The last time we visited the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino, Milan were fighting for a Champions League spot and Torino were fighting to stay above the relegation zone. After some mediocre performances, Milan had no mercy on il Toro, decimating them 0-7 in front of their own fans. But that was Davide Nicola's team that he had rescued after a Giampaolo nightmare. This is Ivan Jurić's Torino, and they come into this match sitting in 11th place. We only managed to beat them 1-0 at the San Siro in October, even if we were missing eight players. Still, scoring and winning this one could be exactly what this team needs for a change of fate.
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| Hopefully it will be a little like that |
Torino come into this match needing a positive result as well, with their recent form being W-L-D-D-L. That 1-0 win last week came at the expense of bottom of the table Salernitana, and the loss before that gave 19th place Genoa only their second win of the entire season. With draws against Inter and Juventus, Torino will certainly not fear Milan.
Last week against Salernitana, Jurić lined up Berisha; Izzo, Bremer, Buongiorno; Singo, Ricci, Mandragora, Vojvoda; Lukic, Pjaca; and Belotti. He has former Milan players Ricardo Rodriguez, Pellegri, as well as on-loan Pobega at his disposal to wield against us with the law of the exes. He will be missing Sanabria, Praet, Djidji, and Fares to injury, with Zaza in doubt for this match with a muscle injury.
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| This is no Giampaolo or Nicola... this is Jurić |
Pioli will obviously be missing our Viking, Kjaer, and now Florenzi, who had surgery this week. Romagnoli, who missed last week with an adductor injury, is also likely to miss this match, as he was still doing personalized training on Friday. Theo Hernández became a father for the first time this week, so it remains to be seen how that will affect his game. And Lazetić is still playing with the Primavera squad, thus not likely to be called up.
What Pioli needs are goals. On Monday, he got 33 shots out of them, but zero goals. We need to find our teeth again, that bite that had us scoring in every single match. If we want to hold onto first place, we will have to score, and likely win. Will we find the same switch we found last year in Torino and be able to dominate again? I do not necessarily need seven goals, but a margin of a few would be nice to avoid some anxiety this time. If not, and we drop points again, our fate could change in the other direction. Either way, this match is set to bring a change of fate.
This post inspired by the music of Queen's "Who Wants to Live Forever"
Reviewed by Elaine
on
4:03 AM
Rating:
