The five key battles that could win or lose the game for Milan against Club Brugge | OneFootball

AC Milan welcome Club Brugge to San Siro for the first time in 20 years tonight hoping to get their first win and first points of their Champions League campaign.

Milan suffered back-to-back defeats against Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen to begin their European campaign which means that this is an early must-win game, especially because a trip to face Real Madrid follows. There are expected to be a number of changes to the team compared to Saturday’s win over Udinese, too.

Looking at some key battles that will take place across the park, the stand-out one is on Milan’s left between Theo Hernandez and Andreas Skov Olsen. The Frenchman will come back into the side after serving the first of his two-game ban in the league, and he owes the fans a performance after that sending off in Florence.

Skive Olsen meanwhile has become Brugge’s talisman since he signed from Bologna, where he spent over two years which means he knows San Siro well. He has 70 goal contributions in 109 games for his current side (45 goals, 25 assists) – earning links with Milan – and is believed to have passed a late fitness test to take a spot on the right.

Moving to Milan’s own talisman, Christian Pulisic will be hoping for another big night as he returns to the right wing. Since the start of last season, only Cole Palmer (44: 28G, 16A) has been involved in more goals than Pulisic (28: 17G, 11A) among midfielders in the ‘top five’ European leagues.

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His opponent will likely be Maxim De Cuyper, a talented 23-year-old left-back who scored against Italy over the international break for Belgium. He has also been linked with Milan recently – something the Brugge coach commented on – and he made 24 line-breaking passes in their win over Sturm Graz, the most by any full back in a Champions League game this season.

The midfield general for the Blauw-Zwart is without a doubt Hans Vanaken, who is the club captain at 32 years of age and will go down as a legend. His record of 131 goals and 94 assists in 463 games says everything about his playing style as someone who likes to get forward, while he already has seven goal contributions this season.

Vanakan will come up against someone equally full of confidence though in Youssouf Fofana. In the past few games the Frenchman has begun to really show exactly why Milan negotiated for so long to sign him from Monaco in the summer and he will provide some much-needed balance and a combative edge to thwart such a dangerous opposite number.

Alvaro Morata is yet to score in the UCL for Milan and hasn’t netted since the win against Lecce nearly one month ago, so the Spaniard will be chomping at the bit to get his name up in lights again and show why he is the man for the biggest occasions, especially with Tammy Abraham and Luka Jovic not available.

Photo by Jurij Kodrun/Getty Images

Club Brugge however have a very talented centre-back in Joel Ordonez who will look to make a statement by pocketing the European champion. The 20-year-old is tipped to get a big move next summer or perhaps even sooner given he is already a full Ecuador international.

Finally, we end with another midfield duel between Tijjani Reijnders and Raphael Onyedika. Reijnders was unlucky to be sent off in the Udinese win on Saturday but that means he will be out on Saturday against Bologna and thus will look to give an extra push and perhaps get his first Champions League goal.

Onyedika meanwhile was heavily linked with the Rossoneri in the summer after the Scudetto win as a potential replacement for Franck Kessie. Instead, Charles De Ketelaere arrived for over €30m and Club Brugge used that money to land the Nigerian, who has become a mainstay and usually acts as the defensive anchor.