Massimiliano Allegri has confirmed that he was happy with AC Milan’s squad size going into the season, until injuries started piling up.
Milan went into the 2025-26 season with a streamlined squad, and it certainly meant that the margins were thin in terms of having adequate depth in the event of suffering multiple injuries in a short space of time.
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As tends to be the case for the Rossoneri every season, luck has not been on their side with physical issues. At one point the squad was so decimated that there were only two senior outfield players on the bench, for the game against Fiorentina earlier in the month.
Allegri spoke to reporters in his pre-match press conference on the eve of the game against Napoli – which we translated in full – and he was questioned on whether he gave the green light to having just 19 outfield players.
“I decided the number of players I have available together with the club. Unfortunately, if I had a crystal ball to see that in October there were five players injured after the internationals, then the club would have signed more,” he said.
“But there are positive things: we’ve seen that Bartesaghi is a player who can have a future at Milan. De Winter is a Milan player, Ricci is a player who can be at Milan. So there are also some positive things.”
Get this man a crystal ball and Scudetto is ours
Yes, apparently you need to a crystal ball to predict that football players get injured… It’s so rare.
To be fair, no one can predict that 5 Milan players can get injured in one week on international duty. Pulisic, Rabiot, Estupiñán, Nkunku, and even Saelemaekers who miraculously recovered and is able to play.
it happens to us every other season to have this many injured/suspended at once. But this time the squad is tiny so this quantity of injuries is having an outsized impact.
We have almost zero depth outside of midfield.
I don’t really like Max but how many times over the years have Milan started matches with a full squad just to drop points at end of the day.?
A small size squad has its advantages like the one that he’s mentioned because many good players have been at Milan and not given the right amount of opportunity to prove themselves. Squad morale is higher and even if this is not a big part of what the fans care for, you spend less economically.
Milan have barely been negatively affected by a small size squad so far. Rather a couple of key players in Puli and Rabiot being injured. All the players that have been playing are senior players. So it’s not like the team is so thin that they’re starting matches with 9 players!