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Massimiliano Allegri has rotated his starting line-up the least in Serie A so far, and this consistency might well be helping AC Milan.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) write, in the first few games of the season, the Milan manager has used just 15 different players from the start. The latest, Davide Bartesaghi against Juventus, was a forced selection due to Pervis Estupinan’s red card the week before against Napoli.
This number immediately leads to a couple of considerations. The first: Max has already found a team and the players he can count on decisively. The second, almost obvious: without European competition, there’s no need to give the starters a rest, as happens in other teams.
Conte’s precedent
Allegri finds himself in the same situation Antonio Conte experienced at Napoli last year. The Italian champion coach finished the 2024-25 Serie A season with nine players playing over 2,000 minutes.
Among those who didn’t reach that point were players like Buongiorno (stopped at 1,926 minutes) and Spinazzola (1,519), victims of injuries, or Kvaratskhelia (1,187), sold to PSG in the winter transfer window. In short, if everything had gone smoothly, the list of players ‘over 2,000’ would likely have been longer.
Today’s Milan is on a similar path. The most used is Matteo Gabbia, who hasn’t missed a single minute of the 540 he’s played so far in the league. Not far behind, at 515 minutes, is the unwavering Modric, followed by Saelemaekers with 506 minutes.
Seven players have started every match, but without Maignan’s injury and Estupinan’s suspension, there would likely have been nine. This is the same as if Rabiot (a starter in all four matches since joining Milan) had arrived earlier.
Allegri essentially has his starting line-up firmly in place. He can only move up one spot in attack, with Leao’s return to full fitness and Nkunku’s growth. Otherwise, the hierarchy is well-defined and clear.
The others
This doesn’t apply to all the big clubs, who ar forced to make more significant changes due to their participation in European competitions. Thus, league leaders Napoli, for example, have already used 21 different players as starters in the league.
Curiously, it is the same number as Inter (but also counting Benjamin Pavard, who started from the start in his debut against Torino and was then sold to Marseille before the transfer window closed).
Atalanta are on the same as well, but they have had to deal with numerous injuries: Ederson, for example, only made his first start in the 2025-26 Serie A season on Saturday night against Como, as did Lookman, for other, well-known reasons.
Roma and Juventus, however, remain in the middle of the pack, with 18 different players fielded by Gasperini and Tudor, respectively, in their starting eleven for the league. The Giallorossi and Bianconeri, however, lack the squad depth of Napoli and Inter, so turnover can only go so far.
This consideration also applies to Milan in some areas: in defence, Allegri has never changed his starting trio (Tomori, Gabbia, and Pavlovic) in Serie A matches and the feeling is that he is unlikely to do so unless forced.
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