AC Milan take on Roma tonight at San Siro in January at a crossroads in their season, something which has been the case for the last three campaigns now.
Stefano Pioli and Jose Mourinho are under pressure coming into this one, with both having seen their side knocked out of the Coppa Italia in midweek and now being on course for disappointing campaigns, in relative terms.
In terms of injury news, Noah Okafor is back and should be on the bench, while Marco Sportiello and Marco Pellegrino also have recovered but won’t be available. Alessandro Florenzi will miss out against his former club too.
Pierre Kalulu, Malick Thiaw and Fikayo Tomori will be out for some time yet and Pioli must also deal with the absences of Ismael Bennacer and Samuel Chukwueze, who both are at the AFCON.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport (as seen below) this morning, the Milan coach will name a back four of Davide Calabria, Simon Kjaer, Matteo Gabbia and Theo Hernandez in front of the goalkeeper Mike Maignan.
They predict a 4-2-3-1 system which features Yacine Adli and Tijjani Reijnders as the deeper-lying midfielders, and therefore with Ruben Loftus-Cheek playing in a more advanced position.
In attack it will be Christian Pulisic on the right wing again, with Olivier Giroud the centre-forward over Luka Jovic and Rafael Leao keeping his spot on the left side.
Probable Milan XI (4-3-3): Maignan; Calabria, Kjaer, Gabbia, Theo; Adli, Reijnders; Pulisic, Loftus-Cheek, Leao; Giroud.
Probable Roma XI (3-5-2): Patricio; Mancini, Llorente, Huijsen; Kristensen, Cristante, Paredes, Bove, Spinazzola; Belotti, Lukaku.
Maybe let Adli play AM? He’s good going forward but still needs to improve defensively before playing regista.
Came here to say this. RLC doesn’t seem to have that last connecting pass.
RLC also has the size and height to augment the defense. So it is a bit of a puzzler why we are not looking at Reinjders or Adli for AM as you suggest.
Agreed. Also, while I like Theo back on the left, I think the pairing of Gabbia and Kjaer at CB does not leave us with enough pace to deal with Belotti and Lukaku. Would rather have Theo back there for this match.