AC Milan host Chievo at the San Siro on Sunday as they continue to chase a Champions League spot, but they’ll do so without Nikola Kalinic this weekend.
As seen below, Gennaro Gattuso’s squad was announced on Saturday for the clash with Andrea Conti included for the first time since he suffered a serious knee injury.
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Andrea Conti returns to the squad list after 6 months! Glad to have you back! ??Here’s the squad list for the match: https://t.co/oScpaQNUJd
Dopo 6 mesi fuori, c’è il ritorno di #Conti! Bentornato Andrea! ????
Ecco i 23 convocati per #MilanChievo: https://t.co/E5Y66Ys6WR pic.twitter.com/aFSx1Ar4uX— AC Milan (@acmilan) March 17, 2018
However, while injured trio Alessio Romagnoli, Ignazio Abate and Davide Calabria will play no part, there was confusion as to why Kalinic hadn’t made the cut given he featured against Arsenal on Thursday and didn’t appear to pick up any knocks.
It was La Gazzetta dello Sport who initially offered an explanation, revealing that Gattuso had been left unimpressed with the manner in which Kalinic had trained on Friday and so the decision was seemingly taken to leave him out.
That would have delighted many Milan supporters not only for the fact that the coach is willing to make big calls if he doesn’t see the right attitude from his players, but also because Kalinic has struggled badly this season to make a positive impact.
The 30-year-old has scored just four goals in 30 appearances so far this season, and it looks like this latest development could push him down the pecking order with Patrick Cutrone and Andre Silva fighting for places in the line-up too.
However, Calciomercato have now added more information to the fallout, as they’ve reported that with the use of GPS tracking data on the players during training, Gattuso saw the drop in effort from Kalinic through that and took the decision to exclude him.
It will now be down to the likes of Cutrone and Silva to ensure that Milan can do perfectly well without the Croatian international in reserve on Sunday.