AC Milan will look to return to winning ways at San Siro tonight as they welcome an Atalanta side that have already beaten them twice this season, and Stefano Pioli has seemingly settled on his team.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) has the team news ahead of the game, starting with the unavailable players for Milan: Luka Jovic (suspension), Tommaso Pobega (injured) and Fikayo Tomori (injured).
The paper believe that Milan will play a 4-2-3-1 formation with Alessandro Florenzi, Malick Thiaw, Matteo Gabbia and Theo Hernandez the back four ahead of Mike Maignan.
Yacine Adli and Ismael Bennacer are down as the double pivot in midfield, meaning Tijjani Reijnders and Yunus Musah drop to the bench, while Ruben Loftus-Cheek is in a more advanced role.
Christian Pulisic is down as the right winger with Rafael Leao on the left side and Olivier Giroud the centre-forward.
The Rossoneri have three players who are one yellow card away from getting a suspension: Musah, Loftus-Cheek and Florenzi.
Probable Milan XI (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Florenzi, Thiaw, Gabbia, Hernandez; Bennacer, Adli; Pulisic, Loftus-Cheek, Leao; Giroud.
Probable Atalanta XI (3-4-1-2): Carnesecchi; Scalvini, Djimsiti, Kolasinac; Holm, Ederson, De Roon, Ruggeri; Koopmeiners; Miranchuk, De Ketelaere.
Most important game. Draw would be fine. After this game is Lazio game. And also players like Thiaw, Kalulu and Tomori must return in best condition as soon as possible.
Kjaer is far better than thiaw please and N.okafor should play that attacking midfield
Bennacer and Aldi combo is very unproven so far, but I can understand Reijnders being tired (and not quite in his early season form). Thiaw also looking very shaky since his return so a bit worried about that area between defence and midfield. At least Milan’s loan deal will stop CDK from playing there for Atalanta…… right? Ohhhh.
@Oliver. You have Reijnders in the write-up 11, and Adli in the picture .
This wouldn’t be an easy match though. Midfield has to control the game better
please no thiaw.
few months ago he was “the future” and amazing coup. Now you dont even want to see him. Geez. the kid is so young AND just came back from injury. This isnt play station, they are people and after such a long layoff, they need time and minutes to get back to high performance levels
Kjaer will start. Pioli wont trust thiaw still. Reijnders and musah will be favoured over adli. Gabbia will play like he did against napoli stopping simeone. He’ll stop anything cdk does. Musah on later to add pace and storming dribbles through the middle. Okafor on for giroud later and hopefully will get the winning goal. Chukeweze ten minutes at the end to replace pulisic and will do nothing but try to cut inside and lose the ball instantly when he should dribble out wide then cut into the box like the old leao style and how he played well against newcastle.
We’ll most likely concede another penalty too which maignan wont save haha. Or giroud will miss another one for us. Can see kalulu being favoured over thiaw to replace tired kjaer later. Heres hoping kalulu is ready…. He’ll probably give away the penalty though
How can anyone feel comfortable with Thiaw back there. The guy can singlehandedly ruin the entire match with his awful decisions.