Samuel Chukwueze has been one of the mysteries of the start to the season for AC Milan and Paulo Fonseca’s words in Friday’s press conference outlined how he sees the situation.
As Calciomercato.com recall, Fonseca responded as follows when asked about Chukwueze’s difficulty in getting starts: “He had a very good pre-season, when he had space against big teams. When we arrived here, against Torino and Lazio, I think Chukwu was not as good as in the pre-season
“It’s not a problem of quality, but of confidence. He needs to gain confidence and play in this context: in Serie A he has no space, he has to make movements at the right time, he has little time to decide.
“He came on well against Inter, he has to grow in games perhaps like the one tomorrow, without space. He has to grow in this.”
The Nigerian winger has only amassed 148 minutes in this start of the season, too little for a player that Milan had wanted so strongly that they invested €20m plus €8m in bonuses to sign him from Villarreal.
The growth shown at the end of last season and in preseason has stopped totally or almost, and with such underwhelming performances – plus Christian Pulisic continuing his red-hot form – the door is closed to a starting spot.
Fonseca has not thrown in the towel but, on the contrary, wants to work to improve Chukwueze both technically and in terms of character, with the support of a team that are big supporters of the 25-year-old.
Samu must do something more both in training and in the opportunities that will come to him from the former Lille coach otherwise he risks ending up being sold, despite just one full season at the club and a contract until 2028.
I still believe Milan should have signed Berardi instead of Chukwueze. Next summer he should be sold if he doesn’t improve this season.
I’m also sick of Milan signing low quality players like Musah, Thiaw, Jovic, Okafor and Emerson Royal.
We need players who can immediately improve the quality of the team. This is why Milan cannot grow to the next level. Too many low level quality players are being signed.
It doesn’t work that way, because if you have two players of exactly the same quality, one has to go on the bench, and that’s hard to find.
Yeah let’s continue to stockpile donkeys for depth and then the starter has to play every game because his backup is a liability.
What ever happened to developing players and providing them with the environment needed to grow and be better?
the real problem with chuku is we don’t have an actual 10. a creative attacking mid. i’m still going to stress it. liberalli combination with chuku. is better than. Rlc …….pulisic.
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but i understand fonseca. without a proper DM it is a gamble using liberalli.
now you see the problem is not Chuku but the management lack of awareness on the team they building.
Stop making excuses for Chuku. It’s not other players fault that Chuku has not produced. Pulisic plays with the same players and doesn’t have any problems. Chuku’s problem, besides that he can only use one foot, is that he just stands out wide and waits for people to pass him the ball. He doesn’t make intelligent runs, he doesn’t cut inside the way Pulisic does. He waits for something to happen rather than making it happen himself. I’m not giving up on him yet, he has talent , just needs to learn the game better.
For starters, we need to stop spending 100M€ on 5 or 6 average players and spend it on 2 or 3 good players.
The probability of getting a good player for less than 20M€ is fairly low, getting 5 good players for less than 20M€ each is close to 0.
We should raise the spending per player to 40-50M€ and try to get some players on loan.
I agree about spending strategy, quality over quantity please.
He can be used for next 2 years.
“otherwise he risks ending up being sold”
who would buy him? unless Milan take a huge hit on his transfer fee, he is going nowhere.
The guy is stone cold useless
It blows my mind how any decent scout could pay that kind of money for him.
Forget about form or highlights or goals v Madrid, there is one irrefutable fact –
HE CANNOT USE HIS RIGHT FOOT- AT ALL
They need to send him to the academy to learn how to play football with his right foot
Pioli said explicitly last year that Chukwueze is lazy during practice. Fonseca was showed focusing on him during the preseason. And he’s still poor. For now he’s a bust and a pricey one.
Yeah he is becoming a problem. Going in to this season I thought, at least he is a good back up which gives us needed depth.
Unfortunately at this stage, I don’t think he is even a good back up. Fonseca brought on Okafor for Pulisic v Inter, which makes sense, Okafor is much better
the real problem with chuku is we don’t have an actual 10. a creative attacking mid. i’m still going to stress it. liberalli combination with chuku. is better than. Rlc …….pulisic.
but i understand fonseca. without a proper DM it is a gamble using liberalli.
now you see the problem is not Chuku but the management lack of awareness on the team they building.
The real problem is he cannot kick the ball with his right foot!