AC Milan were hoping that Ante Rebic’s return from a long-term muscle injury would see their talisman in the second half of the season hit the ground running, but in truth he has done anything but that.
MilanNews writes how Rebic has often been an extra man and a decisive player since he joined the Rossoneri particularly after the Christmas break when in the last two seasons he has really moved through the gears.
He has been unrecognisable since coming back from his injury, which put an early end to the first half of the campaign for him when he had found consistency in his performance as both a centre-forward (in Ibrahimovic and Giroud’s absence) and out wide.
After recovering from a previous problem, Rebic missed the derby on February 5 due to another ankle discomfort, only to return definitively a few days later against Lazio in the Coppa Italia.
Now we are in February and he is getting 30 minutes off the bench in most cases, but he did very little against Sampdoria, scored the equaliser from 25 yards but was wasteful after that against Salernitana and then he struggled to find any kind of success against Udinese and Inter.
Of course a return to scoring a goal every game is expected too much, but he has made some surprising technical errors for a player of his caliber, missing easy passes and struggling with reading of the game situations.
Now it is up to Pioli to try to recover and stimulate him again but the former Eintracht Frankfurt man must also answer the critics himself, because Milan cannot only rely on Rafael Leao.
