AC Milan head coach Sergio Conceicao has named his first starting line-up since taking charge, and he has made some changes from the draw against Roma.
Conceicao has made it clear since his first training session at Milanello that he expects a team who will be compact, aggressive and fight for every ball. Tonight we will see the first glimpse of his Milan side, with a spot in the Supercoppa final against Inter up for grabs.
The official starting XIs
Milan’s attacking options are depleted with Rafael Leao not back yet, plus Samuel Chukwueze and Noah Okafor sidelined back in Italy. That might have influenced the decision to go with a 4-3-3 system, on paper.
There is one change to the rearguard from the side that drew 1-1 with Roma in Paulo Fonseca’s last game as Fikayo Tomori takes Matteo Gabbia’s place. He partners Malick Thiaw, with Emerson Royal and Theo Hernandez the full-backs, plus Mike Maignan in goal.
As mentioned, Conceicao has picked three central midfielders with Ismael Bennacer back in the starting line-up for the first time since August. Youssouf Fofana looks set to play an anchoring role, with Tijjani Reijnders the other mezzala.
Christian Pulisic returns to the XI too after some time out with a calf issue. He is on Alvaro Morata’s right, with Alex Jimenez keeping his place as the left winger given the absence of other options.
Official Milan XI (4-3-3): Maignan; Emerson Royal, Gabbia, Thiaw, Theo; Bennacer, Fofana, Reijnders; Pulisic, Morata, Jimenez.
Bench: Sportello, Torriani, Calabria, Jovic, Zeroli, Pavlovic, Bartesaghi, Terracciano, Gabbia, Vos, Traoré, Camarda, Musah, Abraham.
Official Juventus XI (4-2-3-1): Di Gregorio; Savona, Gatti, Kalulu, McKennie; Locatelli, Thuram; Conceiçao, Koopmeiners, Mbangula; Vlahovic.
Bench: Perin, Pinsoglio, Yildiz, Nico Gonzalez, Adzic, Fagioli, Weah, Douglas Luiz, Cambiaso, Rouhi.
Gabbi pops up twice…. that should be Tomori
A Gabbia in the starting XI, and a Gabbia on the bench. Heck, I did not know that Gabbia has a twin.
If onlyn we had two of them…
There you go Tomori fan bois. Breaking up a perfectly good defense, 5th in the league for goals conceded. I fully expect a gaff in the middle of defense that let’s in a goal at some point.
Two thinga I’m excited abou tonight:
1. Finally a 433 with midfielders slotted.
2. Jimenez as an inverted winger again. Said many times he’s no fullback. Maybe a wingback but he’s too damn technical and attacking.
Anyway, forza Milan!
I’ll wait to see, but playing Emerson at RB, and taking out Gabbia for the completely out of form Tomori is worrying…
Not a single Italian in the starting line up.
Can they stop calling themselves AC Milan?
Gabbia is italian
but gabbia and calabria in and it should be good
Happy for Tomori. Let’s not act like we don’t know that Fonseca became personal because of the penalty situation few months ago. Not saying what he did was right, but the benching had nothing to do with Thiaw or Gabbia being better than him. Fonseca was just personal.
Thiaw and Gabbia are better. You’ll see it soon enough.
I’m happy to see a 433.
However starting Emerson and Tomori over Calabria and Gabbia is worrying.
Tomori fell out with Fonseca and i want him reintegrated but this is not the match to break up a solid pair.
Gabbia is a Milan youth product, he should be captain and he should not be the one to drop, hes also been our best defender
Starting Emerson is always alarming for any coach
Theo is so awful…weak, indolent, apathetic, clumsy. He can apply for the next Hollywood movie “Invisible man” character…
I’m so tired of these short corners. What are we, Argentinians?
So 5th best goals conceded record means nothing? For comparison last season we finished 11th best. By far the most goals conceded in the top 5. Even Genoa in 11th place had a better defensive record.
This was meant as a reply to @Revshev.
I’m happy for this 1st half.
Theo was walkabout on goal.
Mike let in at near post
Emerson tries hard to set up the opposition
The team then drops their heads and watch Juve play
No heart, no leadership
Conceicao can see exactly the state of this team.
Lets see what he can do to improve in 2nd half because this is horrible
How much do we pay Morata and for how many years?
He is our highest paid player in the squad at 8.3 mil gross pr. year until 2028 with an option for a further year.
Leao is our highest paid player. In Italy salaries are listed as net. Leao earns ~6.5M net. If Morata is earning 8.3 gross it works out to 4.15 net.
No bennacer earn 7 mil gross and leao 6.4 mil gross that is at least according to capology.
Juve has total control. And we have no options from the bench to switch things up.
At least thiaw is doing a good job shadowing vlahovic. Tomori is doing nothing.
Yep. Forget this game. Supercup has become a sham sportswashing event, and it was never a significant trophy to begin with. This game is for Conceicao to see what the problems are and then go back to Italy to start preparing for the next Serie A match. Meanwhile Inter and Juventus will be playing an extra match, will travel later in the week and have less time to prepare for next weekend’s games.
true
You are literally blaming Tomori to fuel your line up argument. The goal came from Thiaw and Theo’s side. Be realistic at least for goodness sake. I guess Gabbia would’ve jumped over Thiaw’s head and intercepted the shot lol Stop it flying turtle lol The whole team is unstable as we are watching.
i’m not blaming him for anything. but he really does nothing. He’s there but he isnt there.
Freaking royal looked better than tomori so far
Just now. 3 minutes in 2 crucial mistakes. Player shirt number 23
Get Emerson off the pitch please. Dead end every time he gets the ball.
The team needs a traditional dmf. Fofana is good at what he does, but he is not a natural dmf. That first goal needed someone in hole. A traditional dmf
emerson leave this club every time he gets the ball it’s etiher opponent gets the ball or a back pass bring in calabria ffs
Bennacer is the only one playing in midfield. Theo shambolic, Emerson just Emerson.
A lot of people complain that Fonseca made some things personal. No it wasn’t personal. One thing I give him much credit for is the fact he saw that our players like (Theo, Leao, Tomori) are all lazy and needed discipline which he would have succeeded with if we just had patience with him. Pioli’s long ball game covered for their deficiencies and they didn’t need to actually play ball. Fans will soon figure out that Fonseca was not the problem. But let this management use him as a scapegoat. You fired a coach that got us far in the champions league, Italian cup and making progress in his first season in Italian league with us, beat inter too. Let’s all keep watching this circus.
To hell with this coach for not starting Gabbi so far is our best defender, am not an Italian but we need them in our starting lineup, because they play with mind and heart and Gabbi is one of those in the team who played with heart and mind and your keeping him why please 💔💔 is a sign you don’t want to last as a coach in Milan right?
Give him a minute to figure it out, first match usually start with the players with “starter” contracts, then swap in the ones who are rotation. He is a no nonsese coach and im sure he will figure it out after giving them a chances first.
Also, thanks to the switch to 4-3-3, Reijnders has disappeared…
Pretty sure it’s still 4231. Tijji is way higher than the other 2
There is still half an hour left and I have no belief we can get a result even though its only 1-0.
Whats worse is the players don’t either
I hope he brings Jovic
Morata is f-cking useless
hahaha if it wasn’t for the fact that I really hate Juves guts I might actually have felt sorry for them 😀
Pulisic is everywhere. He is THE star of this team.