AC Milan head coach Paulo Fonseca has named the team that will take to the field against Red Star, with no real surprises.
Milan have won their last three in the Champions League to begin climbing up the table after two losses to start the campaign, but tonight’s game against the Serbian champions will not be easy given their form.
Fonseca will have a bit of a depleted attack for the game, with Christian Pulisic and Noah Okafor joining Alessandro Florenzi, Ismael Bennacer and Luka Jovic as unavailable players due to injury.
Official starting line-ups
The biggest question mark coming into the game was how to replace Pulisic, and the answer was confirmed by the coach yesterday: with Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
The Englishman will play behind Alvaro Morata, flanked by Yunus Musah to the right and Rafael Leao to the left. Youssouf Fofana and Tijjani Reijnders remain the midfield double pivot.
Davide Calabria comes back into the side at right-back with Theo Hernandez on the other flank. Matteo Gabbia and Malick Thiaw are the centre-back pairing ahead of Mike Maignan in goal.
Official Milan XI (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Calabria, Thiaw, Gabbia, Theo; Fofana, Reijnders; Musah, Loftus-Cheek, Leao; Morata.
Bench: Sportiello, Torriani, Chukwueze, Emerson Royal, Tomori, Pavlovic, Terracciano, Camarda, Abraham.
Official Red Star XI (4-2-3-1): Gutesa; Mimovic, Spajic, Djiga, Seol; Elsnik, Krunic; Silas, Maksimovic, Felicio Milson; Ndiaye.
Bench: M. Ilic, Glazer, Ivanic, Kanga, Katai, Bruno Duarte, Dalcio Gomes, Rodic, Lekovic, L. Ilic, Drkusic, Radonjic.
Chuku chuku 😭💔
Agree
this formation is ridiculous because we have literally Zero mids on the bench..
Which means Tijji and Fofana gonna do 90+min
Makes no sense using Musah when Chuku is available. Fonseca will not learn before it’s too late. Doing the same mistake as Pioli.
Idiotic. Musah and RLC at the same time is like playing with one less direct offensive option because RLC can’t DIY anything right and Musah has to help cover for Emerson.
Fonseca 😡🤬
100 % agree
Yep. Essentially a 5-2-1-2 with Leao playing inside, where he is less effective. The worst of all worlds. Oh well.
No. Now he’s covering for Calabria, who’s even worse.
Musah playing as RW blows my mind as there is no creativity there. I don’t understand why Fonseca decides to keep using him there. This is like Pioli playing Hakan or Krunic on the wings. Smh
Calabria & Chuk combo worked well the last time they got to play together a few weeks ago.
This game is screaming for another attacking outlet up front when you’ve only got RLC as the CAM
Rlc needs to do something. Something at all. Or he should be sold in january. He has been the worst and most unnecessary player in the team.
I really hope we lose every game until Fonseca gets sacked. I’ve never in all my life as Milan fan since 1990 felt this way about a coach. Smh
Why does he feel the need not to play Chukwueze? That boy played the last time and scored two goals.
Chuks needs to play consistently to hit a top form. Common, the boy isn’t even injured.
10 minutes into the match and Calabria has already been awful 3 times.
Fonseca should be fired just for this lineup, regardless of result.
Playing all 4 midfielders we have, so no backup.
Its poor just from a tactical point of view to win the game let alone the fact we have only 4 midfielders and we are playing 2 of our 6 attackers.
Its cowardly, stupid and pointless.
Great way to undermine Chucky too.
I said in summer I was worried about us making top 4 and people thought I was stupid.
Well I worry about us losing this game with this awful lineup
Barely 20 minutes in but calabria and rlc are so painful to watch
Allegri was in love with Matri, Conte’s infatuated with Lukaku…I think we all know who Fonseca’s big crush is…
This game smells like a narrow win for us, like 1-0 or 2-1, or a draw.
Mother Nature making the call for Fonseca. RLC off, Chuk on.
What was Musah doing there????
And so the injury crisis begins
Oh the football gods smile upon us. RLC injured, so Chucky on and I assume Musah goes into midfield (though you never know with this coach)
Fonseca will then look smart for winning.
But as of 28 mins it should be 1-1
Damn Pioli and his training methods!
You waited months to drop that one didn’t you…
Oh I’ve been dropping it since Ben’s injury.
Nearly falling asleep in me chair with this game.. so dull…
Post it ffs
Hallelujah.. just took 3 minutes
Abraham is better up top than Morata. I don’t know why he doesn’t play Tammy at the 9 and Morata at the 10 which is how he plays anyways.
My word this is a horrific watch. Looks like a Serie C match.
2 sh1t teams
Uninspired effort so far – lazy, disjointed and clueless team. Seems like they try to pass the ball to Leao so he can hopefully outrun everyone and score. Shameful.
Isn’t that what we did for 5 years with Pioli?
Yup, we sure did.
Was the Fofana or Pirlo?
What a goal! Brilliant pass from Fofana , and whata first touch and finish by Leao. World Class.
My commentator “20 seconds that sum up Leao, a bit casual, a bit lazy and then utterly brilliant”
lol so I guess you’re using Paramount+. I heard that too and I think anybody that knows football can definitely see that about Leao. I think that’s what Fonseca was trying to stop him from doing earlier when he was benching him but now Leao is back to his old ways. He’s the best player we have but he needs to run run run. Lol
Seems like Fofana is the only one that looks up to see when our players (Leao) makes a run. We’re not moving apart from that. Like Amorim said, you can’t win championships if your players don’t run like mad. Our players work around like crazy and I hate it.
Tammy has been very dangerous since coming on. I agree with the people calling for him to start games. I understand why Fonseca prefers Morata at the moment, as he offers higher workrate off the ball. But if he’s going to play Musah at RW I think we could use a a player that offers more goalscoring chance at striker to bring a little more balance back to the squad, and at the moment I feel like that’s Tammy.
I liked tammy before his injury. If he can get back to that lvl he would be an asset.
You see some flashes of it.
The team is looking much better with RLC and Morata off injured.
Particularly Tammy looking good
Yeah problem is we have no options left on the bench either up front or in midfield
We had zero CMs on the bench from the first minute. They didn’t even bother calling someone from Futuro. They’d rather play Terraciano out of position or run the starting CMs into the ground. It’s crazy.
How TF was that not a penalty?
Musah the gift that keeps on giving
We are so bad
That goal has been coming. We look in trouble here
Musah is not Milan material, he runs like chicken with head cut off – tries to dribble but is not good at it. Fonseca at fault for playing him. This is hard to watch.
Man, I’m sad Camarda didn’t get that. Tough luck.
I called the score though.
Oh man, the kid deserved that goal. WOuld have been amazing.
If this man ever benches Chuk for Musah again, I’ll call police for him. Lol
Shameful display, luckly we were saved by the kid.