AC Milan will be up against Liverpool for their Champions League opener on Tuesday evening. After beating Venezia 4-0, Paulo Fonseca isn’t expected to make heavy rotation but three changes are on the cards, according to a report.
Saturday’s win against Venezia was indeed a crucial confidence boost and will allow Milan to head into the Liverpool clash with some optimism. Or ‘a little bit of oxygen’ as Luca Serafini described it, but the tactics will certainly be put to the test regardless.
According to MilanNews, Fonseca will continue with the ‘new midfield’ he fielded against Venezia, with Tijjani Reijnders in the No.10 role and Ruben Loftus-Cheek in the tandem. There should be two changes in defence, though, with Davide Calabria and Fikayo Tomori starting.
Predicted Milan XI (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Calabria, Tomori, Pavlovic, Hernandez; Fofana, Loftus-Cheek; Pulisic, Reijnders, Leao; Morata.
Further up the pitch, Alvaro Morata is set to play from start after recovering from his injury. Tammy Abraham was one of the best players against Venezia but he also worked incredibly hard, so one can understand why Fonseca might not want to risk him.
It should be noted that Malick Thiaw is yet to recover from his injury, while Luka Jovic isn’t included on the Champions League squad list.
Pavlovic seems like a defender who is good but at the same time does lots of mistakes I really don’t know how to rate him. His ball control and passing are the greatest either hope he proves me wrong in the next 2 games.
Emerson should join the futoro team, would rather play Thiaw or even Musah RB than him
I agree on the Emerson 😭😭😭 but we should’ve kept kalulu he can easily play at rb
Pavlovic gives off Romagnoli vibes.
He looks the part but I am not sure he’s that great a defender.
We won the Scudetto after Romagnoli was dropped in favour of Tomori and Kalulu!
Thiaw should be relegated to playing only Coppa Italia matches. He cannot be trusted to play any Serie A matches, we just can’t afford it right now.
Emerson, Thiaw and Terraciano are the worst Milan players (not counting that bum Origi who just makes his salary but thankfully doesn’t play).
true but emerson is the worst thiaw was pretty good when he first played terraciano was a verona player and playing out of posision but still is horrible emerson is trash
No please our central defence should not change Gabbia and Pavlovic are the perfect for constant first eleven as Acmilan team
Squad rotation. Gabbia was good against the worst team in the league, but can’t be trusted against the likes of Liverpool.
I trust Gabbia over Tomori, Thiaw and Pavlovic any day.
Sorry why can’t we trust our best CB from last season?
Tomori and pavlovic
Putting back Morata and Calabria do seem to make sense (although I know some will disagree about the later), but I think Gabbia deserved to be a starter, not necessarly because of yesterday’s performance but overall he seems a bit better than Tomori lately.
But I could be completely wrong.
Well both Calabria and Emerson are liabilties and terrible defenders. But atleast calabria is a grinder unlike the donation case we did for Tottenham.
Calabria is a far better defender than Emerson ,my only worry is the defence generally and loftus cheek is a complete waste of space
I’ll need some specifics as to why Calabria is a liability or terrible defender….and being outdone 2 v 1 is not a good example.
What we need is proper spacing between the double pivot midfielders and the defensive line, regardless of personnel. The pivot mids were way too high when we were out of possession against Venezia. The AM was also pressing up so that it was almost a 4-2-4 IN DEFENSE. WTF? This can’t happen vs. Liverpool or Inter.
👏 👏 👏
Best comment I’ve seen here in months…maybe more. The personnel are largely irrelevant, it’s about the space between the likes, discipline and tactics…this is where the coach comes in.
Fonseca has the right ideas in my opinion, but is he good enough as a man manager and coach to get these players doing it…that’s the difference between an average coach and a Klopp/pep
I know!
And yet people are declaring that the Venezia game proves that RLC and Reijnders should swap!
RLC played as far forward against Venezia as he usually does.
He and Reijnders were the furthest forward at one stage!
It’s not the Venezia game that proves is, but all of last season. Look past your nose.
Completely agree with this.
I did comment on another article that losing the ball high up the pitch against players like Salah and Diaz would be suicidal.
We should play deeper, less emphasis on pressing and rely more on counters (players like Theo, Leao, Pulisic do thrive in counters).
Every major team in Europe today defends in a 4-2-4 system. Even Liverpool does it. It is used to block the through balls and the advancing between the middle.
In my opinion, given that Fonseca likes to defend in a mid block, it is a good thing that we switched to 4-2-4.
Kalulu should stay for rb but this Milan administration is so stupid
Our options at RB are so poor, I think that I might prefer to see Gabbia and Pavlovic remain together in the middle, with Tomori at RB. Unlike Calabria, he has the physicality to keep up with the wingers we’ll be facing when we play the likes of Liverpool (who lost to Forrest, BTW) and the Communists.
Obviously, that’s not a long term solution, and we will be sacrificing some offense, but I think that either Calabria or Royal will get exploited, repeatedly.
Best regards
Just Same Failed Pioli used to do
Pioli used to to achange when ever the team win
Just look Tomori who is always minus to the team, as well as Calabria
Gabbia was one of the best in the last game
Why not maintain the CB partnership of Gabbia Pavlovic
Whoever that brought in the idea of signing Emerson Royal is against the progress of Milan. I will rather start Gabbia-Pavlovic or Pavlovic-RLC/Musah in CB instead of Tomori. And Calabria is getting playing time because of two things,
1)He’s the captain and also Italian at the same time
2) Because there’s no any better player
They are gonna have to play a lot more compact. Reijnders and RLC can’t both push forward or we’ll get shredded on the counter. In fact, RLC will have to stay back to help Calabria double team Dias.
Fonseca’s decision to make three changes in Milan’s lineup ahead of the Liverpool match reveals a lot about his game plan.