Gattuso rues Milan errors in Arsenal defeat
AC Milan coach Gennaro Gattuso lamented his team's errors after their 2-0 loss to Arsenal in the Europa League on Thursday.
The Serie A outfit's hopes of reaching the quarter-finals were dealt a huge blow at San Siro, where Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Aaron Ramsey scored for Arsenal in the first half of the opening leg.
While Gattuso insisted his team would head into the second leg with belief, he said Arsenal were deserved winners after his side made too many mistakes.
"Arsenal have deserved to win the game. I expected that they would play this way," he told Sky Sport.
"I hope this experience can be useful for our path, taking these [losses] can also be good for growing.
"We were too poor in the first half, suffering [from] their quality and failing to be united between the lines and making too many mistakes from a technical point of view.
"We could definitely have scored some goals, but we could also have [conceded] more."
It's not the night we were expecting but we MUST still believe!
— AC Milan (@acmilan) March 8, 2018
Non è stata la serata che volevamo ma abbiamo il DOVERE di crederci! #ACMAFC 0-2 #UEL pic.twitter.com/s1qBQ499hx
The loss ended Milan's 13-match unbeaten run in all competitions and left them with plenty of work to do in the return leg next week.
Gattuso, whose team are seventh in Serie A, said his players still had to adapt to European competition.
"Playing in Italy and in Europe are two different things," he said.
"In Europe, you can see very well-equipped teams from a technical and physical point of view and then an English team takes about three or four times the TV rights of an Italian [club].
"This doesn't mean we lack the qualities, but there are players structured in a very different way from ours."
Milan return to league action with a trip to Genoa on Sunday.