AC Milan head coach Paulo Fonseca has named his starting line-up for tonight’s game against Lecce at San Siro, and it is the same as the side that beat Inter last Sunday.
Fonseca has chosen to name an unchanged defensive department of Emerson Royal, Matteo Gabbia, Fikayo Tomori and Theo Hernandez ahead of the goalkeeper Mike Maignan, after they performed well against the Nerazzurri.
Youssouf Fofana and Tijjani Reijnders will remain in the engine room as the double pivot and the wingers will be Christian Pulisic on the right and Rafael Leao, with Tammy Abraham keeping his spot up front alongside Alvaro Morata.
There were reports that Morata was not at 100% in the build-up due to bursitis and therefore would start on the bench, with Ruben Loftus-Cheek taking the Spaniard’s place marking a switch to more of a standard 4-2-3-1, but he has passed a late fitness test.
Noah Okafor is the latest player to be sidelined with a minor injury, while Davide Calabria is still out due to a knock. Ismael Bennacer, Alessandro Florenzi and Marco Sportiello are continuing their recovery from their respective surgeries.
Official Milan XI (4-4-2): Maignan; Emerson, Gabbia, Tomori, Theo Hernandez; Pulisic, Fofana, Reijnders, Leao; Morata, Abraham.
Bench: Torriani, Raveyre, Terracciano, Jimenez, Bartesaghi, Thiaw, Pavlovic, Musah, Loftus-Cheek, Zeroli, Chukwueze, Jovic.
Official Lecce XI (4-4-2): Falcone; Dorgu, Gaspar, Bashirotto, Gallo; Dying, Ramadani, Coulibaly, Pierret; Rebic, Krstovic.
Bench: Fruchtl, Jasper, Borbei, Pelmard, Rafia, Oudin, Jean, Banda, Burnete, McJannet, Marchwinski, Hasa, Pierotti.
this game could either go really bad or really good
I like that he’s going with the strongest lineup. It was rough whenever Pioli did a heavy rotation and we stopped so many points against lesser sides.
Dropped **
Yes. As he should. Pioli cost us a lot of points last season and the season before with his bad rotations that didn’t work. This is the difference between Fonseca and Pioli. This is why we beat Inter also.
Pioli was azz backwards. Instead of taking our best players off around the 60th or 65th minute, if they needed rest, he’d start them on the bench and then bring them on then instead when we were chasing a result. The result of that being extra pressure and effort that probably undid any rest gained by not starting. Anyway, top coach Pioli was called by many teams this summer, but chose to go to Arabia out of a sense of adventure (sarcasm).
I’m a bit sceptic cause it seems we again dont know what our starting lineup is. Ok, against Inter we were really good, but we now see that its prefered to play with 2 strikers. If so, why havent we got more then Morata and Abraham in transfer window? The season is rly long and with having only Jovic i dont see how its gonna work especially when you take into accounts injuries and CL, coppa italia and so. At least recall colombo then who shouldnt have been sent to loan in the first place
Rebić is playing,watch him score….and continue the curse of ex Milan players scoring against us.I cant remember now all the names in last 10-15 years but there was a lot of them,Maldinis son the latest.
Forza Milan !
And then watch Maldini’s Heir make a TLDR post about this and how we should have kept Paloschi and he’d be scoring 20+ goals per season for us right now.
Rebic gave away a goal in their last game. atrocious pass.
Mannnnn was on vacay for a few weeks, missed the opener …first time in god knows how long….what did I miss these last few weeks guys???? 🤣🤣🤣 I particularly loved the implosion of the comments section. At least some Red Birdies are finally realizing the problem is with the boss (no not Zlatan, the real one…..Gerry) that gets trickled down. The logic in the direction of the club has been pi.ss poor for the most part to put it lightly. We’ve been trying to tell y’all….But anyways that’s maybe for a different time.
Oh the Derby win was awesome but the brouhaha prior to that was just as fun to watch haha 🤗. Let’s see if this is a one off, wink wink, or an actual change in the way we play. A turning point if u will. Lecce? Points the bag right 🤭
Anyways I implore y’all to take a break some time. It does the mind wonders
Luigi went full retaŕd. That’s about it.
Really? Because when i read your comment i dont think of someone who just had “wonders for his mind” .. quite the opposite actually.
Nothing much, the “doom&gloom told you so” articles are practically writing themselves here after horror start, so we don’t have too much work around here;) welcome back btw✊
Usual, fire Abates dad. Run the Maldini family out, abandon our home, swap Kalulu for Emerson.
Before the derby it was a sh1t show. Then the derby was special!
Hope you enjoyed the holiday!
No chill. Full power from start. Wise if he kill the game in the first half.
Yes and then after that rest people for cl clash.
Nice. We can always rotate after we take the lead. Rooting for Tammy to get his name on score sheet today.
Continuity. Got it.
Milan 4 – 1
Leao scores
Morata scores
Tammy with the brace
Puli 2 assists
Reinjders 1 assist
We dominate the first 60 then rotate heavily.
Forza Milan.
2-0. Tammy, Puli goal + assist, Theo assist.
Man that bench looks weak for a big club!
Calabria, Okafor, Bennacer and Sportiello all injured, so most of those teenagers would be down in Futuro.
Hopefully we up for a convincing performance and win this evening.
Gabbia’s positional awareness, combined with knowing when to press and went to fall back is absolutely paramount to our defense. Especially given Tomori’s and Pavlovic’s impulsive displays, pushing up more than they need to and lack of positional awareness.
Having said that, I think the Serbians ceiling is quite high, and if he continues to improve and play better, and actually learn a thing or two from Gabbia, he would become a better defender …
The game so far at 50 minutes is illustrating you point about Gabbia. Hope you are right about Pavlovic.
What are the odds Rebic will score?
OMG, what Morata did to his hair???!!!
He pulled a Britney!
Man, I just don’t know about this 4-2-4 thing in defense. I mean, we beat Inter, but once you get past that first line, the flanks are wide open.
All those ball driving players on the pitch and nobody is doing it..just passing it around. And by around I mean passing it back and sideways
I still think 4 3 3 should be explored
Revshev we don’t have the third midfielder we only have 2 good midfielders fofana and reijnders until we get another good midfielder it’s better we play 442 424 4141 what ever we are playing now
There we go, great pass by Leao and great goal by Theo.
Great 2-0 in a matter of a minute or two but what a frustrating affair it has been up until now.
Hahaha what the hell 3-0 😀
Keep up man!!
🙂
To be fair it could have been 4-0 had theo either shot better or passed the ball 😀
Rather hectic final minutes of the first half 🙂
Indeed. It’s like we flipped a switch.
Would really like to see Tammy score. He’s done the work!
Well sure but on the other hand I would like us to give him a rest for Tuesday and then field Jovic instead as we wont lose the match by now so it could be smart giving him a fair share of minutes just to get him up in gear. Then swap Okafor for Leao a bit later.
Game over, Forza Milan!
3-0, we should play like this every week.
Great goal by Leao/Theo
Abraham needs to sharpen his shooting.
It was a pretty poor team performance for most of the 1st half, but individual quality shattered them.
Hope a few of the lads are rested for 2nd half, this game is done
Assuming we’re still at 3-0 by the 60th, we should bring on Chuk for Puli, RLC for Morata, and Terra or Jimenez for Royal. Then in the 70th Musah for one of the two CMs and Pavlo for Tomori.
😀 Royal cant be the sharpest knife in the drawer complaining about that yellow card.
That was some beautiful play (with the pirouette) by Morata!
I never liked him before joining us but he is definitely starting to win me over due to his tenacity on field and in regard of showing up training on the teams off day,