Home » GdS: Predicted XIs for Lecce vs. Milan – Saelemaekers in attack; Camarda benched
Allegri and Lecce-Milan XIs gazzetta
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GdS: Predicted XIs for Lecce vs. Milan – Saelemaekers in attack; Camarda benched

Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images

AC Milan will be up against Lecce this evening and due to several absences, Max Allegri will reportedly field Alexis Saelemaekers in the front two. 

It has been a tough start to the season for Milan, from the defeat against Cremonese to Ardon Jashari’s injury and a chaotic mercato. As such, Max Allegri and his men will have to respond with three points against Lecce tomorrow.

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In addition to the aforementioned Jashari, Rafael Leao will also miss the game and Christian Pulisic still hasn’t recovered fully from his ankle injury. Granted that the American should be on the bench, he can’t play from the first minute.

One change for the Rossoneri

According to today’s edition of Gazzetta dello Sport (see photo below), Allegri will continue with the 3-5-2 formation. Yunus Musah, whose move to Atalanta has been put on hold, will start to the right while Saelemaekers will partner with Santiago Gimenez up front.

Lecce-Milan XIs gazzetta

The rest of the XI will remain unchanged compared to the game against Cremonese. This also means that Samuele Ricci will be on the bench once again, which is surprising given how well he performed in the pre-season games.

Speaking of sitting on the bench, despite initially being tipped to start, it looks like Francesco Camarda has been leapfrogged by Lecce’s new striker Nikola Stulic.

Predicted Milan XI (3-5-2): Maignan; Tomori, Gabbia, Pavlovic; Musah, Loftus-Cheek, Modric, Fofana, Estupiñan; Saelemaekers, Gimenez.

Predicted Lecce XI (4-3-3): Falcone; Kouassi, Gaspar, Gabriel, Gallo; Coulibaly, Ramadani, Berisha; Pierotti, Stulic, Morente

Tags AC Milan Alexis Saelemaekers Francesco Camarda Lecce

61 Comments

  1. I hope Camarda will score and tell our clownes f..k off idiots.
    Only idiots sell wonderkind and dont gave time for play.
    Draw is maximum for us tonight.I hope we not lose

      1. Whilst the club is busy swapping strikers every 5 mins.

        And of course Camarda will join the long list of youth players loaned out and who returned to lead Milan to glory!

        (Oh wait that’s never happened the only youth players who became established never went on loan)

          1. They were “good enough” to reach the top level there is in Italian youth and then all of a sudden….they forgot how to play football….

            All few thousand of them.

            And you don’t question that. You think the system is working just dandy.

        3. Whose this youth player? Gabbia definitely went out on loan (though I can’t see him leading us to glory).

          How many Milan youth players made it in general over the last few years? Dollaruma of course. And then you might say Locatelli, but he’s hardly the world beater every top club wishes it had in its squad.

          1. De Sciglio. Donnarumma , Calabria, Locatelli and Cutrone all broke into the first team and never went on loan.

            Abate is the last established player.

            Gabbia is an accident. They keep trying to get rid of him and have to bring him back when everyone else is injured or terrible.

            They will get him one day.

            I’m never sure why this post always gets a reaction from people defending loans….

      1. 4-3-3
        Maignan
        De Winter – Gabbia – Tomori – Estupinian
        RLC – Ricci – Modric
        Musah – Gimenez – Saelemaekers

        4-2-3-1
        Maignan
        De Winter – Gabbia – Tomori – Estupinian
        Ricci – Modric
        Musah – RLC – Saelemaekers
        Gimenez

        3-5-2
        Maignan
        De Winter – Gabbia – Tomori
        Saelemaekers – Fofana – Ricci – Modric – Estupinian
        RLC
        Gimenez

        I don’t see the players all week, I’m not a manager with a lot of experience. I concede Allegri knows more than me and I’ll assume there’s a reason for what he puts out.

        But to me, the big issue we’ve struggled with for a year now is not having a DM with a clearly defined role and ability to cover a full/wing back pushing forward. I believe that’s the role Ricci was brought in to do and he arrived early enough that he should be embedded in the squad by now. So either we’re thinking “we don’t need to defend as much v Lecce” or Allegri doesn’t think he’s good enough for that role, in which case that’s a monumental failing somewhere.

  4. I had pretty High hopes with Allegri, because I thought he would bring much needed stability.

    But not using Ricci makes no sense. He was a standout player in the pre season, and Loftus cheek and Fofana has been useless for the entire last season. So you gamble on two players, who have already shown, that they are not up to the task, when you have a newly-bought Italian midfielder wearing the #4 sitting on the bench, seven after proving he can create stability and calmness against teams such as Liverpool.

    I understand that Leao, Pulisic and Jashari are all injured, but his formation is really below the expected quality.

    I say you can keep the 3-5-2 for now, but start:

    Maignan
    De winter-Gabbia-Pavlovic
    Musah-Ricci-Fofana-estupinan
    Modric
    Saelemakers-Gimenez

  6. with this starting line-up. where will the goals come from? Even Modric is not a player that provide assist as such. Fofana and RLC decision making when it matters most are always poor. Sala will give good work rate but what next? Gimenez can’t even hold play, he can’t dribble pass a pregnant women. I am seeing draw written all over this match especially if Lecce scored first. However, they can prove us wrong.

  12. Allegri is already the scapegoat 🤣 I didn’t want him in the first place but besides Ricci he’s using the players that the management brought. Ugly roster because of consecutive ugly transfer windows. Can’t wait for the clowns to leave town, please sell asap.

      1. Maignan, Tomori, Gabbia and Saelemaekers were here during the Scudetto season. All the rest has been brought by this management. Don’t tell me Tare is a new management please.

    2. Lol.. they didnt wsnt him i the first pla e they went signed him so fast for the highest manager salarry we’ve given out

    3. No he is not. He did not start Jashari last week. Didn’t play Ricci at all last week and for some reason not starting him again. Is not playing De Winter or Athekame. None of our 3 CB’s are playing that well that you can’t put in De Winter to see what he can do.
      His use of Modric at DM instead of the position he has been playing his entire career is idiotic. And playing Fofana higher up when he can’t shoot to save his life…
      Wouldn’t it make sense to play Ricci, the guy the team bought to play DM play there and move Modric up where Fofana is playing?
      Allegri probably doesn’t want to give Ricci a chance because he is obsessed with bringing in Rabiot and doesn’t want to give Ricci a chance to shine.
      Not to mention his obsession with Vlahovic has prevented the club from bringing in another striker.

  13. Modric in deeplying role did not work. RLC and Fofana were useless in their advanced roles. Forcing 352 when you don’t have attackers, pushing Saele there… I had hopes with Allegri, being a coach with experience and trophies.

    1. Yh it’s makes no sense nobody would ever do this lineup that watched Milan last match and last season…. Just crazy too all of us. I mean this lineup is good enough to play against Lecce but why would u take such a risk after the first game I rly don’t get it. What’s wrong with Allegri

  14. Very surprised that we continue to refuse to learn the value of a defensive midfielder. Not entirely sure why we’ve decided Saelamaekers is now an attacker and Musah is an RWB either. I guess with no Leao, Pulisic, Jimenez booted out and the various sold/loaned players, this is what we’ve got.

    This has Lecce winning through ‘Sottil off the bench for a 2-1 counter attacking goal’ vibes all over it. Musah obviously will pick up an injury when Sottil bursts past him.

    Prove me wrong please lads!

  15. Here’s what I’d do with the mess of a squad…

    Maignan

    De Winter Tomori Gabbia Bartesaghi

    Ricci
    RLC. Modric

    Saelemaekers Jiménez
    Giménez

    2. Definitely far far better. But perhaps Pulisic for A. Jimenez, since he’s about to be sold. If Puli ain’t fit enough, then Musah on the right and Salad on the left.

      1. Oh I thought Puli was injured.

        If he’s fit he’s in.

        And why is the club selling Jiménez given what we saw from Estupiñán against Cremonese???

        It was one of the worst performances I’ve seen from a professional player.

        1. Jimenez has been late for training multiple times. The he comes on in the game and starts making dirty tackles and yelling at the ref and arguing with our players Which he did a lot last year too. He’s got anger issues and now I know why they want to sell him for 25m. Better than losing him next year to madrid for 12

        2. He is a Real Madrid player possibly. Milan shouldn’t develop players for others. So either sell him or get rid of the buyback clause.

    3. Pulisic need to be in for jim3n3z.. o am assuming you forgot about him. If fofana does not play i the holding pivot role then because of the going fw part id prefer loftus over fofana.

      Yashaí should have been in for RLC i your lineup.

  16. At this point I’ll just blind my eyes to this and just wait to see what the actual lineup. Because if this is it, then the question marks around Allegri are justified

  17. F@^k me.
    How did we end up here?
    Playing 352 with a front pair of Gimenez and Saelemaekers.

    Playing against a provincial team that we loaned our rising star to. He likely doesn’t start for them (even though they just sold their best player) but would almost certainly start for us today if we had kept him.

    1. Lol.. same old same old Allegri. Helped by super talents in Milan part 1 Allegri . Helped by Conte’s built team in Juve Allegri. Same Allegri.

      But you gotta also throw him some defense, the mercato has been chaotic and It’s getting worse

  20. What a disgusting lineup. Mussah as a RWB, and Salad as a striker. I prefer myself in both positions. But I don’t think even Allegri can go there.

    This is a good opportunity to test RLC as a forward, like he played against Liverpool (or most of the match at least). Have Gimenez play off of him. Not great, but the best we have available

  21. some would argue, none on the list are world beaters that will take us to glory. I think the latest one to establish was Abate. The only one i can think of that went on loan, never came back and became a top player was Aubameyang.

  22. All this optimism during the mercato and seeing this formation and lineup is so hard on the eyes. With three cb’s who are not the best you’d think to put Ricci in that deep lying role where he controlled and bossed it all preseason and made everything flow. Instead your putting modric there and isolating his attacking threat. That’s where J fault allegri the most and that’s the biggest problem. Ricci to start and take either fofana or loftus off for modric to play a little more attacking. Saelemaekers and gimenez as strikers? Where is this team??

  23. This is grim. I guess all we can hope for is maybe Pavlovic can score another goal for us and we pull out a 1-0 victory. We have 1 attacking player. Allegri’s dream come true.

  24. I just cancelled subscription to watch Milan games.

    Until this dinosaur coach is fired, I will stay way from this circus. I won’t endure Banter Era 2.0

  25. If this is a 3-5-2 with Salemakers attacking, then I am Arrigo Saki. So this could be 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 with Musah RW, Salemakers LW and Gimenez CF. In the middle, RLC, Fofana and Modrić, while in the 4-2-3-1 RLC will play on AM. I don’t know, but if Allegri interprets this as 3-5-2, then there is no help for us.

  26. With each passing day I’m less confident in alegri what does he see that I don’t that makes him think these past two lineups fit the players he has?

  28. The question no one is asking is wether Allegri is actually trying to get a result OR display all the deficiencies of this roster once again before the window closes to force more buys …

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