Written by BillyTheKid

Probably Our Hardest Europa League Game So Far

Our next game is our third game at home in a week. The most recent game was in the Premier League against Sunderland. Our next game is also our second Europa League game in a week, and our visitors are AC Milan, nicknamed Rossoneri, which means the red and blacks. The game is at 8 pm and will be on TNT.

AFC Bournemouth v AC Milan

AFCB Win

Draw

AC Milan Win

AC Milan were founded by two English ex patriates, Herbert Kilpin and Alfred Edwards. Kilpin was probably the first Englishman to play football abroad. He played for Internazionale Torino between 1891 and 1898. He finally settled in Milan, where the two Englishmen founded a team called Milan Foot-Ball and Cricket Club, later to be AC Milan. Kilpin chose the red and black colours for the team.

It was the Harold Walker and John Bond era when Bond decided to change our colours to those of AC Milan; the club also changed its name to AFC Bournemouth, plus a change to the club badge. Players who have played for both the Cherries and AC Milan are Asmir Becovic, Luther Blissett, Alex Jimenez and Milos Kerkez.

The AC Milan manager is the former Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim; he joined them in June this year. In the Italian Serie A League, after 7 games, his side have W 4, D 3 are 4th with 15 points.

In the Europa League, AC Milan lost their first game, which was at home, 0-2 against Benfica. The latest game was away to RB Salzburg, it finished in a 0-4 for the Italian side. AC Milan have never won the Europa League, but have won the Champions League seven times.

AFCB Team News
Think we may see a similar lineup to the Sturm Graz game, with players rested/substitutes as we have an away fixture on Sunday against Manchester United.

AFCB Player To Watch
Our form player is Evanilson, and he started against Sturm Graz. Also, Rayan has scored 2 goals in each of our two games so far.

AC Milan Team News
They have three players from England in their squad: Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Omari Hutchinson and Fikayo Tomori.

AC Milan Player To Watch
Alphadjo Cisse birthday is the day of our match and he will be 20 years old. He scored a hat-trick in their away game against RB Salzburg and is joint leading scorer in the Europa League with 3 goals. He has also scored 2 goals in Serie A. Diego Moreira is 22; he has scored 3 goals in Serie A for his club and has 1 assist. The experienced 31-year-old Adrien Rabiot is the leading scorer with 4 goals and leads with 3 assists.

The Referee
The man in charge is Vassilis Fotias from Greece.

Your say…

Daveyboy19

I’m really torn about how we should go about this; do we make as many changes as against Graz? The fixture list is really looking busy, and we need to find resting opportunities somewhere.

My feeling is we will go almost full strength, as probably the toughest European fixture on paper, and make major changes against Villa. With the view that our European fixtures get potentially easier and we can make more changes for those.

Especially if we have 9 points on the board already! – To join the conversation, please click here.