AC Milan face a difficult trip to face Napoli on Sunday, and Stefano Pioli will be hoping for positive news on the injury front in the coming days.
The Rossoneri have already lost Pierre Kalulu over the international break after he suffered a calf injury which will be assessed again next week, while Zlatan Ibrahimovic was troubled by an issue that prevented him from featuring for Sweden against Azerbaijan.
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The 41-year-old had been stepping up his comeback in recent weeks after missing most of the season following knee surgery, as he had appeared in our last four consecutive Serie A games, while scoring from the spot against Udinese last time out.
He would have hoped to continue to build his minutes and start to play a more influential role for us in the coming weeks, but there was concern that he may have suffered a setback.
According to MilanNews, the Swedish international did a personalised session at Milanello on Wednesday along with Junior Messias, and so it’s hopefully a positive first step towards being available to face Napoli on Sunday.
The expectation is that Olivier Giroud will start up top for us in the crunch encounter, with Rafael Leao, Brahim Diaz and Alexis Saelemaekers potentially providing support in the final third.
However, albeit his advancing years continue to limit his ability to make an impact for us now, Ibrahimovic’s presence will be important for us in Naples and his experience will surely help the squad as we look to put an end to a negative run of results and get ourselves back on track for the remainder of the campaign.
Ibrahimovic didn’t require any further testing after his return to Milan, as per MilanNews, and so he will now be evaluated in training this week to determine whether or not he’s available for selection.
Milan go into the weekend in fourth place in the Serie A standings, four points adrift of Lazio in second, but with Roma just a point behind us and with Atalanta and Juventus closing in too.
In turn, we can’t afford any further slip-ups in the all-important battle for a top-four finish, and although it’s going to take a special performance to stop the runaway league leaders, we need to produce something and get back to our best quickly.