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| I could get used to images like this one |
After being humiliated by Milan in Razgrad, Ludogorets came
back from their 2 month break to beat Slavia Sofia 4-1 on Sunday. For that
match, Dimitrov rested a number of players who faced us last Thursday. He
started Broun; Cicinho, Terziev, Forster, Campanharo, Sasha, Andrianantenaina,
Wanderson, Goralski, Keseru, and Misidjan. Dimitrov is still missing his
goalkeeper, Stoyanov, to injury, but should be bringing an otherwise full squad
to the San Siro to fight for their Europa League lives.
Gattuso is facing plenty of distractions off the pitch, as
well as too many compliments for his comfort about the performances on the
pitch. He is also under pressure to change his starting 11, something he is not
fond of doing much of. He needs his players rested for Sunday’s big clash in
Rome, but he also needs to keep enough consistency to ensure we go through to
the next round. Being unbeaten in ten matches is one thing, but certainly Milan
would find redemption in qualifying for the next round of the Europa League in
the midst of such a dream string of results.
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| If given another penalty this week, he won't settle for less than a goal |
Conti is likely to be out longer rather than shorter, based
on last week’s injury report for Milan’s doctor. Although he is starting to
warmup and do some light work with the team, he is nowhere near match fit. And
you know Gattuso is demanding about his fitness levels. Storari will still be
out another couple of weeks, I think, and it is uncertain as of this writing
whether or not Kalinic will be fit in time for Thursday. Also a troubling
report that Bonucci was having adductor troubles on Sunday, with Gattuso
keeping Musacchio warming up the entire match as a precaution. It would
probably be wise to rest Bonucci for this one, but hard to know how stubborn he
and Gattuso are about such things.
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| Bench? What the hell is a bench? |
No matter who starts for Milan, we cannot take our lead for
granted. I would be thrilled if we showed no mercy and scored at least one
more, while keeping a clean sheet. We don’t need any ghosts of Milan’s European
past, and we do definitely need even more confidence for the matches ahead.
I’ve said it dozens of times, I don’t care about the Europa League, but I do
care about redemption, and winning this and qualifying for the next round would
give us a nice serving of said redemption. Sorry, Ludogorets.
This post inspired by the music of Muse’s
“Mercy”
Europa League
Round of 32
AC Milan vs. PFC Ludogorets Razgrad
Thursday, February
22 • 21:05 CET (3:05pm EST)
This match will be
shown LIVE on Fox Soccer Plus in the U.S.