AC Milan host Cagliari at San Siro on Sunday night hoping to make it two wins in two games to start the new Serie A season.
The Rossoneri kick-started the new campaign with a win at Sampdoria last week, with Stefano Pioli and his players overcoming a difficult challenge at the Marassi.
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That would have built confidence within the squad to make such a positive start, but now the focus switches to Cagliari and making sure we match our superb recent away form dating back to the end of last season to that at home when we return to fans being back inside San Siro.
Ideally, Pioli would hope to get some consistency and name his best available XI, and it appears as though he’ll get the opportunity to do that with one major boost added in too.
Franck Kessie and Zlatan Ibrahimovic remain sidelined due to injury but are expected to return to the fold after the international break, but as per Pioli’s press conference on Saturday, he confirmed that Ismael Bennacer is now fit and ready to start.
In turn, that could be the only change the Milan boss makes to his starting line-up with the Algerian international coming in for Rade Krunic in midfield to partner Sandro Tonali, while the rest of the side stays the same.
That means Mike Maignan between the posts, with a back-four consisting of Davide Calabria, Simon Kjaer, Fikayo Tomori and Theo Hernandez in front of him.
With Bennacer and Tonali occupying the deeper-lying midfield pivot, that leaves Alexis Saelemaekers, Brahim Diaz and Rafael Leao supporting frontman Olivier Giroud.
Time will tell if the likes of Ante Rebic can apply late pressure to force Pioli to make a change, but ultimately even without Kessie and Ibrahimovic, Milan have plenty of quality in that side to ensure we secure all three points this weekend.
