It promises to be one of those classic European nights tonight under the lights of San Siro where the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 between Milan and Tottenham will be staged.
Tuttosport (via MilanNews) writes how the league victory against Torino restored some calm to Stefano Pioli’s team after a very complicated month, but to obtain a positive result against Spurs a much better performance will be needed.
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Spurs arrive after a 4-1 defeat against Leicester on Saturday, prior to that they beat Manchester City 1-0 which shows they are capable of beating the very best. Speaking of which, Milan need their best player Rafael Leao firing again.
The Portuguese winger hasn’t scored for exactly one month (against Lecce) and has had a sharp drop in performance in recent weeks, so much so that Pioli put him on the bench for two games in a row versus Sassuolo and Inter.
Against Tottenham it must be his night because his immense dribbling skill and eye for goal could cause serious issues for a defence that will have some doubts after their drubbing on Saturday.
That’s why there are great expectations around Leao in view of tonight’s match. Against Torino he didn’t do great things, but the Champions League anthem and the San Siro’s wild crowd could light a fuse again.
Milan is too dependent on Leao performing at a high level and teams that have Italian tacticians can easily stop him by having 2 players doubling up on him.
This is why it’s better if Milan play Rebic as a ST than Giroud. Because Rebic press better and he is more mobile which up space for Leao.
Giroud is way too static and slow making it easier for teams to take Leao out of the game.
Exactly, finally someone that understands that we don’t have any real constant attacking threat besides Leao.