Verona vs. AC Milan: Team News, Preview, Live Stream, TV Info

AC Milan look to maintain their lead over their pursuers for sixth as they visit last-place Verona.

Date: Monday, April 25

Time: 5 p.m. local time, 4 p.m. BST, 11 a.m. EDT

Venue: Stadio Marc’Antonio Bentegodi

TV Info: beIN Sports (US)

Live Stream: BT Sport Connect (UK), beIN Sports Connect (U.S.)

Take three of the Cristian Brocchi era at AC Milan is going to be critical.

After Sassuolo beat Torino 3-1 on Sunday, Milan’s lead over the Neroverdi for sixth place shrank to one point.  Unless they beat Juventus in the Coppa Italia final on May 21, the only way for the Rossoneri to reach European competition for the first time in three years will be to defend their lead in the sixth spot in the table.

That was Brocchi’s task when he replaced Sinisa Mihajlovic two weeks ago.  Things looked like they might be getting better in his first game in charge, a 1-0 win against Sampdoria in Genoa.  But the Rossoneri couldn’t build on that win in the midweek fixtures, limping their way to a goalless draw at home against Carpi—their second 0-0 scoreline in three meetings with the Biancorossi this year.

Milan looked utterly flat against an opponent struggling to beat the drop.  They dominated possession, controlling 74.9 percent of it, according to WhoScored.com, but they often looked like they didn’t know what to do with that possession.  The ball seemed to be constantly cycling around an area 10 yards or so in front of the penalty area as players made lateral pass after lateral pass trying to find some place to force an opening.

They rarely did.  While they did have 20 shots, only three of them were on target.  Ordinarily that could be blamed solely on bad finishing, but an interesting statistic argues otherwise.  Of those 20 shots, nine of them were blocked, which calls into question the quality of the chances the Rossoneri are manufacturing—and in turn whether what Brocchi is doing is really working.

Milan’s lack of creative players who can break down set defenses has been their biggest weakness all year, and now Brocchi needs to compensate for that while at the same time playing the kind of attacking football that owner and president Silvio Berlusconi demands.  That’s going to be even harder with his one truly creative player, Giacomo Bonaventura, sidelined with an injury that could keep him out for the rest of the season.

Bonaventura’s absence—and the abject failure of Kevin-Prince Boateng as trequartista on Thursday—leaves the attacking midfield role to Keisuke Honda, who will hope to feed the Milan strikers into scoring positions.

One potential boon to the Rossoneri is …

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