PA Media/DPA
London
AC Milan’s poor start to their Serie A campaign continued as they suffered a 2-1 defeat against newly-promoted Parma.
Milan boss Paulo Fonseca had demanded an improvement from his team after they were held 2-2 at home by Torino on the league’s opening weekend.
But it did not materialize as substitute Matteo Cancellieri’s goal 13 minutes from time denied the visitors after Christian Pulisic had cancelled out Dennis Man’s early strike.
Milan could not have made a worse start as they fell behind at the Stadio Ennio Tardini with just two minutes gone.
Man’s left-footed shot put Parma ahead, and they went close to doubling their lead nine minutes later when Ange-Yoan Bonny shot wide.
Milan struggled to impose themselves on the contest, although Davide Calabria had a shot well-saved before Strahinja Pavlovic collected a yellow card.
There were further Milan chances before the interval, but Pavlovic sent a header wide and Theo Hernandez also failed to find the target as Parma preserved their one-goal advantage.
The visitors continued to threaten Parma’s goal immediately after the restart, with opportunities for Rafael Leao and Noah Okafor but there was still no way through.
Parma then went close to doubling their advantage, but Bonny’s effort was disallowed after he drifted offside then Man short narrowly wide as the home side reasserted themselves in the contest.
It proved short-lived as Leao and Hernandez combined superbly to hand Pulisic a simple tap-in and level things up midway through the second half.
But Milan then had no answer to a brilliant Parma counter-attack sparked by Pontus Almqvist as Cancellieri finished off a sweeping move that secured a memorable win as the visitors’ frustration surfaced through late yellow cards for Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Emerson Royal.