AC Milan Captain and Starting Centre Back Alessio Romagnoli Benched By Stefano Pioli For The First Time Since 2017/18

AC Milan’s manager Stefano Pioli decided to bench captain and starting centre back Alessio Romagnoli in favour of loan signing Fikayo Tomori from Chelsea in the derby against AS Roma yesterday night. Milan went on to win the game 2-1 as Tomori put in a man of the match performance. Gianluigi Donnarumma wore the captain’s armband in the absence of Romagnoli.

This was the first time since the 2017/18 season that Romagnoli has been benched and then it was under Vincenzo Montella who opted for Mateo Musacchio and Leonardo Bonucci to start.

Calcio Mercato are reporting that there are two reasons for Milan’s captain being benched as follows: firstly Tomori offers more aggression and deals with quicker opponents better; secondly is that Romagnoli is undergoing a spell of poor form mentally and physically.

Peppe di Stefano of Sky Italia via MilanNews.it is reporting that the exclusion of Romagnoli should not be considered to be a ‘huge rejection’ but rather a decision based solely on the poor run of form of the captain.