The duke has never been so rampant. The intention is not to disturb noble hierarchies to rewrite one of Italo Calvino’s masterpieces, but to ride the wave of Adrien Rabiot, who has started extremely strongly at the beginning of this season with Milan: in the league, with seven matchdays played and seven appearances to his name (but with 486 minutes played out of the 630 available), the Frenchman has recorded four goals (Torino, Lecce, Sassuolo and Atalanta) and three assists (Torino, Lazio and Atalanta).
The average is all too simple: seven goal contributions in as many matches. He is decisive in every game.
The match reports speak for themselves: the Frenchman has been involved in at least one goal for four consecutive matches for the first time in his career in Europe's five major leagues, and he is the first midfielder to achieve this wearing the Milan shirt in Serie A since Hakan Calhanoglu in his Milan days, now dating back almost six years (December 2020).
No one among players in the same position, in the current league season, has started as strongly as him: he is, in fact, both the midfielder with the most goals scored in this Serie A, having reached four goals, in the top scorers' standings just behind Antonio Raimondo of Frosinone and Donyell Malen of Roma, and the one with the most direct goal contributions.
And the statistic can also be extended to Europe's top five leagues, in which it turns out that no midfielder has been involved in as many goals as the Rossoneri's number 12.
Rabiot all over the pitch:
A clarification is needed, however: midfielder, for the latest version of Rabiot, is a somewhat reductive term; because the Frenchman, under Amorim, actually starts from a more advanced position, not entirely new to him, given that he had already occupied it with different duties at Roberto De Zerbi's Marseille, which allows him to always be in support of the attackers and to roam across the entire attacking front, writes Corriere dello Sport in this morning's print edition.
This does not change the fact, however, that he also lends an important hand in the defensive phase, with plenty of kilometres covered and his physical and athletic presence in midfield to challenge opponents.
Rabiot's substance on the pitch is also present off it
Because the Frenchman is a recognised leader inside the Rossoneri dressing room, so much so that he can afford to publicly scold his teammates without negative consequences for the group: they know that he speaks on behalf of everyone and for everyone, and they listen to him.
After Atalanta, just as after Sassuolo, the number 12 called on the team to make a step forward in mentality:
"I had already said against Sassuolo that we needed to improve our mentality. Football is like that, if you lose concentration you risk losing matches. Even those who come on must do more, enter the match well."
It is not a relationship of subordination, but a simple internal hierarchy: the rampant duke must be followed.
