As you will have seen in the first update of my new save with AC Milan, it’s been quite a tumultuous summer for the Rossoneri. A quite frankly ridiculous amount of average players were sold, loaned or released, amassing £103M total in player sales. A massive part of that was any players that can play on the wings. I had planned to use a 4-4-1-1, with Giacomo Bonaventura on the right wing as a WM-A, and Suso on the left as a W-A, with a few iffy rotational options to provide backup to those two. I had attempted to sign Gonçalo Guedes – who wouldn’t talk to me – and Nicola Sansone, but as you’ve seen, he would rather go play for Roma and earn £15,000 less a week. Their mistakes.
However, Bonaventura would go down with a torn calf that would put him out for 3-4 months, and Chelsea would come in for Suso on deadline day with a bid that when eventually negotiated up to £29.5M (with extra fees etc.) I simply couldn’t refuse. This left me extremely weak on the wings, my only real options being Simone Verdi (really a Number 10) and Manuel Locatelli (a central midfielder). There were also no realistic options out wide that I wanted to sign, with my ethos for the save being to create an Italian core with a foreign contingent (much like Milan have throughout their history). This effectively ruled out the 4-4-1-1 as a viable tactic, and as a result, I’m committing to playing a narrow formation.
This article is going to serve as a tactical think tank for me to plan my ideas on how to move forward with the Rossoneri. I hope that through seeing my mental processes, you will be able to see how I formulate a tactic, and how I assess my squad in order to create a tactic that should be successful.
