AC Milan head coach Massimiliano Allegri has named his starting line-up for the game against Pisa at the Arena Garibaldi.
Strangely, considering there has been no international break, Milan will play their first league game in 10 days tonight. The rescheduled Como game meant not having a fixture at the weekend, after the 3-0 win away against Bologna the Tuesday before last.
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Milan face Como away from home in Tuscany for the first time since 1991, with Paolo Maldini getting the winner 35 years ago. The Nerazzurri have won just once all season and it was 14 games ago, but Oscar Hiljemark has taken over and is hoping for a new manager bounce.
Pisa vs. AC Milan: Official starting XIs
The only two absentees for Milan due to injury are Santiago Gimenez and Alexis Saelemaekers. The former is still recovering from ankle surgery, while the latter will not be risked as he nurses an adductor issue, though could be back against Como on Wednesday.
Allegri has opted to go with Mike Maignan in goal and a three-man defence of Fikayo Tomori, Matteo Gabbia and Strahinja Pavlovic, which means the in-form Koni De Winter drops to the bench. Zachary Athekame stands in for Saelemaekers, with Davide Bartesaghi on the other flank.
The midfield trio is Youssouf Fofana, Luka Modric and Adrien Rabiot, operating behind a front two of Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Christopher Nkunku. It is the same forward pairing that each scored in Bologna and got the job done.
The bench for once looks relatively strong, with the likes of De Winter, Samuele Ricci, Ardon Jashari, Niclas Füllkrug, Rafael Leao and Christian Pulisic all able to come on.
Official Milan XI (3-5-2): Maignan; Tomori, Gabbia, Pavlovic; Athekame, Fofana, Modric, Rabiot, Bartesaghi; Nkunku, Loftus-Cheek.
Bench: Terracciano, Pittarella, De Winter, Odogu, Estupinan, Ricci, Jashari, Pulisic, Leao, Fullkrug.
Official Pisa XI (3-4-3): Nicolas; Canestrelli, Caracciolo, Bozhinov; Touré, Aebischer, Loyola, Angori; Moreo, Stojilkovic, Tramoni.
Bench: Luppichini, Guizzo, Leris, Hojholt, Meister, Cuadrado, Akinsanmiro, Durosinmi, Iling jr, Stengs, Coppola, Calabresi, Piccinini, Lorran.
if it works whatever
You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we’ve got
Set them free at the break of dawn
‘Til one by one, they were gone
Back at base, bugs in the software
Flash the message, “Something’s out there”
Floating in the summer sky
Ninety-nine red balloons go by
I’d settle for 1
Pulisic and Leao aren’t fit to start, but glad to see them back on the bench.
A win is a must!
Allegri said in recent days that Pulisic would probably have 15-20 minutes in him so I suspect we will see a glimpse of him towards the end of the match.
I expect them to be hungry to wash away the tarnish of the first match so hopefully we will be able to win 2 or 3-0.
Crikey will Jashari ever get a start?
Ruben I don’t know how you do it
It being nothing and yet you still play
Surely between Leao/Pulisic/Fulkrug we could give Nkunku 30 mins with each
Hey Allegri loves a 6 man midfield
…now that you’ve said that RLC will now score I this match lol 😂🤣🤣
HA! Called it😅
Your worst nightmare. RLC scores again. Can’t wait to see your comments in the player ratings trying to convince everyone how bad RLC is.
He’s been rubbish for years. Can’t do the basics but hey if you’re gonna get all excited because he scored a goal against the mighty Pisa, good for you
LMAO just ignore that clown. Always yapping at people’s feet for attention like a Chihuahua.
If he wants to hang his hat on RLC of all ppl then that just says it all
Ha ha, was worth the dish so
Reverse jinx psychology… I’ll take it for 3 points lol 😁
PISA playing with there third keeper if we don’t score today than this team really is cursed against lower teams
We could have Haaland, and Allegri’s drab style would make him into Origi.
LMAO 😂 facts!
Lol. Forget Vlahovic. Allegri is going to say he’s “converted” RLC to striker and that we don’t need a striker.
Oh we’re still have it good. I’m just waiting for when he plays 3 defensive midfielders up top 😁
But it’s the truth. With this style of football, we don’t need a striker.
I wouldn’t say we don’t need a striker. We’re functioning without one right now doesn’t mean there isn’t a need for one. Sooner or later ppl will realize why a proper striker is needed. Midfielders can only do so much because they’re mids.
A bout time, Loftus 1-0, what a freaking borefest this half has been as I’ve almost fell asleep 3-4 times up until now.
Nice cross Athekame👌
Athekame does good things offensively when he’s on. I don’t mind his addition to the team. Gives us a different option
Apart from the goal the commentator is right when he said this game have been flat footed. We are winning so shouldn’t be complaining but I think we need to find a way to play with a extra man forward in these type of games, we have quite a few draws this season
We should just play more directly towards goal as there is more back and forth in this match than an x rated movie.
Yes but I don’t think its for a lack of trying, even Modric struggling to connect forward passes, a extra man would probably help play more direct, or atleast get fullkrug out there who can win 1 vs 2
You got your wish as it seems that Fulkrug will be subbed in now 🙂 hopefully it will indeed make us more dynamic up front.
Could not have played out any worse lol
I wouldn’t really say that even at 1-1 as he does seem to add something up there and every player can miss a penalty kick even though it also was a p1ss poor one.
Hopefully we can still win this match though.
The positive of the first half were our WB. Nice work rate, good in both phases. Nkunku was much more active off the ball that usual.
The rest was a snooze-fest. Our passing through the middle was so week Pisa was strolling to cut them out.
There is the same decided lack of urgency. We just benefited from tragically bad marking on the part of Pisa.
If it was only in our offensive phase I’d resign myself to corto muzzo. But even out defensive shape was lacking compactness and structure.
Rabiot is sneakily such a technical player. Very underrated in this respect, I feel.
He used the wrong toe… this better not come back to bite us in the a$$.
Shambolic defending. Gabbia and Tomori taken out of the play with one move. Pavlovic could not clear. And corto muso against a relegation team is failing again.
Facking cowardly football, that’s what you get.
Imagine this team under Allegri in champions League, we’ll be humiliated and further tarnish our once great name
1-2
89 mins, sub fulkrug for de winter vs Pisa
What a cowardly manager, incapable of playing football
lol this team is dreadful! This should be easy 3-5:0 win – instead here we are tied with 15 minutes left. Shameful.
Does this look like a team trying to win the league?
More like a mid table outfit
Nah top 4. That’s what we’re after. Not sure why people continue to think we’re fighting for the title. 5 points behind an Inter that is well above us in every category. And I write this after Modric has scored for the 2-1.
Still 5 points can still fairly easily be caught but we certainly can’t throw points away against as weak teams as Pisa
Absolutely Inter are better, but that doesn’t mean we give up, not within 5 points, not yet
Regardless of where we finish we need to evolve our football as every good team does every year. This is devolution
And here I was about to go off on old man Modric and he pulls off a world class pass and finish himself
Hey I’ll take the three points (crosses fingers) but we really need to field Jashari more
Modric to the rescue – they should all take an example from the 40 year old who runs circles around everyone else. What a player.
No Rabiot for Como and probably the match after that. It’s gonna be interesting.
Allegri is to blame for what happened. After such a long rest. I think allegri made bad selections. Bringing in leao was terrible. Also ricci is crap. Too weak and slow in thinking. The conceding of the goal was sparked by us not pushing enough for a second. Fullkrug was crap. But he is not as crappy as leao. Allegri should have taken off leao instead of fullkrug since fullkrug can actually pass, run, screen and head. He missed a penalty and that was terrible. Itbwasna bad for fullkrug but still a better performance than leao. Leao acts like he has no brain. When I used to play football, I reasoned that though I had speed, I would learn to strengthen my game so that if I lose my speed, I would be able to control the game. Think of bonaventura, how technical he was. He didnt need speed because he practiced the basics of the game with good technique. Pirlo was slow yet hard to dispossess. Cassano was slow yet was effective with technique. Leao is only good at running. When he is injured, or out of form he plays crap because he never strengthened shielding the ball, trapping it, good first touch, good technique. Its a shame to see a professional player being so crappy.