Milan – Torino Serie A Week 30

Milan lost to Lazio 1-0. The team looked toothless at best and the front two of Leao and Pulisic – reminder that neither are center forwards by any definition – boiled over to the point of frustration and lashing out. Leao was subbed out early and is due to miss this week 30 match as well.

The trailing pack of Napoli, Como, Juventus and others are closer than Inter is at the top and indeed as of this writing Napoli have beaten Cagliari and overtaken Milan for second spot. Whether or not a scudetto was realistically within reach Milan have shown an inability to grab the chance. The inability starts from an unwillingness to build in August. The thin squad, barely touched in January, was not made to excite. From Allegri’s style to the lack of true scoring center forwards this team was made to improve from the season before and is at least doing that much.

Fullkrug is set to start alongside Pulisic for this Torino match. The midfield will see the return of Rabiot and Bartesaghi. Fofana may give way for Ricci. That Jashari alongside Modric experiment at Lazio looked random and pretty much failed. It was disappointing to see Allegri choosing to just fit Jashari somewhere in the midfield, tactically it didn’t achieve much. Giving minutes to both Jashari and Ricci has at least the ‘gaining match experience’ benefit. Gabbia is not yet ready to return and the back three is likely to stay Tomori, De Winter and Pavlovic, of course with Maignan in goal.

Gimenez is getting closer to a return and is due for a bench spot versus Torino.

The international break that will decide Azzurri’s World Cup fate begins after this weekend. Not that Azzurri will feature any Milan players. The previously mooted Italianization of Milan is nowhere near reality.

Torinto sacked Marco Baroni and hired Roberto D’Aversa in February. The new coach has two wins in three.

Visit the forums to follow this match and everything Milan.