AC Milan will welcome back Davide Calabria to the starting lineup when they take on Cagliari in Serie A this weekend after the captain served his two-match suspension.
Calabria was sent off against Inter on the night that the Nerazzurri won the Serie A title for a blatant elbow on Davide Frattesi as tensions began to rise. Theo Hernandez and Denzel Dumfries had already both been sent off.
As reported by Milan News, Pioli will also be welcoming Yunus Musah back after his suspension, and Luke Jovic after he recovered from an injury. He will still be without Mike Maignan, Simon Kjaer and Ruben Loftus-Cheek who are all injured.
That means Marco Sportiello will start again, with a likely back four of Calabria, Matteo Gabbia, Fikayo Tomori and Hernandez.
Yacine Adli, Ismael Bennacer, Musah and Tijjani Reijnders are battling for the two midfield spots with Reijnders and Adli looking most likely to start.
In attack, it seems likely that Samuel Chukwueze will start on the right with Christian Pulisic in the middle and Rafael Leao on the left, whilst Olivier Giroud will be the striker.
Probable Milan XI (4-2-3-1): Sportiello; Calabria , Gabbia, Tomori, Hernandez; Adli, Reijnders; Chukwueze, Pulisic, Leao; Giroud.
Sportitalia journalist Francesco Letizia has claimed that AC Milan CEO Giorgio Furlani has got ‘an ace up his sleeve’ when it comes to the pursuit of a new coach to replace Stefano Pioli.
Whilst writing for Sportitalia (via Radio Rossonera), Letizia explained that there will not be any official statement made on Pioli’s future or that of a successor until the end of the season, out of respect for Pioli and the work that he has done.
Letizia thinks that the fact that details has already been leaked is suspicious in itself, and they go on to explain that it almost certainly means Furlani has got an ace up his sleeve, meaning he essentially already has an agreement with a coach but the information will not get out until the club is ready.
“The fact that it has been leaked that, out of respect for Stefano Pioli, there will be no official declarations in this sense until the end of the season is somewhat suspicious. There is not a journalist nor an insider who knows at this moment for whom or for what,” Letizia writes.
