On a Monday night, AC Milan will be playing an important Serie A fixture against Sinisa Mihajlovic's Bologna team. Coach Stefano Pioli will not be able to see his colleague and greet him on the pitch, unfortunately. But the retired footballer now-turned coach's absence may serve as a motivation to his players.
Many clubs come to the San Siro seeking to conquer and achieve glory. Bologna will be no different. They will give everything on the pitch to please their head coach who will be watching and giving his instructions from the hospital.
Coach Stefano Pioli has been preparing his players well for this coming fixture and he admitted that he expects a lot from his side. Here are his words during yesterday's press conference (full statements here):
"I expect something more from everyone: this is needed to make these last 8 games into a great goal... We’ve all been training together since Friday, I saw an attentive and willing team. Usually, when we train like this, the performance comes."
Bologna could be taking the field with a clear plan: trying to hit Milan on counter-attacks, corners and free-kicks. They will be looking for any pockets of space left by the full-backs, who would step forward to support the wingers, or midfielders. In the defensive phase, they will try to play with compactness and a low block to leave as little space and solutions possible to the AC Milan forwards.
It will not be an easy game for the Rossoneri. The red and black faithful must dominate in midfield and take control of the pace of the match. Sandro Tonali and Ismael Bennacer, who are poised to start together in midfield in front of the defenders, will have to fight for every ball and seek out important passes forward when there is an opportunity.
The AC Milan side will also use two important factors to manage the game well: applying pressure and speed. First, the players must not attempt to press the opponents for 90 minutes in order to not drain their energies quickly. Instead, they will have to know when to press and when to lay back for a while or the counter-attacks of Bologna could cause grief.
The second factor is speed. It is also important thanks to Theo Hernandez and Rafael Leao. The left flank will be key as it has more quality than that on the right currently.
This is the lineup that Bologna could use to face Milan:
3-4-2-1: Skorupski; Soumaoro, Medel, Theate; Hickey, Svanberg, Schouten, Dijks; Orsolini, Orsolini; Arnautovic
As for AC Milan, this is the likely lineup that Stefano Pioli should use:
