Tuttosport: Bennacer returns to Milanello as Pioli dreams of his ‘ideal’ midfield

Five months after surgery to repair the chondral lesion of the cartilage in his right knee, Ismael Bennacer was back at Milanello yesterday.

Tuttosport (via MilanNews) reports this morning that Bennacer has been recovering for the last few months in Italy, Paris, Algeria, Morocco and Qatar, and he will continue his recovery at Milanello now in the hope of returning as soon as possible.

At the moment, the club do not want to give any dates in terms of when he could finally be back on the field, but a little more time will be needed and things cannot be rushed. The most optimistic predictions suggest a return in mid-December, but the feeling is that everything could be postponed to January.

However, at the beginning of 2024 there is the African Cup of Nations. Before even returning to play for Milan, Bennacer could in fact take to the field for the Algerian national team.

For now Bennacer will continue to do work on his own to recover strength in his muscles, but then the time will come to finally return to training with the rest of the squad.

His team-mates are anxiously waiting for him, as is clearly Stefano Pioli who can’t wait to be able to deploy the ‘ideal’ midfield trio with Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Tijjani Reijnders either side of Bennacer as a regista.