Varese defeat normal, says Allegri

Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri was unconcerned by his team’s 2-0 defeat in a pre-season friendly match against second division side Varese.

Allegri fielded a team full of experienced and first-team regulars for the club’s first pre-season match on Sunday but Milan were beaten by two first-half goals against their near-neighbours.

Even so, the new boss, who took over from Brazilian Leonardo in the close season, believes there is nothing unusual about such a loss.

“It’s normal after only five days of preparation to not be able to run like a team that has been training for more time,” he said.

“We’ve been putting in some hard work during this preparation period and against Varese we faced a team that was more advanced in the amount of work they have done.

“It’s right to take things step-by-step, the aim is to be in the right condition for the beginning of the championship.

“Given that it was my debut I was hoping for a different result but I’m not worried.

“There’s a lot of time to work on the system of play, the ideas and the way of training to ensure we have a good season.”

However, Allegri recognised that things will only get tougher ahead of this weekend’s Emirates Cup and he is expecting an improvement from his team.

“Looking ahead to the games we’ll play in London against teams of the calibre of Lyon and Arsenal, we need to be better compared to (the Varese game),” he added.

Milan had a disastrous pre-season last time out and also got off to a slow start when the real competition started, scoring only six goals in their first nine matches, of which they won just three.