AC Milan boss Stefano Pioli is expected to bring in Alexis Saelemaekers to the Milan attack for the game against Lazio in place of Junior Messias, a report claims.
As has been reported by Milan News, the Belgian winger will get the chance to impress from the first minute at the Stadio Olimpico.
Saelemaekers was in good form before his injury towards the end of 2022 and the coach is hoping that he can reproduce those performances now that he is back to full fitness.
Messias is generally relied on more by Pioli to play on the right wing but his form has been poor since returning from injury.
Milan have been knocked out of the Coppa Italia, lost the Supercoppa Italiana final and dropped many points in Serie A since 2023 began, meaning Pioli is left with no choice but to tinker with his starting eleven to see who can bring him a good performance.
When there is Saelemaekers, we say that we would have done better with Messias; when there is Messias, we say we do better with Saelemaekers. And we never look at the whole picture.
It would be worth exploring the possibility of putting Dest as right back behind Alexis, let’s see how they operate, they are both intelligent, and technically brilliant, and if Dest attacks forward, Alexis can cover for him, I will keep on saying this Messias should not even be in Ac Milan, he lacks the talent to be in the Squad, even Diaz on the right would be a better option..
I’d prefer trying Dest (who is simply incapable of defending) as a RW instead.
Theo injured.
Pioli n’a d’autre choix que de bricoler
son onze de départ pour voir qui peut
lui apporter une bonne performance.
Bon bricole Milan !
Saelemaekers clearly needs to step up his game in terms of goal contribution. But I think a majority of Milan fans don’t understand his contribution on Pioli’s high pressure system.
This applies to Diaz as well.
Even if Saelemaekers an Diaz aren’t scoring or assisting, they do a great job holding the opponent and leaving the double pivot (and by extension the defense) less exposed.
If you replace them with Messias and CDK, we lose intensity, concede more play, and eventually more goals.
So unless we have a RW who puts in big numbers in this position, I say Saelemaekers should start every game.