After the draw with Salernitana, AC Milan can no longer make mistakes and they must close 2023 with a victory against Sassuolo at San Siro on Saturday night.
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MilanNews are reporting that many remain unavailable for Stefano Pioli, including Marco Sportiello, Pierre Kalulu, Malick Thiaw, Fikayo Tomori, Marco Pellegrino, Mattia Caldara, Yunus Musah, Tommaso Pobega and Noah Okafor. Luka Jovic should be added as a doubt after suffering a blow to his ankle in Salerno.
Pioli is likely to rely on a defence that includes Mike Maignan between the posts, Davide Calabria and Alessandro Florenzi as full-backs then Simon Kjaer and Theo Hernandez as the centre-backs. That is the favoured solution currently over using Jan-Carlo Simic.
From midfield upwards Pioli should keep the same starters seen in Salerno, with Ismael Bennacer between Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Tijjani Reijnders, the Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leao flanking Olivier Giroud in attack.
Probable Milan XI (4-3-3): Maignan; Calabria, Kjaer, Theo, Florenzi; Loftus-Cheek, Bennacer, Reijnders; Pulisic, Giroud, Leao.
Bench: Mirante, Nava, Bartesaghi, Jimenez, Simic, Krunic, Adli, Zeroli, Chaka Traore, Romero, Chukwueze.
One yellow from suspension: Musah, Reijnders
Unavailable: Sportiello, Kalulu, Thiaw, Tomori, Pellegrino, Caldara, Musah, Pobega, Okafor.
Doubtful: Jovic (ankle problem)
