The international break is almost over and AC Milan will resume their Serie A campaign on Saturday night hoping to get their first win, with Paulo Fonseca having seemingly already decided on the team he will pick.
Calciomercato.com report that Alvaro Morata is not expected to start, which means that Tammy Abraham is. The Englishman is favoured over the Spaniard – who has just come back from injury – and the other options like Luka Jovic and Noah Okafor.
Theo Hernandez and Rafael Leao will start as well, with the Lazio incident now fully in the past to all involved. Fonseca hopes to have the left-sided duo firing on all cylinders again, and thankfully both did not play close to 180 minutes over the break for their respective countries.
There are two places up for grabs, starting with the right-back spot where Emerson Royal is favoured over Davide Calabria at present. The other doubt is who between Christian Pulisic and Samuel Chukwueze will play as the right winger, because of the travel involved for the former.
Fonseca is expected to tell the defence to play deeper and to take less risks, with Fikayo Tomori and Strahinja Pavlovic the undisputed starters. Matteo Gabbia is raring to go and could give one of the two a rest with Liverpool and Inter on the horizon.
The last doubt is related to the formation. To date, Milan are going forward with the 4-2-3-1 that Fonseca kept from last season, but the idea of switching to 4-3-3 is possible in the near future despite Ismael Bennacer’s injury reducing the players available in midfield. Kevin Zeroli and Silvano Vos could be promoted.
Predicted Milan XI (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Emerson Royal, Tomori, Pavlovic, Theo Hernandez; Fofana, Reijnders; Chukwueze, Loftus-Cheek, Leao; Abraham.
So Benny gets injured for 3 months and Pavlovic, Pulisic and probably Reijnders are all knackered just so UEFA could pocket some extra cash?Sweet 👌
It really is ridiculous. They just got back from the Euros , they play 3 games then break for more International games that nobody cares about. The greed is ruining the sport.
Wouldn’t be an issue if they allowed increased squad sizes to keep up with an already congested schedule. But not UEFA. Not that wise.
Pulisic is fine. He just played for the US last night. Only out due to travel and fatigue
Pulisic played just over 30 minutes against New Zealand. He’ll be ready to start.
Wow, RLC in an attacking midfield role bottlenecks our transition and attack
He isn’t aggressive nor skilled enough to make his size useful to him.
RLC is slow, unskilled, unwise and unsuitable for CAM. Use Liberali or Reinders
Wow…
Slow down – learn little respect even if you want to criticise. Just say “dip in form”.
I worry about a lineup with Emerson, RLC and Chucky.
Those 3 are barely back up material
Another 2-2
Beware Fonseca, if Milan draw or lose maybe you will lost your job. Hehe..
no italians but 3 brits who cant make their national team. I love where this club is headed
Fonseca is not smart at all ,he probably will draw another match
Horrible choices in transfer window. Midfield does not make any sense. All ball carriers, all n8. Maybe Fofana could play in front of defense, but he would also be limited there. Double pivot is not suitable for Reinnders and RLC, but if we switch to 4-3-3 we miss a proper holding midfield or at least a Fofana backup. Maybe trying Musah in that role, but it is another stretch.
In the defense we do not have CBs that have quality to build up from the back, something that Fonseca loves to do.
Paradoxically the mercato would suit very well Pioli’s style with Fofana and Pavlovic: direct football, aggression, duels. But we do not have the team to play possession based positional football.
Come on guys, Let’s lose this match. We are Milan,it’s do the right thing. Maybe before Liverpool they can decide to fire him, I wouldn’t mind to start Liverpool and Inter matches with Bonera as temporary coach who I believe would do better than Fonseca. I think he lost the respect of squad so fast
It needs to be fine to rotate – we have too many games coming not to rotate our team and we have plenty of talent on the bench. They just need to mesh. It needs to be next man up. I know Puli has probably been our best player this season, but let’s bring him in for 20-30 minutes and keep him fresh for the games against Pool and Inter.
Musah did not have a good international break. It was kinda uneven, not unlike his play at Milan so far this year. He’s still young and I think he could still be strong in double pivot, but I’m not so sure.
I want to see Gabbia back in the starting lineup some. He was rock solid last season, best surprise of the season after Pulisic. I still think it’s useful to develop a back 3 variant when we want to play a more defensive style, since we don’t really have a destroyer of a 6, or when we just want to clog everything up in the middle. Play Gabbia in the middle with Tomori and Pavlovic to either side. That could be kinda fun. The problem in a back 3 is it’s not obvious where Leao plays – inside left forward makes the most sense, but that role demands a lot of defensive work counterpressing hard and shutting off opposition midfield pivot. But if/when Leao is injured, we could give it a shot.
I like both Pavlovic and Tomori, but neither is as disciplined as Gabbia.