Alessio Romagnoli suffered a calf injury and tests yesterday revealed that it will keep him out of action for at least one month. The AC Milan captain has thus joined Mattia Caldara and Mateo Musacchio on the club's injury list and Gattuso will now have to deal with some big issues in how to construct his defence for the next match against Lazio.
In the friendly match at Milanello against Milan's youth side, Gattuso lined up his team with a 3-5-2 formation, proposing a defence formed by Ignazio Abate, Cristian Zapata and Stefan Simic, who has yet to make an appearance this season. Everything indicates that the Rossoneri coach will maintain this formation against Lazio, with the probable inclusion of Ricardo Rodriguez on the centre-left and Calabria on the centre-right. There could be 4 combinations:
Abate-Rodriguez-Zapata
Calabria-Rodriguez-Zapata
Simic-Rodriguez-Zapata
Zapata-Kessie-Rodriguez
With three centre-backs unavailable, only two are available: Zapata and Simic. Milan has shown several limits with the back-three, which could also lead to the idea of keeping a four-man backline. In this case, the combinations could be, at least initially, these:
Calabria/Abate-Simic-Zapata-Rodriguez
Calabria/Abate-Zapata,Rodriguez-Laxalt
Calabria/Abate-Kessie-Zapata-Rodriguez
It is now up to Gattuso to find the best possible solution so that Milan have a chance for a good result at the Stadio Olimpico.