This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport has taken a look at some of AC Milan’s tactical tendencies ahead of the derby against Inter on Saturday night.
The paper begins by looking at how the Rossoneri’s attack might function against their opponents while in possession. They predict Rafael Leao and Alexis Saelemaekers to occupy the outside centre-backs Milan Skriniar and Alessandro Bastoni as inside forwards.
Then, this allows Franck Kessie – tipped to play as the attacking midfielder – to push up into space and the centre-forward Olivier Giroud will therefore be free to play off the middle centre-back Stefan De Vrij.
When Leao and Saelemaekers stay wide, La Gazzetta notes how Theo Hernandez and Davide Calabria can make angled runs inside from their full-back position – especially the former – to create disorganisation and penetration.
Finally, the thinking behind playing Kessie further up is that he will pin Brozovic, to create space for his team-mates in wider areas and drag Inter deeper.
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Rebic at the AMF, far better than Kessie