Leao and Maignan: ‘AC Milan never give up, we felt confident’

Rafael Leao assured he is ‘at the disposal of the team’ after inspiring AC Milan to victory over Roma, while Mike Maignan ‘felt confident’ facing down Paulo Dybala’s penalty.

It was a very open and exciting Scudetto battle at San Siro, end to end stuff with numerous scoring opportunities and a high tempo.

Despite that, it only ended 1-0 for the Rossoneri thanks to a Strahinja Pavlovic tap-in on the Leao counter-attack, which was very much against the run of play for the first half.

There were opportunities after the break too, most notably a Mario Hermoso goal-line clearance on Leao, but Maignan was the hero with his save on Dybala’s late penalty.

“I work for the team, because these are very difficult matches. It’s not about individual talent, but the teamwork. We never give up,” Leao told DAZN Italia.

“Mike’s save was that too, never giving up, as he kept us fired up right to the end. They couldn’t score against us before and couldn’t score from a penalty either, so we knew we could go on and win this.

“I think we created more chances, and we are proud of this performance as well as the points.”

Check the Football Italia Player Ratings for Milan 1-0 Roma

It was an all-new strike partnership of Leao and Christopher Nkunku, as Santiago Gimenez, Christian Pulisic and Adrien Rabiot were out injured.

“I am at the disposal of the team, whether I am playing as a centre-forward, a support striker, a winger, trequartista, the important thing is to be at the disposal of the coach and team.”

Maignan seemed to do everything possible to put Dybala off when the penalty was awarded, taking a long time to get on his line, stopping off to drink water and standing well away from the net.

It worked, as he guessed the right angle and pushed the spot-kick out of the bottom corner.

“These are three important points, we are on the path that we’ve been on since the start of the season, being united and fighting for every ball. When we play like this, we can only get a positive result,” Maignan told DAZN.

“It was a decisive moment for the match, I felt confident, my teammates had faith in me, so I am happy I was able to deliver for them.”

This result means Milan have now caught both Roma and Inter on 21 points, all just one off leaders Napoli, creating an incredibly tight title race.

“It is too early to start dreaming, it’s only November. We have a good squad, we are united, we just need to take it one game at a time and not say we are challenging for the Scudetto right now. Of course, we want to win everything, but it’s early days.”