Manchester United vs AC Milan: Match Preview

By Joe Smith -
Image taken from the Principality Stadium website 


Teams: Manchester United vs AC Milan
KO: 17:30pm 
Location: Principality Stadium, Cardiff
Referee: TBC

As Manchester United’s productive and successful pre-season draws to a close they play AC Milan in their final warm up game ahead of the new season. This encounter against the Italian giants will be the last of United’s International Champions Cup campaign. They have a perfect record to this point with two wins from two against Inter Milan and Tottenham Hotspur respectively. A convincing win will see The Reds lift this years trophy, a feat they achieved back in 2014 when they beat Liverpool in America.

Milan's form has been the complete opposite, losing their ICC matches against Bayern Munich and Benfica. Additionally, they could only manage a 1-1 draw against Serie C side Novara. It’s fair to say they will be looking for improvement because as things stand it's not boding too well for their upcoming campaign.

Team News
United will of course be without Eric Bailly who suffered yet another unfortunate injury in United’s last ICC game against Spurs. The injury will see the Ivory Coast player out until Christmas. Today’s big breaking news that United have agreed an £80 million fee for Leicester City and England defender Harry Maguire will be welcomed by United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who needs to reconstruct his defence this season. With Maguire not yet officially a United player, players like Victor Lindelof, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and Axel Tuanzebe look destined to get some more game time. Stories emerging this evening that Paul Pogba has not travelled with the squad either due to back spasms and therefore won’t be involved in the game. United will want to ensure that the Frenchman will be 100% for United’s opener against Chelsea a week on Sunday.

Romelu Lukaku and Matteo Darmian have also not even travelled with the squad as the possibly pursue moves away from the club. Darmian has been linked with a host of Serie A clubs as well as Spanish side, Valencia. Lukaku looks destined to leave this summer and he has stayed at home as talks continue with all parties about a potential swap deal with Juventus that would see Paulo Dybala move in the opposite direction to join United.

As for Milan, Mattia Caldara remains absent as he recovers from a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament injury. Theo Hernandez, a recent arrival from Real Madrid, is also absent, having suffered a torn ankle ligament in the friendly against Bayern Munich.

Milan will also be without the services of Striker Patrick Cutrone following his move to Wolverhampton Wanderers earlier this week.

Last time out:
United and Milan played each other in last season’s ICC tournament, the game finished 1.1 in normal time with United triumphing on penalties. The two teams haven’t played each other in a competitive match since 2010. On that occasion United put on a masterclass at the San Siro winning 4.0 in a Champions League Last 16 Second-Leg tie.

Prediction 
Pre-season friendlies always have the potential to throw up some surprises. However judging by both teams respective form so far this summer you have to say everything points towards a Manchester United victory. The other factor to consider is that AC Milan are some way behind The Reds with their preparations as their season doesn't  start until the back end of August. United, who are buoyant after a largely positive summer on and off the pitch will be hoping to take advantage of any fragility shown by the Italians. If they can do that and put in a positive performance they should get comfortable win, which would be the perfect preparation for the first game of the season against Chelsea next Sunday.

Score prediction: Manchester United 3-0 AC Milan.



Comments

Post a comment

Popular posts from this blog

Manchester United vs LASK Preview

By Andrew Wall -
Image
Manchester United resume their Europa League campaign after last competing in the competition back in March winning the first leg against LASK 5-0 with goals from Igahlo, James, Mata, Greenwood and Pereria putting us into a commanding position. All these players will be looking to play some part in this game and in the rest of the tournament.
The United players returned to training after being given a week off following the conclusion of the Premier League season. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had said in preparations for the game, “they need mental and physical time away from the place because the effort has been fantastic, so recharge the batteries for a few days and then go again. We’ve got LASK and a 5-0 lead, so we don’t have to go into that game chasing a two or three-goal win. We just want a good performance and hopefully that will be enough to get into the quarters”.
It is expected that changes will be made to the side as Ole looks to rotate the squad to give those fringe players more ga…
Read more

Manchester United vs LASK Player Ratings

By Millsy's View -
Image
Summary Well, for those Manchester United fans hoping for a heart stopping return to European action for their team (and there weren’t many, considering it was already 5-0 before we started), they probably got it – except if perhaps they died of boredom.
That’s right, Jake Hammond on BT Sports summed up the first half perfectly when he described the highlights as “two catches and a missed header”, as United’s second string failed to impress. 
Honestly, for most of the first half, Manchester United were actually outplayed by Austria’s fourth-best team this season. LASK’s players had as much to prove to their new manager as our second XI had to prove to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and his team, yet, sadly, none of them were hammering on the door to be picked.
If it wasn’t for Anthony Martial’s late introduction to the game, we may well have lost our first ever match against Austrian opposition, the way the game was going. Fortunately, though, we got the win in the end and go through to the n…
Read more

How the Big Six can compete for the title next season

By Arjun_Handa -
Image
Liverpool were the clear champions of the Premier League this season as they broke numerous records in securing their first ever Premier League and first domestic title in 30 years. Manchester City came the closest to competing with the Reds but it was a staggering distance for Pep's Cityzens. Manchester United and Chelsea both secured top four finishes (in that order) and demonstrated the progress made under the former-player managers and their young squads. While Leicester bottled a Champions League spot and finished fifth, Spurs snuck past Wolves to grab sixth and will compete in the Europa League next season, like their North London rivals who finished a dismal eighth but secured Europa League after their 2-1 win in the FA Cup Final. 
But what do these excellent clubs need to push for the title next season? PLAYERS! It's obvious! Squad depth has never been more important for these sides and especially, in the tightly-packed fixture list post-lockdown, some of these club'…
Read more

Manchester United vs LASK: 5 Things we learned.

By Joe Smith -
Image
Manchester United are through to the quarter finals of the Europa League thanks to a 2-1 win at old Trafford on Wednesday evening (7-1 on aggregate). A win is a win but United will have been disappointed with the overall team performance. The Red Devil’s fell behind thanks to a fantastic long-range effort from Philipp Weisinger. However, their opponents lead only lasted for 94 seconds when Jesse Lingard slotted home to bring the hosts level. Anthony Martial then came off the bench to win the game, linking up nicely with Juan Mata and finishing through the keeper’s legs. United now head to Cologne to play FC Copenhagen in the quarter finals of the competition. Here are the five things we learned:1.United’s squad is just not good enough.The players on the fringe of the first team did themselves absolutely no favours tonight. In fact, some of them may not have only played their way out of the first 11 for the rest of the Europa League campaign but out of the club too. You could argue tha…
Read more

Manchester United vs FC Copenhagen Preview

By Andrew Wall -
Image
Manchester United meet Danish side FC Copenhagen on Monday night as we prepare to advance into the last four of the UEFA Europa League and look to go all the way to secure this trophy for the second time since winning the competition back in 2017. The competition has now entered a revised format for the quarter finals onwards as it is now a one leg tie after the tournament had been postponed due to the lockdown with now all matches taking place in stadiums across Germany.
After a gruelling end to the Premier League season, Ole Gunnar Solskjær was keen to rest key players for the second leg against LASK whilst giving some of the fringe players more game time. We had been leading 5-0 from the first leg and so we had the confidence to know we would be going through. 
However, it was an underwhelming display from United as those fringe players lacked the match sharpness and at times were sloppy in possession, in our passing and with our final balls into the six yard box. Though LASK took a …
Read more