GdS: Giroud has not trained this week – what filters ahead of Udinese trip

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·18 January 2024

GdS: Giroud has not trained this week – what filters ahead of Udinese trip

AC Milan have been in training for the last couple of days to begin preparing for the trip to face Udinese on Saturday night, but Olivier Giroud was not present.

This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (as seen below) recalls that Giroud was arguably the best player on the pitch against Roma as he scored his 10th league goal of the season and set up Theo Hernandez with a brilliant backheel.

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However, the Frenchman hasn’t trained at Milanello in the last two days due to a fever, which they call the ‘classic January flu’ rather than testing positive for Covid or anything more serious.

The centre-forward is aiming to return to training today for the penultimate training session before leaving for Udine on Saturday, and if he is better then he would be the favourite to start.

If he does not recover in time then the responsibility will fall on the shoulders of Luka Jovic, for what would be his fifth start in the league. Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leao will flank whoever the striker is.

We will therefore wait for updates from today’s training session, but the paper does add that there is ‘cautious optimism’ the 37-year-old will make the trip.