GdS: Torino-Milan a battle between six players in contrasting moments | OneFootball

AC Milan will take on Torino tonight hoping to continue their push for a top four spot, but it is a tale of players in contrasting form for both sides.

As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) writes this morning, Samuele Ricci is the mind and soul of Torino. Having arrived in January 2022 from Empoli, his growth path has been continuous and has led him first to become a fixed point of the Granata and then the Italian national team.

He is the only Torino player to have started every league game, with the exception of the one against Bologna, missed due to suspension. At the beginning of the season the coach used him as a mezzala, while with the 4-2-3-1 he returned to placing him in the double pivot.

Everything passes through him, in attack and defence, which is striking if you consider that he is only 23 years old. Gineitis, Linetty and even Casadei can play alongside him, and he will hope to hurt the team he has been linked with.

Tijjani Reijnders doesn’t need the encouragement of his coach to attack the opposition goal. He’s already at 11 goals this season, a personal best, even if with the four strikers he is now asked to make even more sacrifices in midfield.

Reijnders can perform pretty much every midfield role: he is one of the Milan players who covers the most distance per game and has never held back, whether he is alongside Youssouf Fofana or Yunus Musah, like on Tuesday at San Siro.

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Does moving his position back make him less dangerous in the goal area? In theory, yes, but the data in the two legs against Feyenoord showed he had four shots Wellenreuther’s goal. For comparison, Leao and Pulisic had two.

In goal meanwhile, Vanja Milinkovic-Savic and Mike Maignan are the prototypes of the modern-day goalkeeper. They save, but they also love to play with the ball with their feet, as additional liberos or defensive registas.

The Serbian is also having one of his best seasons between the posts, less so the Frenchman from Milan, who in recent weeks has admitted that he is not in a state of grace. Vanja is a penalty saver having stopped three this season already, and a leader too.

At 28 years old – he turned 28 on Thursday – Milinkovic-Savic has reached the height of maturity. Magic Mike Maignan, as mentioned, is instead coming off a few too many errors. The last one, in the defeat in the first leg against Feyenoord in the Champions League, cost Milan a lot.

The status of the French goalkeeper is not in question: there is already an agreement with the club for the renewal of his contract until 2028, with an option for a further year, at €5m net per season. The expectation, of course, is that Mike will return to being ‘magic’ like the year of the Scudetto.

Then, there are the two playmakers Nikola Vlasic and Joao Felix. The Croatian is perhaps having his best season in Granata. Beyond the numbers – he has three goals and three assists in the league, while his best was 2022-23 with five goals and six assists – his attitude, incisiveness and freedom are striking.

Vlasic has truly become ‘the best purchase of Torino’s mercato’, as Vanoli said in the summer, when he was waiting for his return after the injury at the European Championship. It took time, finding the right formation and above all confidence.

Vlasic has returned to full form since December onwards, and if the 3-5-2 did not make the most of him because it held him back in the role of mezzala, playing as a second striker in the 4-2-3-1 freed him up, guaranteed him the space in the centre that he has always favoured.

Joao Felix instead scored ‘only’ in the Coppa Italia, on his debut against Roma, but he has often looked for the way to the net. The Portuguese does not limit himself to only creating unpredictability between the lines and creating numerical superiority with dribbling.

The early signs have fully convinced Conceiçao who strongly wanted him and does not intend to do without him. Not even today, even if Joao is not at his best due to an ankle problem he suffered on Tuesday.

The quality of the former Benfica man is useful to the team, especially in a game against a team that promise to be difficult to break down like the one against Toro. This is why Sergio does not want to do without his compatriot and hopes to deploy him also against Vanoli’s men from the 1st minute.