D. Lopez: “I respect the coach and I’ll do my talking on the pitch, Donnarumma? What he did was fantastic”

Diego Lopez talked after the Sassuolo match which he watched from the bench as the 16-year-old Gianluigi Donnarumma played instead of him.

A lot of the talk pre-match was about Mihajlovic’s decision to drop veteran goalkeeper Diego Lopez in favour of Donnarumma, who is half the Spaniard’s age, and this topic continues to occupy the media also after the game in which Donna was handed his Serie A debut (he did fairly well with the exception of his error on Berardi’s free kick goal).

“I’m hard on myself but I don’t think Milan has so few points because of me, if anything I avoided more goals, I will work until the last day of my contract,” Lopez told Sky Italia. “I respect Milan, like everyone I want to play every match, I always take my responsibilities. At Milan not everything is up to the keeper.

“I’m a Milan player until 2018, the questions on a potential sale make no sense: I don’t think anyone can say I did something negative for the club. Coach Sinisa Mihajlovic said it was a sporting decision? I don’t want to say anything about that, I respect the coach and I’ll do my talking on the pitch.

“Donnarumma? What he did was fantastic, I wish him the best for the future.” It remains to be seen if Mihajlovic will play Gianluigi again on Wednesday against Chievo or give back the spot to Diego.