AC Milan will take on Roma at San Siro tonight and it will be a battle of two managers who are very much under pressure after recent negative results, a report has written.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (as seen below) writes that Stefano Pioli ‘has the number’ of Jose Mourinho, which means knowing him well, knowing what to do to face him and generally coming out on top too.
The Italian has met the Portuguese five times in the last two and a half years and has never lost, winning three times. It should have been four too: a year ago Milan dominated, then in the 87th minute they collapsed from 2-0 up to draw 2-2.
That Roma revival began a crisis for Milan, and a year on Pioli lnows that there is one certainty in life: Milan-Roma will be played in the first half of January (in the last three years, three times out of three) and that it will be a crucial content.
For the rest, it is not guaranteed. His Milan has gone up and down, his position as head coach has been questioned and he seems destined to move on to someone else from June, even if it is too early to tell for now.
However, it is certain that San Siro will be full this evening and there will be over 70,000 expectant fans watching on, especially after what happened last time given they booed the team off following their mid-week elimination against Atalanta.
The press conference Pioli gave yesterday was self-critical: “No one can be satisfied with the season. We didn’t manage to have a very high level in direct clashes. The 39 points? I see the glass half empty, after an important start we had a decline.
“After the match against Atalanta there was a meeting with the team, which was effective on what we want to do. We suffered another disappointment after the Champions League.
“What can be improved in particular? Our most negative number is the goals conceded: reducing them must be an objective for everyone, not just the defenders. We are only the sixth-best defence in the league.”
Malick Thiaw, Pierre Kalulu and Fikayo Tomori are all injured and will be injured for a while, Pioli yesterday in his final training session strongly hinted he will choose Simon Kjaer and Matteo Gabbia in the middle, Davide Calabria on the right and Theo Hernandez on the left.
Barring any surprises on the day, Milan will start like this. Side note: it’s likely there will be a lot of focus on counter-attacks and placings. Roma will probably leave the ball to Milan and will rely heavily on the presence of Romelu Lukaku and Andrea Belotti in the area.
Milan meanwhile, with their improvised defence, are third. If they were to win, they would put Roma at 13 points behind them and virtually make them an afterthought in terms of challenging for the Champions League.
Of course, there is the problem of big games for the Rossoneri. Milan struggled, lost or lost points to Inter, Juventus, Napoli, Atalanta, Borussia Dortmund (twice), PSG and Newcastle. Pioli yesterday admitted the problem but conveyed serenity, as if he had now metabolised the criticism.
