AC Milan head coach Stefano Pioli has named his starting line-up for the game against Fiorentina, and there are multiple changes compared to the team that beat Hellas Verona before the break.
Pioli has chosen a defensive quartet of Davide Calabria, Malick Thiaw, Fikayo Tomori and Alessandro Florenzi in front of Mike Maignan, with Theo Hernandez serving a one-game suspension.
The midfield double pivot is Ismael Bennacer and Tijjani Reijnders, with Ruben Loftus-Cheek playing further forward in a more attacking role.
Samuel Chukwueze and Rafael Leao will then occupy the two flanks, with Olivier Giroud once again the starting centre-forward. Christian Pulisic starts from the bench.
The likes of Matteo Gabbia, Yunus Musah, Noah Okafor, Luka Jovic and Pulisic will be able to lend a hand from the bench as well.
Official Milan XI (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Calabria, Thiaw, Tomori, Florenzi; Bennacer, Reijnders; Chukwueze, Loftus-Cheek, Leao; Giroud.
Bench: Sportiello, Nava, Gabbia, Simic, Bartesaghi, Terracciano, Adli, Musah, Zeroli, Pulisic, Okafor, Jovic.
Official Fiorentina XI (4-2-3-1): Terracciano; Dodo, Milenkovic, Martinez Quarta, Biraghi; Duncan, Mandragora; Ikoné, Beltran, Kouame; Belotti.
Bench: Martinelli, Vannucchi; Comuzzo, Faraoni, Kayode, Parisi, Ranieri; Arthur, Barák, Castrovilli, Infantino, Lopez; González, Nzola, Sottil.
I would like to see Okafor starting as striker. However Pioli is giving Chucky a chance to play with our starting LW and Striker, so that is good rotation.
Chucky will seriously need to take this rare chance!!
I also prefer Gabbia to Thiaw at the moment, due to form, but it’s also important for Thiaw to get some rhythm back.
Lineup should be strong enough, let’s hope they show some hunger
Juve lost to an injury time winner from Lazio. Yipeee!!
Yep. This is a no pressure game. The objective here should be to not lose, given recent results at the Franchi, no injuries and no suspensions.
😀 nice
In fairness with 20 mins gone, Chucky and Thiaw have probably been our 2 best players. Great to see
I am afraid Leao got muscle injury after that on purpose tackle from Fiorentina coward player which was a red card.
But why Florenzi is a free kick taker???
He is literally the worst shooter and free kick taker and yet he is on it.
We saw more quality free kick and corner attempts from Tijjani.
Past seasons we had Tonali was always giving away the ball to the opponents from corner and free kicks.
Meanwhile Thiaw again started playing against us (as always this season)
Gabbia is 2x better as of now
Feels like pioli didn’t expect fiora to play this way and the players have no idea what 2 do
Reijnders and Chuk are cooking, Thiaw and Tomori are shaky and reckless.
No Puli no party. Bring Gabbia too in 2nd half, somehow he gives more stability on the back line than any of our current defenders now.
Wow giroud, how many chances ?🙄
Chuk and Reijnders areso great !
Thaiw again, reckless.
We have been creating a lot of chances and probably could have scored 3-4 goals up until now and maybe even a few more.
Giroud has missed 2-3 chances
chukwueze the header and could have bagged another goal had leao been less selfish.
When that is said we have also made some horrendous misspasses that easily could have cost 2-3 goals against us.
Overall i think we played rather great for the first 20-25 minutes with fiorentina also having ten minutes that had me worried.
If we can keep it up we should be able to bag a win here today.
Chukwueze does seem to be getting into better form. and Giroud is missing too much… maybe it’s that move that’s distracting to him. I’d hope he finish this season off with a goal.
Anyways we are 1-0 up..
We are eating a lot of goals from out the box. No dm issue?
Here’s the footballing genius. Who do you think we should sign as DM, Mr Crystal Ball?
Told you 2 leave me alone giancarlo. Grow up
lol. and you still i’m him. sorry he broke up with you.
Yeah quite a few times they have wallsed through our middle.
crazy start to the second half 😀
Entertaining!
Yeah but the entire match has been pretty energetic with a lot of chances.
Big save Mike!
Lets see how Musah does now… hope to see more from him… and Okafor…
I am starting to feel like Pioli finally understands his team now. No more stupid subs.
He saw Thiaw was playing against us and leading towards to gift a free penalty kick to Fiorentina and he immediately stopped him from doing that by bringing Gabbia on.
Taking Leao off just on time.
Tijjani-Musah change is also pretty logical.
It’s still concerning to see our overall defence very weak. No real in defense, no group work.
Fiorentina is just throwing a party inside our box.
Musah has a crazy technique. Next season, he will be more confident and he will be our next superstar hopefully.
Definitely rode our luck a bit but good result and decent performance after a break.
Chucky had his best performance imo