Allegri/Milan players Quotes

MASSIMILIANO ALLEGRI wants Milan to get back on winning ways despite the many injuries.

Milan will meet Novara on Sunday noon for the second time within a week after beating them in the Coppa thanks to a 100′ minute goal from Alexandre Pato – who got injured in the game and is out for a month.

Pato is just one of 10 players who are unavailable for the last game of the 1st round of the Serie A (9 injuries + 1 suspension), but Coach Massimiliano Allegri wants to win again after last week’s derby loss.

“If Juventus don’t win, we can end the first half of the season on top of the table but it won’t be easy tomorrow. We’ll be playing on a synthetic surface that we’ll train on today for the first time and we’ll be up against a team that played well on Wednesday evening and as such will be confident of doing well, but we have to get back winning,” said the former Cagliari Calcio boss on Saturday in the press conference.

“Last year we had important players coming in. This year we have important players on the way back. Flamini should be back with the team shortly, Pato’s injury shouldn’t keep him out for long, Boateng will be back in about 2-3 weeks but in the meantime we’ve big games in the league and the Champions League.

“Sunday is in the past now and we can’t change the result, now we have to win in Novara. It won’t be easy, they‘ll be looking to play the game of their lives at home looking for points to get away from relegation. It’ll be a very fast game on the synthetic surface and so we’ll have to play a very technically adept game.”

The 44-year-old Rossoneri boss continued: “Tomorrow I want to see Milan win more than anything else. To get that result we’ll have to put in a good performance. We’ll have to adapt immediately to the game.

“It’d be hard for Seedorf to play from the start. On the left it’s more probable that Antonini starts ahead of Mesbah. “Emanuelson has always performed well. We could see Ibra, Robinho and El Shaarawy together but El Shaarawy played 120 minutes on Wednesday and he may be useful coming off the bench.

“Analyzing the first half of the season, the progress has been more or less the same. If we win tomorrow, we’ll have performed like we did in the second half of last season. It all depends on ourselves. Our adversaries are the same and it won’t be easy to equal last season’s form,” the Scudetto holder concluded.