AC Milan take on Rennes at San Siro tomorrow night in the first leg of their Europa League play-off clash, and Stefano Pioli has most of the team decided.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) writes that the certainty with regardings to the starting line-up is that the attacking trident will remain Christian Pulisic, Olivier Giroud and Rafael Leao from right to left.
In defence, Pioli will have to experiment. Davide Calabria is out due to injury and Simon Kjær is not at 100%, while Jan-Carlo Simic and Álex Jiménez have not been included in the UEFA squad list.
It is therefore possible that Alessandro Florenzi, Matteo Gabbia, Theo Hernández and Filippo Terracciano will play ahead of Mike Maignan. Kjær would come in for Terracciano with Theo on the left, should the Dane recover.
In the middle of the field, Tijjani Reijnders will return after his league suspension and will presumably play with Ismaël Bennacer, with Ruben Loftus-Cheek playing further forward.
The bench should look a lot stronger too with Samuel Chukwueze returning from the Africa Cup of Nations, plus Luka Jović and Noah Okafor ready to come on during the match. Pioli will then postpone the rotation to Monza-Milan on Sunday in Serie A.
