AC Milan will be up against Bari in the Coppa Italia tonight and according to a report, Max Allegri will give Davide Bartesaghi the chance from start.
Due to their final league position in the 2024-25 season, Milan have been forced to enter the Coppa Italia in the preliminaries rather than in the round of 16. As such, their season starts a week earlier than the rivals, facing Bari at San Siro tonight.
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For Allegri, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the Rossoneri have already played quite a lot of friendlies, while some of the signings have been with the team for a decent amount of time now. In many ways, you could see it as the perfect season starter.
No surprises in the line-up
According to today’s edition of Gazzetta dello Sport (see photo below), Allegri will field a 3-5-2 formation with Alexis Saelemaekers and Davide Bartesaghi as the wing-backs. In other words, it looks like the new signing Pervis Estupinan will start on the bench.
In midfield, new signings such as Luka Modric and Ardon Jashari will also be on the bench, making way for Samuele Ricci, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Youssouf Fofana. The first two impressed a lot during pre-season, so it makes sense.
Up front, meanwhile, the false 9 solution with Rafael Leao looks set to continue. Christian Pulisic will likely play in a role slightly behind him, having recovered from the ankle knock he received in the game against Liverpool.
Predicted Milan XI (3-5-2): Maignan; Tomori, Gabbia, Pavlovic; Saelemaekers, Loftus-Cheek, Ricci, Fofana, Bartesaghi; Pulisic, Leao.
Predicted Milan XI (3-5-2): Maignan; Tomori, Gabbia, Pavlovic; Saelemaekers, Loftus-Cheek, Ricci, Fofana, Estupinan/Bartesaghi; Pulisic, Leao.
Can’t wait to see the boys back in action. Let’s go!
Pulisic out two weeks and starting? Probably not.
Guessing it will be RLC behind Rafa and Jashari starting if it’s a 352
Jashari spent 2 months trying to get a transfer, without proper preseason. He won’t start for another month.
Yeah I thought about that quite a bit. CP out with an ankle makes it hard to ramp towards match fitness. Given he took some time off this summer he had a ways to go
Jashari OTOH came late but shows good match fitness when he played last week.
Overall theory is that this is a preseason dress rehearsal game. So I think we will see the “new toys” as much as possible
I was thinking the same thing, but with Modric or Musah instead of Jashari. As Sure said, Jashari is probably not up to speed just yet.
I could see Musah starting and these forums losing their collective sanity 🙂
Modric seems in the same boat as Santi.
It is definitely and puzzle and Allegri likes it that way.
Pulisic left and Leao right?
Fofana has looked awful preseason. If he’s still bad tonight, it’s time to sit him on the bench.
Yea I’m shocked about fofana starting because of his first touch, but I hope he surprises. Pulisic I think will not start, I would be surprised if he did just because of fitness issues. Allegri seems more open to having journo’s etc. at training so maybe he has been running this 11 at training so we already know. We will find out how accurate the predicted starting 11’s will be this year starting today. Last year I don’t think it was ever predicted correctly lol
What about Gimenez??