Massimiliano Allegri has named AC Milan’s starting line-up for the game against Parma at San Siro, with some interesting choices.
Inter won again last night against Lecce to move 10 points clear at the top, and while Milan can make it a seven-point gap again today, Massimiliano Allegri stressed the importance of making it an 11-point in the race for the top four during his pre-match press conference.
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AC Milan vs. Parma: Official starting XIs
The good news for Allegri is that all the players are at his disposal except for Santiago Gimenez. Strahinja Pavlovic was expected to be out after a nasty challenge from Van der Brempt in the Como draw, yet the Serbian makes the bench.
There will be a three-man defence of Fikayo Tomori, Matteo Gabbia and Davide Bartesaghi ahead of the captain Mike Maignan. It means that Bartesaghi drops back from his usual wing-back role therefore, with Pervis Estupinan taking his place.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Luka Modric and Adrien Rabiot have been named as the midfield trio. Alexis Saelemaekers will be the right wing-back, and up front Rafael Leao and Christian Pulisic get only their third start in the league together.
LATE UPDATE: Gabbia was injured in the warm-ups, and Koni De Winter replaces him.
Official Milan XI (3-5-2): Maignan; Tomori, De Winter, Bartesaghi; Saelemaekers, Loftus-Cheek, Modric, Rabiot, Estupinan; Pulisic, Leao.
Bench: Terracciano, Pittarella, Ricci, Fullkrug, Nkunku, Fofana, Athekame, Odogu, Jashari, Pavlovic.
Official Parma XI (3-5-2): Corvi; Delprato, Troilo, Valenti; Britschgi, Bernabè, Ordonez, Keita, Valeri; Strefezza, Pellegrino.
Bench: Rinaldi, Casentini, Estevez, Ondrejka, Oristanio, Jensen, Elphege, Cremaschi, Carboni, Nicolussi, Caviglia, Drobnic, Mena Martinez.
Again with the Leão-Pulišić ?
Still miles better than Leao Nkunku
Unpopular Opinion: I don’t care how many goals leao scored in the few games he had. His better days seem to be behind him. No way was I taking pulisic off for leao. Its a frustrating watch anytime milan go all out attack. It always fails. Always! It either leads to draws or losses. our build up play has to be the slowest, weakest, most goalless, more predictable and talentless in all of europe combined. This is not an anger rant since I saw this from a mile away. The coach is to blame. We can see that even though chivu inherited a talented inter team, the team got even better with him. If inzaghi was still at inter, inter would have been second or first by less points. This milan is absolute crap and I cannot imagine how frustrating it must be for modric and pulisic. Even while the game was boring, I said to myself, milan is not going to score. All thats needed was a parma goal to make it interesting. I am happy that it happened that way. We deserve it for being so clueless, terrible, boring, and harmless.
*no way was I removing pulisic ***before I remove leao. (Correction)
Leao and Pulisic up front… He knows it does not work but he is going full retaliation mode now because people have been bashing him.
Another good result for Milan with Napoli losing after Juventus lost.
Win here and separate yourself from the pack, then hope that inter has a collapse in the last 12 games.
Rabiot should probably take a tactical yellow today.
Update of Napoli losing 2-1. You are right.
Wouldn’t this the perfect time to try out a 4-3-3 or Xmas tree formation? Parma seems to be playing pretty poorly now and ACM needs to go full in for a win.
It’s crazy when you think that we are on the 2nd best league run in the clubs history.
Great reward for Jashari, bravo
I dont get why De Winter and Jashari are not playing, heck I’d give Fofana a game over RLC
Seems a good game to try 433 and let Leao/Fulkrug/Pulisic operate in their best positions
Estupinan should be sold to Saudi
I usually defend Allegri but like others here I can’t understand why we’re not playing 4-3-3 against lowly Parma, and it’s even harder to understand why Jashari is not starting after his great game against Parma.
Because our defence has established playing 3 in the back and changing in the middle of the season would only disrupt the balance? Wild guess.
Agree – Allegri reverts to a 433 with 15 min to go when we need a goal so it’s strange how he doesn’t just start with it from the beginning.. He could be bolder against riff raff like this…
Good starting lineup.
Hope for a real easy game today without bad refereeing.
For all the flack I give Loftus, him in combo with Nkunku actually work well for whatever reason. So for the team dynamics he works. But it’s also good to finally see Puli and Leao start together
Why are we dressed like a prostitutes Christmas party?
Looks like comfortable pajamas
🙂 Did you see Juventus the other day – looked like criminals in a 1940s cartoon..
I’ll have to check that out
😆😆😆 yes ! The worst kit I ever see
That juve kit is ridiculously bad, its actually impressive creating such a eye sore
I thought it looks ok but now that you said that i bursted out laughing 😂
Juve had the worse I’ve seen so far. They looked like either they’re were in their pajamas…well the way they played they looked like they just got out of bed.
Either that or it looked like a prison uniform 😅
Why they had the stripes the other way God only knows. I can’t fathom our striped horizontal (don’t get any ideas Gerry!)
Probably the worst kit I have ever seen, its actually hurt your eyes watching juve, not only because they are juve this time
Glad you had a chuckle
Games like this with opponents like Parma at home are the ideal games to play with a central powerful striker like Fullkrug. Nevertheless….Allegri…
Game would have been a walk in the park if allegri had the balls to play 4-3-3.
It’s not like this team isn’t familiar with 4-3-3.
Parma so easily denied milan any clear chances with how slow and predictable they play.
And by the way, that is the ugliest kit i ever seen milan play in.
It’s clear this type of 3rd, 4rd kits are for comercial purpose. I wonder…who the heck is buying such a horror kits ?
Well aside from dressing like prostitutes, we look like we still couldn’t score in a brothel.
Parma constantly gave us the ball in their half and we created nothing. Every time there is a break on, we stop and pass backwards until Parma have 11 behind the ball.
Why would you not play a target man striker in this kind of game?
This team under Allegri is about as potent as an 80 year old man who lost his viagra
I understand, I get it…maybe we go in CL next season , it’s ok, but what’s the point with this style of playing like death of passion if I barely can stay awake at Milan games ? One of the most boring teams I ever seen in my life is this Milan of Allegri… unwatchable…not in a million years I would not watch a Milan game under Allegri if I was not a fan…
Agred
Bartesaghi doesn’t jump at Parma goal ? Why ? What are you doing there ? It’s your duty to jump and try to defend and you didn’t…
Agreed
If it’s a clear and obvious error, why does it take so long to review?? 🤷♂️
Man these refs
Mr Allegri…you know, I told you a very big secret but don’t tell anyone , lets be our little secret…you can play a different style. A 433…343…4231…wow… that’s something aaa ? Incredible…you will ever change this prehistoric 532 ? Ever ?
Milan is the most pathetic team in Europe against “small” clubs this season…
Smh friggin heck.
Smash and grab 🤦♂️
Milan major problem this season is Allegri selections. He should stop playing Leao as a striker from beginning. Lea isn’t a striker and it’s evident in first half when there was no standing striker in the middle.
Allegri gas caused us a lot with his selection.
If you can’t beat Parma are home then Who?
We played 5 midfielder yet conceding goals every game.
In this parma game immediately a good coach sees that his team has upper hand he should bring in a striker not a midfielder anymore.
We don’t play on Wednesday or Tuesdays but once in a week yet we are playing like this?
Enough and we should be looking at the coaching area
Alegri is done same like Conte he must go
Mr Allegri his so stubborn and has to take the blame for this defeat, even has a fan, the best formation for this Milan team is 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 formation, you keep playing 5-3-2 even for small teams, your football is so boring, change your style of football.
Go back to from 1987 to 2000+ acmilan never buying struggles players, Berlusconi went to the others teams took their best.
Stop pick up unwanted ones from others teams.