AC Milan will close out the 2023 calendar year in front of their own fans at San Siro tomorrow night as they entertain Sassuolo hoping for a win to ease some pressure.
The list of absentees for Milan is long, with Marco Sportiello, Pierre Kalulu, Malick Thiaw, Fikayo Tomori, Marco Pellegrino, Mattia Caldara, Yunus Musah, Tommaso Pobega and Noah Okafor all pretty much certain to miss the game.
According to the latest from Sky, Pioli is expected to field Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leao as the right and left wingers respectively either side of the centre-forward Olivier Giroud, which is now the first choice attacking trio.
In midfield Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Tijjani Reijnders are down as the two box-to-box players, with Ismael Bennacer expected to anchor the three in the middle.
Then in defence Pioli is tipped to rely on his more trusted players, with Theo Hernandez again shifting inside to centre-back to partner Simon Kjaer. Alessandro Florenzi will thus revert to left-back, with Davide Calabria right-back and Mike Maignan obviously in there as the goalkeeper.
Probable Milan XI (4-3-3): Maignan; Calabria, Kjaer, Theo, Florenzi; Loftus-Cheek, Bennacer, Reijnders; Pulisic, Giroud, Leao.
Probable Sassuolo XI (4-2-3-1): Consigli; Toljan, Erlic, Tressoldi, Pedersen; Henrique, Thorstvedt; Berardi, Castillejo, Lauriente; Pinamonti.
