Milan, no problem: there is Loftus-Cheek, the man of steel with muscles and race for the derby

Ruben Loftus-Cheek opens and closes Milanello practically from the first day he set foot there. He took possession of the midfield one afternoon in mid-July, when the senators in the locker room were still on vacation and the rest of the team was taking shape along the folds of the transfer market, and he never let go.

impact

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Including these ten days of rest that separate Milan from the derby scudetto on 16 September: the national teams have looted the squad of the leaders, Pioli has “lost” 15 but not his colossus. He has begun to build the new Milan on the muscles of Loftus-Cheek and will continue in the same way now that there is preparation for the top match against Inter: in his first derby, Ruben is the new man who can blow up the counter.

the man who wasn’t there

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Even if the season has only started with three games, imagining a Milan without the English player today is a rather complicated exercise. For the fans – who only in July had to get used to the number 8 that had been Tonali’s printed on the back of the former Chelsea player – and for Loftus’ teammates themselves. It was enough for Pioli to call him back to the bench during Roma-Milan, shortly after Tomori’s expulsion, to confuse Theo Hernandez, who waved his arms and asked for explanations: “The best outside, why?”. The scene went viral on social media, even if the reason for the change was obvious: Loftus-Cheek was already booked and Pioli wanted to avoid nasty surprises ahead of the derby. Playing him with Ruben can make all the difference in the world, because English is all that Milan has lacked in recent years compared to Inter in the middle: physicality, power, solidity. More technical, obviously, as demonstrated by the percussion with Turin and Rome: with the first, Loftus sent Pulisic to goal; with the second he earned the penalty with which Giroud put the match at the Olimpico downhill. “Ruben is strong. He combines physicality and quality, he likes to insert himself. I would like to see him continuously in the opposing area”, said Pioli during the American tour: when he indicated the name of the English midfielder to the Rossoneri managers, he planned to exploit him “Milinkovic-style” . And Loftus is proving him right, thanks to growing performances.

feeling

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The insertion of the former pupil of Sarri proceeds quickly for a couple of reasons. First of all, the speed of the negotiation that took him from London to Milan helped: Loftus was the second reinforcement after Sportiello and immediately joined the group. He did all of the pre-season and soon acquired the notions of the coach, who also on the basis of his characteristics remodeled Milan on the 4-3-3: as the former Chelsea told, before signing he and Pioli talked about the position in which he would play and the coach’s plans immediately won him over: “Playing in a three-man midfield is my favorite, I already did it in my time at the Chelsea Academy.” Just the axis with the former teammates in blue was the other great accelerator of the acclimatization in Milan: Tomori interprets him in the newspaper (Pioli addresses him in English in training), Pulisic is the tactical reference on the pitch. The American is the player to whom Loftus has delivered the most balls, 19, and the one from whom he has received the most, 13. The agreement has already produced one goal and will equip Milan with new weapons to hit Inter: Inzaghi he will not only have to beware of the Theo-Reijnders-Leao triangle, but also of the dangers of the Loftus-Pulisic axis. And Calabria.

perfection

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Because, in his first 68 days as a Milan supporter, Loftus-Cheek has already been many things. He started as an attacking midfielder with licenses as an attacking midfielder (pre-season), he continued lowering himself to guardian in front of the defense while Reijnders was the one to break away (in his Bologna debut), he landed in the opposing area as a raider (Turin and Rome). To create the foundations for the latest metamorphosis was the almost permanent advance of Calabria on the line of midfielders. The formula drove Juric’s grenade pressers crazy and Mourinho’s yellow-red wait-and-sees: what if it becomes the new player who shuffles the cards with Inter? At Milanello, where Loftus and Calabria pull the small group of 8 first team players left to train, Pioli is also working on this. And on the Englishman’s attention in the defensive phase: someone, in these first three games, managed to get away from him, see Ferguson and Schuurs. We are in the order of the episodes, but a perfect Milan will be needed to take the derby and extend the lead. Ruben knows it, it’s not for nothing that Milanello has been opening and closing for two months now.