The amount that AC Milan suffer with injury problems compared to their rivals could well be one of the reasons they have fallen behind in the title race, a report has outlined.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) recalls that almost all of the key players for Milan have spent time out and the list of healthy regular starters from July to November is just Malick Thiaw, Fikayo Tomori and Tijjani Reijnders. The fans have lost patience, especially after October 2021 (10 unavailable players) and other previous crises.
The comparison with rivals says it all as well. Milan have had 24 injuries this season so far, while Juventus who are six points ahead have had just 10 injuries, and the league-leaders Inter have had just seven.
Looking more specifically at the individual players, there are a number of Milan squad members who have spent over 30 days out this year. Ismael Bennacer (186 days of absence in 2023), Pierre Kalulu (40), Mattia Caldara (58) and Ruben Loftus-Cheek (33) have missed extended periods.
Rade Krunic (27), Samuel Chukwueze (18), Marco Sportiello (24), Simon Kjaer, Christian Pulisic and Marco Pellegrino (all 14) have also spent a while out. When adding up all the days of absence in the team this year out of active squad members (including those still injured) the number is 502.
The craziest one has got to be Sportiello. Man was never injured his entire career until he came to ay for us lol 😅
Play*
Mike too, he was never an injury prone player at Lille.
It was ’10 days out’ at the begining for Sportielo,it became a ‘month+’ very fast 🤣
Not only the total number of injuries, but also their timing. Forced subs in the ladt I don’t know how many matches.
Same thing for 4 years now. Nothing changes. When players are pulling hamstrings five minutes into the game then they are not warming up properly. Players who don’t even play out with muscle fatigue… Players getting injured during warm-ups. Clearly this staff is doing something very wrong. But this is the insanity that goes on under Pioli. Just keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.