Allegri has enjoyed the implicit, perhaps even glorified endorsement of the Italian media since his return to AC Mlan. Except when it comes to playing newly promoted sides. His first match and singular loss this season was to newly promoted side Cremonese. The second newly promoted side faced, Pisa, cost Allegri two points, and nearly three. Saturday, Milan travel to face the third and final newly promoted team, Parma. With nearly all of his players back, will he finally be able to orchestrate a convincing win? Particularly with Parma missing so many players of their own? Or will Milan struggle once again, and drop points because of the curse of Allegri?
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| Allegri consults Landucci on how to break the curse of the little teams that could. |
Allegri's Milan also struggled and dropped points to bottom of the moral table, Juventus as well as top of the lower half of the table, Atalanta. Three draws and a loss, nine points dropped. Fellow American-owned Parma come into this match just above the relegation zone, in 17th place with only a single win, four draws, and five losses. One way or the other, this is a very dangerous match. Parma's most recent match was a 3-1 loss to Bologna last week after an injury forced an early sub andred card left them on ten men for nearly an hour.
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| Parma have a former Milan fan favorite who was sold against his will, Patrick Cutrone. |
For that match, manager Carlos Cuesta lined up an interesting 4-2-2-2 system with: Zion Suzuki; Del Prato, Circati, Valenti, Britschgi; Nahuel Estévez, Mandela Keita; Bernabé, Ordoñez; Benedyczak, and Mateo Pellegrino. Cuesta will be missing Ordoñez, who received he red card vs. Bologna and is suspended for this match. He is also missing both Circati and Nahuel Estévez to injury from last week, as well as Oristanio, Frigan, Almqvist, and Ondrejka, who are also all injured. That is seven players out injured.
Allegri has recovered everyone injured from the last international break except Rabiot, and Santi Gimenez announced this week that he is going to stop for a few weeks to properly treat a niggling ankle injury he has been battling for much of the year. So, only two players out. (And possibly Balentien still as well.) That means Allegri has recovered Pulisic this week, and while he has only trained with the team tice, Allegri will have plenty of other options to choose from all over the rest of the pitch. Jashari is likely to see at least a few minutes this week after his long injury. Estupiñan, too is reported to have improved his fintess levels after his injury.
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| Fans will be happy to see Pulisic return, even if it is only for a few minutes. |
The Curva Sud are rightfully upset again about the away ticket situation at the Stadio Tardini. Typically, fans have paid between €20-€25 per ticket. However, since Milan the club raised the issue of fixed ticket prices for away fans but were unable to get the deal done, Parma raised the ticket prices for Milan fans to €42.50 each to lash out at the audacity of Milan trying to do what other leagues and UEFA have done. Parma also made the tickets very difficult to obtain and gave no priority to season ticket holders, which is also traditionally offered for away fans. So that's perfect. Right when we finally got our Curva Sud back, here we go again with your politically impotent club and a league that would shoot itself in both feet before doing something new that benefitted itself and everyone involved. We truly are cursed.
But, of course, the curse we are worried about this week is Milan's failure to succeed against the teams at the bottom of the table. In order to keep up with the pack at the top of the table, three points are necessary. Because there are a number of teams who will be competing for those top four spots again this season. And dropping points in any of these matches could come back and haunt us when the European qualifying spots reckoning happens at the end of the season. Milan have not lost against the bigger teams so far, with largely positive performances. It's just these smaller teams that keep taking points off of us. And that is the curse of Allegri.
This post inspired by the music of Bambie Thug's "Doomsday Blue"