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Official: AC Milan vs. Napoli starting XIs – key absences force six changes

AC Milan head coach Paulo Fonseca has named his starting line-up for the game against Napoli, and there are multiple changes from the Club Brugge game.

Theo Hernandez and Tijjani Reijnders were expected to serve their suspensions on Saturday against Bologna, but the postponement of that game means they will be suspended for tonight instead. Matteo Gabbia, Tammy Abraham and Luka Jovic are injured meanwhile.

Fonseca has chosen changed three of the back four with Malick Thiaw, Strahinja Pavlovic and Filippo Terracciano all coming in. Emerson Royal and Mike Maignan are the only players in the rearguard from the Brugge game to keep their spots.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek was expected to come in for the suspended Reijnders and partner Youssouf Fofana in the midfield double pivot, while Samu Chukwueze and Noah Okafor occupied the wings.

However, Christian Pulisic has come down with flu and thus Loftus-Cheek should occupy a more advanced role as the attacking midfielder, with Yunus Musah playing in the midfield pairing instead.

Alvaro Morata will lead the line, which means Rafael Leao has dropped to the bench as was speculated in the build-up.

Official Milan XI (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Emerson, Thiaw, Pavlovic, Terracciano; Fofana, Musah; Chukwueze, Loftus-Cheek, Okafor, Morata.

Bench: Sportiello, Torriani, Calabria, Bartesaghi, Tomori, Jimenez, Pulisic, Zeroli, Liberali, Leao, Camarda.

Official Napoli XI (4-3-3): Meret; Di Lorenzo, Rrahmani, Buongiorno, Olivera; Anguissa, Gilmour, McTominay; Politano, Lukaku, Kvaratskhelia.

Bench: Turi, Caprile, Juan Jesus, Neres, Marin, Simeone, Zerbin, Ngonge, Mazzocchi, Spinazzola, Raspadori, Folorunsho.

Tags AC Milan Milan Napoli

95 Comments

  5. Damn also losing Pulisic on top of the players who should already have served their suspensions had the mayor of Bologna and the FIGC not been a bunch of incompetent asshats might be too much for us to overcome.
    A bit worried how this will pan out and if I have to come with a logical prediction then I would probably say that we will lose the match but I’ll try to stay positive and hope for a 2-1 win.

  6. Wow – no Pulisic… on top of Napoli making sure Theo and Reijnders aren’t there. But guess who IS there – Di Lorenzo, who should’ve picked up a red card against Lecce…

  7. Well on the one hand, the great thing is that the news outlets didn’t predict exactly our team. Hated that teams can just look at predicted lineups from outlets and know exactly who we’re going to do. On the other hand Puli sits? My guess is to bring on Puli and Leao against tired legs 😁. Brave coach!

      2. The article also says so but when I wrote it then the bench wasn’t yet uploaded but I can see he is on it there, lets hope that the bench doesn’t comes down with the flu before the weekend as well sigh…

          1. Lets hope so, its not impossible to win or draw the match but current circumstances clearly doesn’t favor us one single bit but maybe we will still nevertheless pull out a great team performance and that is probably also the only thing that can save us from an embarrassment tonight.

    1. How can it be the worst lineup, if there ain’t any alternatives? Our only chance is to stick together as a team, therefor Leao has to sit. Just grab a beer and be ready for some spectacle. I stop believing if we‘re three goals down, but we ain’t yet.

    2. Bro we had Bakaye Traore, Bonerror, Montolivo, Mexes and Ubry Emanuelson start for us in a game…..but don’t worry Kevin Content came on as a sub with Mesbah waiting in the wings.
      …we’ve had worse

      1. I’m sorry this is worse.
        A RW who has 1 good game every 6 months, a striker who cant score and “AM” who does nothing of any sort, a Midfielder who nobody knows what position he is or why he is at Milan. A LB that nobody ever heard of now wish they hadn’t a RB who bravo to him is making millions pretending to be a footballer and 2 CB’S who in fairness have ability but have no form or continuity.

        Mike, Fofana and Okafor are 3 solid players all the rest are place fillers

        1. I have to side with IKWYDLS this team is still a lot better player for player compared to some of the banter era squads. We might still get hammered though if we isn’t a bit careful and stays well organized throughout the match and grabs the few chances that we probably will get.

        3. lineups 10 years ago:
          Milan: Lopez; Armero, Mexes, Rami, Bonera; Poli, De Jong, Montolivo; Bonaventura, Menez, Honda
          Napoli: Cabral; Ghoulam, Albiol, Koulibaly, Mesto; Jorginho, Lopez; Mertens, De Guzman, Callejon; Higuain

          i think that was worse

          We won 2:0 🙂

        4. Alright fair enough. I’ll respect that. I don’t see it that way but…for me..
          Mike> Abbiati
          Emerson Bonerror
          PavConstant
          Fofana>Traore
          Okafor pazzini
          Chuk > Emanuelson

          1. Uh oh. I think my got messed up. But basically Abate, Mexes and Elsha over Emerson, Pav and Okafor, sure. But Thiaw, Terra, Fofana, Chuk, Morata over Bonerror, Constant, Traore, Emanuelson, Pazzo 🤷‍♂️

  9. I just hope we don’t concede early and then I dream of a 85th minute Leao trademark dribble with perfect assist for our goal scoring beast Musah 😀

  14. Puli sick? That sucks. They really just need to defend deep. Hopefully they can hang on then bring a sick Puli off the bench and Leao. A draw would be an amazing result at the point.

  16. Napoli were useless against Empoli and lucky against Lecce and Lukaku’s rapidly losing his mojo. I’d have started Tomori over Thiaw though and Leao over Okafor. Plus we have to wait and see what surprises the ref has in store for us…

  19. Looks like its gonna be a very long evening, well if we can’t beat them lets at least break Lukaku’s legs.

  22. Napoli’s goal came from the stupidity of Maignan who did not clear the ball and preferred a risky pass, the ball was lost and Napoli built the goal phase.
    I already clarified about Pavlovic, he is only tall, otherwise he has a low football IQ, he has no technical qualities and in general his quality as a player is low average

  31. bs… except for the first 5-10 minutes and the Lukaku and Kvaraskhelia goals and a few small instances I actually think we have been the better team in the first half but guess we will now lose the match.

      1. Yeah a draw at the very minimum would probably be the most fair result but as you mentions in the comment below the difference is that they have a final product and we don’t.

    2. Conte is happy to sit back and let us run around Infront of them.
      It’s a negative tactic but come 2nd half we will tire and this will get worse

      2. I tend to agree as its more likely that it will get worse than better but I nevertheless think we played a pretty good first half minus the goals and a few individual mishaps.
        I’ll still hope for an early goal for us though as that could easily change the dynamics of the game.

          1. Of course it is, is that really necessary to mention and at least up until recent rounds Milan was the most scoring Serie A team.

    1. No question there but mentally the late goal will likely be too big a mental hurdle to overcome by now but the match is nevertheless not over yet. If we can score a goal fairly early in the second half though it could still end up as a draw but at this point i highly doubt that it will happen and its probably more likely that we will get trashed in the second half but lets hope for the best.

  33. I have big doubts that Milan will manage to finish this championship in a place that will take us next year in the CL. Inter, Napoli and Juventus are clearly better than us, Atalanta, Fiorentina and Lazio seem capable of giving us big problems for 4th place. If we will not be able to grab a place in the CL at the end of the championship, it is good that the management will get exactly what they deserve according to the gross incompetence they are showing.

  36. Very predictable 1st half.

    Milan players running hard, but chasing shadows, creating nothing and incapable of stopping Napoli when they want to play (bear in mind Conte has become very very negative coach).

    The basic mistakes from Musah were just shocking, at both ends.
    RLC just as bad.

    Chucky is trying, but running from the right with the ball his left he just ends up going backwards.

    Pavlovic needs to go out on loan, he has no experience at this level and is a total liability.

    All in all a sh1t show, but hey you have 1 club who wants to win titles and another that has some dumb Milan – NYC Yankees cr@p scrolling in the back ground

  37. Game plan is not bad but it’s hard to execute the ideas with such a mediocre crop of players. Pavlović is slowly turning to another waste.

  38. We have been playing well in this game so I must commend the boys for keeping their head up. With that said, that second goal shouldn’t have gone in. Maignan was late to dive and you could tell Kvar didn’t think he hit the shot well and was surprised it went in. Also, RLC, my goodness what is this guy’s deal ? Liberali can’t be worse than this guy after what we saw him do during the preseason. Let’s put our hope in the young guy at the point pls..

  39. So many people used to give credit morata for our attack but everyone can see who was creating our attack without reijnders we can’t create much if you look clearly we are struggling to break opponent defense

    1. come on man. Hope Milans fans starts bringing some nuts and bolts for coming games even if the goal was rightfully disallowed. 🙁

        1. Yeah the season isn’t over yet as we have only played one quarter of it and things can still tip over with one game at hand as other teams just need a few bad results while we have a good stint of games… whether that happens might be different matter but overall far from far fetched considering how many matches that there is still left to play.

  50. Milan were a total bloody disgrace the players we have got are just bloody rubbish there’s no fight in them are all. This can’t go on the way it is fonseca is not the man for that job.the difference is the players that continue has got want to play for him. Please please sell leao in January he is a bloody excuse for a footballer he is such a lazy person.

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