Christian Pulisic is set to get his first minutes of the season when Lazio and Milan meet in Serie A tomorrow, after Ruben Amorim said the forward has been left angry by a run of official games without a single appearance. Amorim said he expects Pulisic to feature, though he would not yet say whether that means a start or a place on the bench.
The timing matters because the comments came on Friday, just before the match, and because Pulisic had gone through the season’s opening spell on zero minutes. Amorim said he thinks the forward will play at least a few minutes, adding that Pulisic is training well and remains very important to Milan. That makes the question less about whether he returns and more about how soon Milan are willing to put him back into the game.
Amorim also drew a sharp line around selection. He said he would not leave out players who are performing well to bring in any other player in the world, a remark that underlined both the competition for places and the fact that Pulisic is coming back from injury and then a knock in his first training session after his return. In other words, the forward is available again, but availability does not automatically mean a place in the starting XI.
The backdrop is a Milan side about to face a Lazio team Amorim described as fast, aggressive and clear in its identity. He said Lazio build with four players and three midfielders, have two superb wingers in possession and have a new striker, while also noting that they have won all three of their opening Serie A matches. Milan, by contrast, are trying to settle into a 3-4-2-1 shape while preparing for a demanding stretch of eight weeks with three matches a week after the break.
Amorim’s comments on Pulisic sat alongside a wider demand for Milan to recover some of the fire he associated with Gattuso, one of the club’s legends. He said talent is not everything and argued that the passion and ferocity Gattuso brought to football are what Milan need to copy now. That view helps explain why Pulisic’s situation has become more than a simple fitness update: it is now a test of how quickly Milan can turn a frustrated, unused forward into a useful part of a team that says it wants to be strong.
For now, the answer to the immediate question is straightforward. Pulisic is expected to be in the picture against Lazio, and Amorim has left the door open only on the detail that matters most: whether the forward begins the match or comes on to change it.
