MN: Okafor the ’12th man’ for Milan as trend of making an impact continues | OneFootball

Noah Okafor had to make do with appearances off the bench for most of his first season at AC Milan, and he is continuing his trend as an impact player.

As MilanNews recall, Okafor came on for Rafael Leao during last night’s 3-1 win over Club Brugge and he took literally a few seconds to pick up the ball on the left side, dart past his man and cut it back for Tijjani Reijnders to get the first goal of his eventual brace.

In fact, his impact was so quick that Leao – the man he replaced – was still wandering around the edge of the field towards the Milan dugout. He stopped to see the winger serve the midfielder, raising his arms aloft and continuing his journey around the pitch.

This season Okafor has made nine appearances for a total of 301 minutes, contributing with one goal and one assist. He scored the goal in the first match of the season against Torino, a 93rd-minute equaliser to rescue a draw.

Last year Okafor played 36 games, for a total of 1005 minutes, scoring six goals and providing three assists. He was decisive in the last match of the Champions League group stage, when he came on in the 83rd minute and provided Chukwueze with the assist for the winner at Newcastle.

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He also scored a late winner away at Udinese in a dramatic 3-2 victory, while at the Stadio Olimpico against Lazio he came on in the 71st minute and two minutes from the end he scored the only goal to seal a Champions League spot.

The numbers show that Okafor is Milan’s ’12th man’ in the sense that he might not start but he is almost guaranteed to do something when called upon. Paulo Fonseca is banking heavily on the Austrian and given Rafa Leao’s bad run of form, it is not excluded that he could start on Saturday.

The Rossoneri fans are also happy with Okafor’s performances, especially given he cost around €14m to sign from RB Salzburg last summer. They key for him will be to trim the number of (minor) injuries that caused him to miss parts of last season.