Massimiliano Allegri has quite a few starting eleven battles that he will have to decide ahead of AC Milan’s game against Roma tomorrow evening.
After two consecutive wins, Milan will be looking to make it three at Stadio Olimpico tomorrow. However, with Roma in good form too, it won’t be easy for the Rossoneri. The good news is that Allegri has quite a lot of players to rely on this time.
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The start of the season certainly had some issues on this front, with several injuries and absences making the starting eleven pretty clear-cut for the manager. Now, however, it’s a very different situation and that’s fantastic.
Latest XI indications
According to Gazzetta dello Sport, which updated the predicted XIs at 9 am this morning, there are four 60-40 battles that Allegri will have to decide ahead of the game. This says a lot about the healthy competition that Milan have these days.
That said, it seems like the defence will revert to the usual players, since Strahinja Pavlovic has recovered from his head injury. In midfield, on the other hand, Samuele Ricci could get the chance from start in Youssouf Fofana’s role.
Niclas Füllkrug scored the winner last time out but since his toe still isn’t 100%, it seems Milan will have Rafael Leao and Christian Pulisic up front. As for Roma, Lorenzo Pellegrini seems to be ahead of Matias Soule in attack.
Predicted Milan XI (3-5-2): Maignan; Tomori, Gabbia, Pavlovic; Saelemaekers, Ricci, Modric, Rabiot, Bartesaghi; Pulisic, Leao.
Milan battles: Tomori-De Winter 60-40%, Ricci-Fofana 60-40%, Saelemaekers-Athekame 60-40%, Pulisic-Nkunku 60-40%.
Predicted Roma XI (3-4-2-1): Svilar; Mancini, Ndicka, Ghilardi; Celik, Cristante, Kone, Wesley; Pellegrini, Dybala; Malen.
Yesssss Ricci deserves it
I sincerely hope we’ll see more from Leao soon! Sometimes he can decide a match even at half throttle, but he can and must do much more.
Leao cant pair with pulisic as a striker. Pulisic-Fullkrug is better than pulisic-leao. Or Leao-fullkrug.
I agree. Sure, Pulisic missed on three decent attempts… but the opportunities were there working with Fulkrug. Think of the ones he’ll make next time. If you’re going with two, those are the two.
Puli/Leao up top does not work without an anchor, especially since Leao is clearly still struggling with some sort of a discomfort and not accelerating like we know he can…. What’s the point of fielding him there?
The simple answer is Fullkrug is also injured and he came to us not match fit (lack of playing time)
The speculative answer is that the nature of Leaos recovery is that he can no longer set himself back thru match effort so play him to match fitness.
The unfortunate answer is Nkunku is not big enough and is only now adapting to the league.
IMO if Max was playing for top 4 we’d see Nkunku and Pulisic. Rest the weary/injured against future need and just take a point from Roma.
That he is fielding his “best” option in light of the difficulties seems to indicate he has a Scudetto belief as well.