AC Milan will face an in-form Atalanta side away from home tonight, hoping to show that they have made progress in the past few weeks.
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Milan have won their last three games against Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League, Empoli in the league and Sassuolo in the Coppa Italia, having scored 12 goals in the process.
However, Atalanta have won eight on the bounce and are second in the league (they could go top for the time being tonight), while they are also scoring for fun. Thus, it will be a real litmus test.
The predicted line-ups
According to this morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below), Paulo Fonseca is expected to go with a defensive line of Emerson Royal, Matteo Gabbia, Malick Thiaw and Theo Hernandez ahead of Mike Maignan.
Tijjani Reijnders and Youssouf Fofana are down as the midfield double pivot pairing which should be no surprise, and Yunus Musah should act on the right as the ‘balancer’ that he has been in recent starts.
Christian Pulisic will have a free-roaming role behind the striker which will be Alvaro Morata, and then Rafael Leao completes the attack on the left flank.
Predicted Milan XI (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Emerson Royal, Thiaw, Gabbia, Theo Hernandez; Fofana, Reijnders; Musah, Pulisic, Leao; Morata.
Predicted Atalanta XI (3-4-1-2): Carnesecchi; Kossounou, Hien, Kolasinac; Bellanova, De Roon, Ederson, Ruggeri; Pasalic; De Ketelaere, Lookman.
