Four players who were near-automatic picks for Massimiliano Allegri last season are no longer sure of a starting spot under Ruben Amorim: Matteo Gabbia, Fikayo Tomori, Davide Bartesaghi and Alexis Saelemaekers, as La Gazzetta dello Sport report.
This is the clearest sign yet of how far Amorim intends to move Milan from what worked last year. Allegri built on a deep block and a back three that defended space. Amorim wants a high line, wing-backs who attack, and centre-backs who can play. That change of system decides who stays and who goes, and the four names above are the ones caught between the two ideas.
Start with Gabbia, at Milanello since he was 13 and the anchor of Allegri's three-man defence, the middle man in a line that often sat deep. A high line asks different things. Gabbia isn't built to defend 40 yards of space, and he isn't the ball-player Amorim wants stepping out from the back. The arrival of Mario Gila, quicker, more aggressive, better on the ball, is not a coincidence.
Tomori's case is more serious. He was the weakest of Allegri's three central defenders and, for three seasons now, a shadow of the defender who helped win the 2022 Scudetto. Amorim wants defenders who build; Tomori gives the ball away too often. His contract runs down in under a year with no renewal in sight, and Milan have set an asking price of €15-20m, with Juventus interested. The club bought him for around €28m from Chelsea in 2021, so €15-20m is a loss on paper. But for a player heading toward a free exit who no longer fits the manager, banking anything is the sensible read.
Bartesaghi is the feel-good story from last season, a homegrown left-back who went from possible Milan Futuro minutes to the starting XI because Allegri backed him. Amorim's left flank tells a different story. Look at who he's used there: Dalot, Mazraoui, Dorgu, Malacia, Quenda, Nuno Mendes. The common thread is pace and drive. Bartesaghi has the technique but not Theo Hernández's explosiveness, and if Milan sign a left wing-back to replace Estupiñán, his spot gets tighter.
Saelemaekers faces the same squeeze on the opposite side. Amorim wants one-v-one threat from his wide men, which is why Samuel Chukwueze is being trialled as a wing-back in training despite being a natural winger. Saelemaekers is the balancer, useful in both phases but light on end product: three goals and five assists last season. The bar Amorim sets is higher. Amad Diallo produced eight goals and seven assists in roughly four months as a United wing-back under him.
The system change has drawn the line. Now it falls to Amorim, and to the mercato, to decide which of the four survives it.