Teams news: Milan are without the suspended Philippe Mexes and the injured Pablo Armero, Marco Van Ginkel, Sulley Muntari as well as without Keisuke Honda who is in the Asian Cup. Kickoff time is 21:00 CET at Stadio San Siro.
Watch the match highlights
AC Milan (4-3-3) – Filippo Inzaghi
Christian Abbiati; Ignazio Abate, Alex da Costa, Cristian Zapata, Mattia De Sciglio; Andrea Poli, Nigel De Jong, Giacomo Bonaventura; Alessio Cerci, Giampaolo Pazzini, Stephan El Shaarawy.
Bench: Lopez, Agazzi; Albertazzi, Bonera, Rami, Zaccardo, Montolivo, Saponara, Mastour, Niang, Menez.
U.S. Sassuolo Calcio (4-3-3) – Eusebio Di Francesco
Alberto Pomini; Šime Vrsaljko, Paolo Cannavaro, Luca Antei, Alessandro Longhi; Raman Chibsah, Simone Missiroli, Davide Biondini; Sergio Floccari, Leonardo Pavoletti, Nicola Sansone.
Bench: Consigli, Polito; Bianco, Gazzola, Brighi, Magnanelli, Floro Flores, Berardi, Zaza.
Referee: Luca Candeo.
Sassuolo are basically playing with their second team… disrespect to us?
Or they just aren’t valuing the cup as much as us? Giving other players a chance and their key players rest?
Yet, they are level with us. makes you wonder how good our first team is, really.
Milan dominated the match so a reality check please.
Milan did NOT dominate the match…. wake up. go watch replays from 2007 and you will see what domination is. Milan played okay. I am happy for the win but we gotta start playing well and keeping possession a little, the players cannot connect a few passes together which is bad
It is obvious you didn’t watch this game. No. Milan played a very good game and had the majority of chances… But just couldn’t finish.
Finnaly Jack in Middle. This one could be good. Forzza Milan!
I’m demanding a win.
Awesome line-up, hope Inzaghi figured it all out. Maybe these 2 matches were a blessing in disguise. Prove me right Milan…
why not a 4 4 2 formation used against Real Madrid that makes us keep possession and attack so well , which also reduce the pressure on the defense
I hope I don’t laugh at the wrong side of my n also hopes mastour gets a chance
Beautiful tackle from de jong it’s so upsetting and pathetic how that is seen as a foul nowadays.
and that’s why you have a poacher. Screw all you haters. We can play more direct and have a reference point with him. Eat your criticism. He finally gets more than ten minutes to score
Well said RKaY, this is why Destro would be a good signing as well.
Nice by Pazzini… Maybe I was wrong about the guy.. But lets not get carried away.
Nobody is getting carried away, I’ve seen what the guy brings to the table in the short amount of time he gets to play while others are blind to the fact he gets 0 confidence from the coach and minimal chances to play. 15 goals as a substitute in recent season before his surgery. Id like to see his statistics on minutes played since then. Not much. Even in those short periods of time it’s obvious he brings a different dynamic to our play, we can drill hopeful balls into the box and pazzini will always get a clever touch… Read more »
Getting carried away sorry. He isn’t the player we should have our attack built on. And it remains to be seen if he can even be fit for half the season. I still think Luiz Adriano is the striker we should sign.
if we would have money we would easily get even jackson martinez, who would be perfect striker for us
Agreed RKaY. Best comment on this blog in months.
And SES is showing why we shouldn’t even think about selling him…
Zapata almost cost Milan again with his senseless foul at 45min and we conceded again only for the assistant ref to bail us out. Cerci is a different class
Sasuolo can play with their youth all they like but Milan must be realistic and chase this trophy to the last.
Beautiful goal!!
GO PAZZO
Tonbe honest its clear we need no9 as target man. Pazzini did well with the goal, but with pacey winger such as el shaarawy and cerci, i expect a target man who can hold and distribute the ball in penalty box as well as good finisher. I dont have that much confidence in destro, but maybe im wrong, to be honest i like mario gomez type when he was at bayern munich, or maybe the type of karim benzema will do just fine (he is willing to sacrifice himself to distribute the ball to bale and ronaldo)
Pazzini almost with 2. Another thing a lot of you fail to appreciate as one of his assets is his movement off the ball. He opens a lot of space up for other players to move into.
He isnt just fast or clinical enough. We need someone better than Pazzini. A striker like Luiz Adriano or Destro would have had a brace or hat trick tonight.
And im glad el shaarawy is enjoying his game tonight! Anothe point clear, el shaarawy needs no9 to bounce ball back. Im not saying menez is bad, menez is brilliant, but at the same time he is limiting el shaarawy’s space, i will suggest to move menez to left winger (he is right footed, perfect inverted as wellgood competitor for elshaarawy), and bring in strong no9 with criteria ive described before.
*every person needs competition for him to grow*
I don’t think you can call that as a pk I’m sorry…
Not a big fan of ref tonight, as well not the biggest fan of zapata
Yea Zapata has been so shaky I agree. He has really good games and then he makes silly mistakes. We can’t afford mistakes. with that said that was not a pk in my book
Ref is a calamity
Italy lack credible refs really!
Change jack pls he is not in this game. Inzaghi:(
Am not watching the match, is milan playing really bad?? How on earth we can win Sassuolo again…
Montolivo for cerci????? Inzaghi plssssssss
Cerci was wincing, small knock, obviously, and on top of that montolivo gave us fresh legs in the midfield and has actually started a lot of our attacks. Stop complaining
Give de jong and abate extensions already
i still remember how people were complaining about abate being bad on the RB, and DCS being so good compared to abate, well fck paralel universe this season 😀
Yeah, most people said he was no good now they can eat their words
De jong de jong de jong de jong goalllllll
Nice goal by De Jong.
My posts not showing up again!
A vital win… And Milan played better than the scoreline suggests. We really should have shut them out… But Cerci and El Sharaawy are poor finishers. This is why we need Luiz Adriano or Destro.
And for those who say this was Sassuolos second string… Not quite.
SES, De Jong & Abate really proved today how vital they are to this team. And Cerci showed why Milan made a good choice in bringing him to the club, imagine him at 100% fitness, kind of scary really.
That said, Zapata showed why he should be sold, and we need a new defender.
The midfield is not really working though, we gave away way to much space against a B-side Sassuolo, I really feel we should switch to 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 formation.
Even though El Shaarawy didn’t score hes still the best player on the pitch I hope Pippo realizes this let him play every game so he could regain his form!
They better not sell him
Forza MILAN
SES-Pazzo-Cerci
bonna-De Jong- Poli
NEW LB-RAMI-Alex-Abate
———–Diego Lopez—–
WHat do you think?
Poli? lmao
IMO, not up to scratch.
SES-Luiz Adriano-Cerci
Bonaventura-De Jong-Montolivo/Poli
Coentrao-Rami-Alex-Abate
—–Diego Lopez——
Luiz Adriano or Destro for striker.
Another midfielder would be nice too… maybe Brozovic and Andrea Baselli (who we are still linked with and Saponara may be used to get Baselli in a trade maybe plus cash). If Munoz doesn’t renew with Palermo, we should sign him and replace Zapata. Munoz has really matured as a centerback and could add speed to our defense.
Plus Abate + De Jong renewals.
U forgot Montolivo
its still to early to give credits, wait at least so they win 3/5 games in a row then we can talk, but i know lazio will kill us in rom.. 🙁 and hen juventus in 4 weeks… and then inzaghi will be fierd if he dont win atlanta and parma…
but sassuelo dint have thir top scorre from the start zaza so i dont know…
but i can tell milan did not dominate this mach even when you think sassuolo dit not have all the first choise players for every position…
SES really looked like a world class winger tonight, granted it wasn’t against the strongest sassuolo side but it was a real step forward. Haven’t seen him play with that kind of confidence since his injury really.
Actually El Shaarawy played against Vrsaljko in this match who is their first choice right back and a very good player one of their best actually. Vrsaljko couldn’t play in the earlier match because of the death of one of his family members. So it was somehow tougher for SES in this match.
The guy is just so inconsistent.
SES-Destro/menez-Cerci
bonna-De Jong- Montolivio
De sciglio/santon-RAMI-Alex/mexes-Abate
———–Diego Lopez—–
We should sign Destro and santon
Coentrao over Santon for me. We do business with Real all the time… we can get a good deal since Coentrao wants to leave right away. Coentrao was one of Mourinho’s signings. Ancelotti doesn’t really play him.
That pass by Bonera was nice
After the insidious displays last week, I didn’t want to watch the match. But from what I read on here they did good.
Something tells me 50% of our problems will be solved if we fix our left back problem. I think that’s our weakest link at the moment.
In my opinion Santon is a horrible LB. No offense. Milan should go for Darmian. Destro scored 4 goals in the last 13 matches. For 15-18mil he is definitely not worth it. A better option is Luis Adriano who will be free agent in the summer.
I don’t understand how Milan choose to pursue these players but it doesn’t seem to me that they are using sound judgement.
Just my opinion.
Yep…Darmian > Santon, and Adriano > Destro, but personally, I wouldn’t label Santon as horrible… If we are going to continue with a 4-3-3 we need more than one no.9, even if Destro doesn’t pay immediate dividends, he is young, with the right coaching he will grow…although I agree that the price is too high, and we are not sure if he will be a reliable starter (a risky move). Darmian has impressed me, he needs to play for a bigger club than Torino, but I’ve seen Santon perform extremely well in the past. I think a return to Italy… Read more »
Swap De Sciglio for Coentrao and our problems are solved. Coentrao is better than Darmian, Santon or MDS.
Isn’t Darmian a right back though?
Let’s Admit Poli and De jong partnership seemed good
Bonera help Milan win
Lol…,he gave an assist
luiz adriano? how much does he cost now and which club he plays for determines whether we sign him or not. are his team broke, desperate of have any “beef” with Milan. mind you Galliani does NOT have a straight thinking mind. he thinks in circles, nothing with Galliani is straight forward. he does mind boggling stuff with transfers, really crazy things. sometimes utterly senseless, at other times beauty beyond description.
Luiz adriano plays for shakhtar donetsk. He’s the guy who scored 5 goals in a single champion’s league match in the group stages this year
Some people are not real milanistas Pazzini was never given the chance to
Play a full match he almost got about 2 goals when he was given the chance
Now Inzaghi must look on the youth side and also give young players like
Saponnar,Mastour and co
People saying we played a good match obviously haven’t been around to see us actually play a good match.
Oh good old days …