MILAN. In less than a month, AC Milan-Napoli has gone from the status of a very matched scudetto among the queens of the championship to the less noble one of run-off to decide who will be the most credited pretender to stay in the wake of Inter very much launched towards the first seasonal escape at the head of the classification. Tomorrow evening at the San Siro the top of the class will no longer face each other, protagonists of an unblemished journey until the weekend of 20-21 November. But there are two teams slowed down by a rain of injuries and a dive in performance: Milan have won just two games in the last six days, Napoli only one.
Stefano Pioli will try to recover Theo Hernandez, influenced until the last moment, to avoid having to add the French full-back to the list of unavailable players where Kjaer, Calabria, Leao and Rebic already appear. Luciano Spalletti has lost Mario Rui who ends up in the infirmary together with Koulibaly, Fabian Ruiz and Insigne.
40% of the owners will be missing on both fronts. The two coaches appeal to the character of the players to stop their respective falls, taking advantage of Atalanta’s misstep with Roma shuffling the cards in the leading quartet. Pioli gets impatient at the umpteenth question about Inter in stellar form: «I don’t understand why we always talk about other teams. We don’t run on anyone. And the championships are not won in December. We were in the lead for a long time last year and we know how it turned out. Our goal is to improve last season in terms of points. By doing more in the second round, because a year ago we dropped to the distance ». But Pioli also asks to pick up speed in this final of the first leg to improve the tally of last season, when Milan scored 43 points in the first 19 days. To go further, the Rossoneri must necessarily win tonight.
Spalletti appeals to the pride of those who have to replace the great absentees: «Vesuvius must not be a postcard but we must feel it within us. To give the best. There are times, even in life, when you are faced with obstacles. But we have to make our own way. We have to talk about those who are there to win this match with Milan. We need to let the examples speak. We need heart, race, courage to find solutions. For tomorrow we have 16-17 men available. They are enough. It is the necessary of what we must have. Ambitions depend on us ». The Tuscan coach returns to the bench after the two rounds of disqualification caused by the expulsion in Reggio Emilia with Sassuolo. Two defeats came with Spalletti in the stands. For this reason the coach apologizes: «By having me expelled I created problems for the players. I penalized the team. The responsibility for these two defeats is mine. I was hurt not being able to be near them ».
Spalletti returns to center stage in time to face Milan, for the first time since he refused the call from the AC Milan club in October 2019 after Marco Giampaolo was sacked. A refusal motivated by the lack of agreement with Inter on the severance pay required by Spalletti on the salaries to be received until the end of the contract with the Nerazzurri (June 2021). This very rigid position of Spalletti paved the way for the call of Pioli, protagonist of the cycle that brought Milan back up in the standings until the Champions League qualification that had been missing for seven years (even if the Rossoneri race in Europe is already over). But tomorrow night at the San Siro there will be no time to investigate these intersections. Milan and Napoli must run at breakneck speed in order not to accumulate further delays on the Inter high speed.