Despite his recent drop in form, Milan need Rafael Leao to show his best in their decisive Champions League match with Tottenham.
The 23-year-old Portuguese winger has been a key figure for the Rossoneri over the last two seasons, but has fallen off a little in the last two months, seemingly suffering from the endless transfer market noise surrounding him.
Leao has not scored in Milan’s last eight consecutive outings across various competitions and did not take part in their loss to Fiorentina due to a yellow-card suspension.
As highlighted by Gianluca Di Marzio, the underlying numbers highlight Milan’s clear reliance on Leao, regardless of whether or not he gets on the scoresheet.
The Rossoneri average 2.3 points per match when Leao is on the pitch and just 0.7 when he’s absent, a sign of his importance to his teammates.
One of the main difficulties Milan have when Leao is absent is creating chances; with him on the pitch, an average of 3.2 chances per match are created, far move than the 1.3 chances per game when he’s out. Their goals per game drops from 1.8 to 1.3 when he’s absent, as do their counter-attacks, from 1.8 to 0.5.
In the Champions League this season, Leao is third in the list of players who have completed the most dribbles and won the most one-on-one duels, behind just Vinicius Junior and Ousmane Dembele.