CorSera: Milan’s ‘simple’ European mission continues against Red Star

There is an uneasy atmosphere surrounding AC Milan after the latest league setback, but tonight they are back in Champions League action with a simple mission.

Red Star tonight, Girona on January 22 and Dinamo Zagreb on January 29: these are Milan’s last three matches in the first Champions League phase and the Rossoneri have a rather ‘simple’ objective.

As Corriere della Sera (via MilanNews) writes this morning, that task is to win all three and thus finish among the top eight in the table, so as to go directly to the round of 16 without going through the play-offs.

It can be done, too, but Paulo Fonseca’s team must immediately put the Atalanta defeat behind them and focus on tonight’s match at San Siro against Red Star, an opponent that should not be underestimated.

It is the first step on the road to the top eight positions in the standings, as Fonseca said in his press conference yesterday.

“I think the most important thing is to win the next one, but I cannot say that we are not thinking about this possibility. But if we don’t win the next one it will be difficult. Let’s think about the next one and then we will think about the others,” he said.

Against the Serbian side there will be no Ismael Bennacer, Alessandro Florenzi and Luka Jovic, as well as Noah Okafor (lower back pain) and Christian Pulisic. Fonseca announced that Ruben Loftus-Cheek will play as attacking midfielder behind Alvaro Morata.