Paulo Fonseca has named the AC Milan starting line-up for tonight’s Champions League game against Bayer Leverkusen, with one change compared to the win over Lecce.
The absentees heading into the match against the German champions were previously known: Ismael Bennacer is out after calf surgery, Alessandro Florenzi is recovering from a knee operation and Marco Sportiello had hand surgery.
Fonseca has chosen to name Mike Maignan in goal with a back four of Emerson Royal, Matteo Gabbia, Fikayo Tomori and Theo Hernandez ahead of him. Strahinja Pavlovic was tipped to start, but instead takes a spot on the bench.
Youssouf Fofana and Tijjani Reijnders retain their place as the starting midfield pairing, with Christian Pulisic on the right wing and Rafael Leao on the left wing as expected, and Tammy Abraham leading the line.
Alvaro Morata is not yet 100% as he continues to battle bursitis so he starts on the bench, giving an opportunity to Ruben Loftus-Cheek who will be more of an attacking midfielder.
Official Milan XI (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Emerson Royal, Gabbia, Tomori, Theo Hernandez; Fofana, Reijnders, Pulisic, Loftus-Cheek, Leao; Abraham.
Bench: Nava, Torriani, Calabria, Pavlovic, Thiaw, Terracciano, Musah, Chukwueze, Okafor, Morata.
Official Bayer Leverkusen XI (3-4-2-1): Hradecky; Tapsoba, Tah, Hincapié; Frimpong, Xhaka, Garcia, Grimaldo; Adli, Wirtz; Boniface.
Bench: Kovar, Lomb, Hofmann, Andrich, Terrier, Arthur, Schick, Tella, Mukiele, Palacios, Belocian.
Nice…I was genuinely scared Calabria would play, all we need now is to show heart and courage…
RLC starting the game do should be scared
You never know…
Milan did extremely hard start of the season. And now very strong opponent. But it is one game and many things are possible.
For Milan draw would be excellent and after 2 very difficult games should be on spot for 1/16 finals.
For Milan this year great success would be reach 1/8 of finals. And everything more is bonus.
In serie a of course one of first 4 spots, coppa italia semi finals and supercoppa – finals…
Just imagine our performance tonight… It’s so discouraging and frustrating… Rafael Leao need to grow up and live up to expectations
Good Luck to our boys. Hopefully, we carry the momentum and continuity onto this match as well. I think this will be a high scoring draw.
But we could really use a win.
Gogogo guys, imagine it’s Inter you are playing against…
RLC as an attacking midfielder.
Am i missing something? Why cant Reijnders play there? He looked incredible in that position. Why must this staff constantly play guys out of position?
I don’t get it, he’s not a 10.
Are you holding your Phone upside down?
RLC starting. Yeah, we’re losing this game.
Stop with the RLC hate. He’s been a very good player for us. He was our best midfielder last season by any way you want to measure it. And if you watched the Inter game it was RLC that drew the free kick against Dimarco that we ended up winning the game on. So stop the nonsense.
Ok boys let’s go
Why again RLC?He is not attacking midfielder.We should buy a real one or play two forwards.
Bayer 1
Milan 3
3 points loading
i wish Milan a win 1-2
Ok boys I put a Tonali in on y’all. Let’s beat them!
Hard to understand why RLC is not kept further back with Reijnders more offensive. It is a bit incredible that Fonseca has tried both options, and clearly Reijnders more offensive has worked a lot better (Reijnders can’t defend his school lunch), but now he seems to be back to the less good option. We’ll see.
Seems they took your advice. RLC seems further back
I still can’t see him
Hopefully we will be able to get a good result but a draw wouldn’t be a bad result eitherin my view even if I hope we can gain a win as Leverkusen isn’t an easy team to beat.
Help please
It’s not on tv or the Now TV subscription I have
Any good streams?
DAZN was down for a bit. Seems its unable to broadcast live so my feed is delayed
Btw try atdhe dot net. Can’t vouch for it’s safety tho lol , ur on ur own there
Thanks man
watching in tv myself but try hesgoal or rojadirecta but hasn’t checked but it could be an option.
Thanks. Yeah its annoying I cant get a proper view but as always, we try
No problem, yeah its freaking irritating when it happens.
RLC seems to be in the pivot hmmm 🤔
Yeah Fonseca said Tijji is taking over the role from Morata up front and RLC said he’s playing in a deeper role.
Offsides!
How the hell could the ref stand right next to where the foul was comitted and clearly see what was done towards theo and even afterwards reprimanding the player and still not giving an yellow card.
Yea that wasn’t the first time he fouled a player too. Taps had an early hard foul on Leao. And I’m betting they’ll card our player before any other.
To be fair Leverkusen had an early yellow card given for one of their players probably within the first 10 minutes of the match.
When that is said I wouldn’t be too surprised if would have been carded for such a foul on their home turf.
The thing is the time of foul shouldn’t matter but the seriousness. However I know psychologically refs tend to not give early cards so as to not condition the game later on
But he did give eLverkusen an early yellow card, think it was their left back after a foul on Pulisic.
Stonewall PK. What kind of BS no call was that?
There better be a make up call in the second half …
Yea I’m leaning towards a pen there. Not super clear cut though but that’s not a shoulder to shoulder if he’s behind the player.
I think that would be a harsh peno, the defender out muscled him
From behind???
Basically we are playing lateral passes, then back to maignan who will wait forever to pass to his team mates. There is a gapping hole between defence and midfield, and our players don’t make space for themselves. It has been happening too often. We can win in serie a, but not in Europe. This is milan vs leverkusen, yes leverkusen. They need to step up and take responsibility and honour the milan shirt,
Historically speaking we should beat Leverkusens teams 90% of the time but considering they are reigning champions of Germany and didn’t lose a single Bundesliga match last season it’s not that simple as you make it here. We should play better in the second half though.
That’s what a good coach is for – make a mid team play above its potential and let’s be honest before ALONSO we all know where was Leverkusen – on the verge of relegation. I don’t agree they have better players than us – most of them were rejects and young players with potential before he arrived. Since Fonseca arrived the only good performance we put was against inter and imo it was more due to the fact they had to defend and run like crazy against City couple of days before that rather than we played crazy good.
We are roughly on the same level and we are 1-0 down and it doesn’t matter where Leverkusen were before the arrival or where we has been in the past. Second half after Morata entered we have been the best in my view but sure losing today isn’t good enough but these things does happen whether we like it or not.
Well Inters match against City might have played a part but that is just speculation as derbies can always go each direction and we could have won minimum 4-1 had we been more effective in front of the goal.
Thank god Calabria is not playing cause Pulisic is killing it as RB.
My goodness we need a real coach. I was gonna give Fonseca a while before I criticize him but we look like Pioli’s team all over again. just waiting for a counter to score and it’s been consistent for all games I have watched him coach now. Why tf did he stop Leao from pushing forward towards the end of first half?? we had space to run and get the final shot but he stopped him. this is embarrassing. what have we even created in this game? we walk around and invite pressure all the dang time. This is modern football ffs and nobody wins by walking around and expecting a miracle. we need a coach that knows how to make the players pass and move around.
Why in gods name would you take Pulisic off for Chuckweze?
These refs suck
That one certainly did.
Yeah that became a bit of a joke towards the end
Why the did allow Beyern Levto score first before we started playing well ? Is that an instruction for Fosensa or something?
Basically!!! Just like Pioli used to do. I’m over it. We played the first 65 mins relaxed and inviting pressure. It’s crazy!! We then woke up after they scored. Smh
We can’t win in Europe like this. Maybe Italian league but not Europe.