AC Milan face Napoli on Sunday night, and Stefano Pioli has received a blow ahead of the crunch encounter after the latest team news was confirmed.
The Rossoneri have had a poor week thus far after defeats to Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain in Serie A and the Champions League respectively, and so a third consecutive loss would be a real concern.
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It won’t be easy against a Napoli side looking to close the gap on us in the standings, and facing them away from home only serves to make the assignment more difficult.
In turn, Pioli would have been hoping to receive positive news on the injury front ahead of the game, but it’s mixed with some returning, but Ruben Loftus-Cheek will not be available for selection.
As per Antonio Vitiello via Stefano Pioli at his pre-match press conference, the 27-year-old has recovered from the injury that has sidelined him in recent weeks, but he is now struggling with an abdominal issue, and so he will not make the trip to Naples.
It’s added that Loftus-Cheek is expected back against Udinese next Saturday, while both Luka Jovic and Noah Okafor will be part of the squad this weekend as they return from their own respective knocks.
Both Mike Maignan and Theo Hernandez will return after serving their one-match league suspensions, but with Malick Thiaw now ruled out for the same reason, that will see at least one change to the starting line-up.
Maignan will likely see a back-four consisting of Davide Calabria, Pierre Kalulu, Fikayo Tomori and Hernandez ahead of him, while Rade Krunic could partner Yunus Musah and Tijjani Reijnders in midfield.
Not much will change up top either with Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leao expected to provide support behind Olivier Giroud, and so we can only hope that they’re able to produce more quality in this game to make the difference.
Milan have scored just one goal in our our last four outings across all competitions, and that simply isn’t good enough given the quality in the group. This promises to be another difficult test, but a response is expected, and very much needed.