Dovbyk and Pellegrini off the bench at the break to try and change their fortunes, but it was the Diavolo who started the second half on the front foot. A perfect cross from Pulisic almost found Jimenez at the far post, but Angelino made an excellent diving stop, then from the resulting corner Kyle Walker’s header was tipped onto the bar.
Just eight minutes into the second half, Roma halved the deficit and it was the substitute Dovbyk who got it. Angelino’s driven cross-shot from the left side took a deflection off Walker through a crowd and fell to the Ukrainian at the far post who tapped in from close range.
Just before the hour mark, Conceicao made his first changes of the game and it saw two January signings make their Milan debuts. Santiago Gimenez replaced Abraham, while Joao Felix took the place of Pulisic.
Felix and Gimenez made an instant impact, linking up with each other and their new team-mates very well, with the Mexican almost collecting a header from the Portuguese and bursting through on goal.
Jimenez had the ball in the net after a nice feed from Gimenez was tucked away past the onrushing Svilar, yet the offside flag rightly went up as he had strayed off. Not long after, Rafael Leao came on for Jimenez.
Roma thought they had got themselves straight back into the game again when a cross was turned into his own net by Reijnders under pressure from Pellegrini, though VAR intervened because Dovbyk had strayed offside in the build-up.
