The moment Christian Pulisic hobbled off the pitch during Milan’s loss to Atalanta, the trajectory of the Rosoneri’s season changed. Whether it changed a little bit or a lot? That’s still to be determined but, right now, Milan will have to handle crunch time without the team’s top attacking star.
Logistically, Pulisic was somewhat fortunate with his injury, which was diagnosed as a calf issue. No stranger to untimely injuries, Pulisic is set to miss a few weeks with this latest ailment. It is both a relief and a blow for AC Milan. The club will be losing him for some time, but that amount of time, thankfully, isn’t wildly significant. Pulisic, if all goes to plan, will be back in early 2025.
The big question: what he’ll return to? Even prior to Pulisic’s injury, Milan found themselves in a tough spot in the league, struggling to compete at the very top of Serie A. Any bad results will be a damaging to their title chase, if not fatal. There’s a worst-case scenario here where Pulisic returns to a Milan team that has fallen totally out of the top-four picture, and the knock-on effects of that would be staggering.
Pulisic has spent this whole season proving that he can be the star at AC Milan. Now, that he’s on the shelf, it’s up to Milan to prove that they can stay afloat without him. If not? That’s the question.