Mario Gila lined up as a right-sided centre-back in Milan’s friendly against Celtic on Saturday, and MilanNews report the decision was deliberate rather than a training-ground experiment.
The reason this matters goes beyond one exhibition match. Amorim’s back three doesn’t work in isolation, and where he puts Gila changes what he can ask of everyone in front of him. In this case, the man affected is Samuel Chukwueze. The move that caused the move is the wide defender being asked to cover the wide attacker.
Amorim had used Gila down the middle in training, so shifting him to the right against Celtic told us something. As a ‘braccetto’, the right-sided centre-back in Italian, Gila was there to use his pace, his aggression and his willingness to step into open space. He did exactly that a few times on Saturday. He was the safety net that let Chukwueze push high up the right without leaving a hole behind him.
That is the whole point of playing Chukwueze in a system like this. He offers pace, one-v-one ability and both overlapping and underlapping runs, but his defensive positioning and his duel success are not where they need to be for a wing-back role. Gila covering behind him is the compromise that keeps the Nigerian in advanced areas where he actually hurts opponents.
The problem is what it does to the middle. If Gila slides right, Milan need a genuine left-footed or ball-playing presence in the centre, and Matteo Gabbia struggled in that space against Celtic. When Chukwueze doesn’t start, Gila can go back inside, as the coaching staff hinted from the opening days of camp. But that only shifts the shortage from one slot to another.
Amorim isn’t hunting for another body in defence. He wants a centre-back who can take the ball under pressure and break a press with his passing, not just defend his box. The template is Gonçalo Inácio, whom Amorim developed at Sporting. António Silva was linked but looks set for Bournemouth. Jorrel Hato, the Ajax product now at Chelsea, is another name in the frame.
The number set here is thin because it’s pre-season, but the direction is clear enough. Milan spent to bring in Gila this summer and still walked out of their first friendly with a back line that doesn’t fit together yet. Until a ball-playing centre-back arrives, every tactical tweak Amorim makes is just moving the same gap around the pitch, and it stays up to him and the recruitment staff to close it before the season starts for real.