The Christmas break came at a good time for Milan, following the 1-0 win against Verona, and the hope is that they have recharged their batteries. For Paulo Fonseca, there are some very obvious goals after the break.
Milan will be up against Roma this Sunday and as highlighted by Calciomercato.com, winning that game is obviously the first step towards a ‘relaunch’. However, there are four bigger targets that Fonseca will set his sights on.
Revitalise Theo
This is one of the biggest dilemmas currently, with the Frenchman performing way below his usual standard. His valuation has decreased as a result and Milan have also lacked their edge on the left-hand side of the pitch.
Fonseca has opted for the same treatment he used to revitalise Rafael Leao at the start of the season, and it seems it might be working. Indeed, Hernandez chose to spend a day off at Milanello to train and find the form needed to return to being a leader of this team.
Without a doubt, getting the No.19 back to top form is one of the main targets for Fonseca, seeing just how important the player can be.
Reach top four
It’s clear that Milan already find themselves too far behind the rivals at the top of the standings, especially when you consider that the Scudetto was mentioned in the summer. Albeit with a game in hand, the Rossoneri are in 8th place and missing out on the UCL is a concrete risk.
Failing to qualify for the competition is unimaginable for the ownership, not only from a purely sporting perspective, but also financially speaking. Climbing to the top four in the standings is thus the main goal, especially since Serie A might not have five spots this time out.
A trophy in sight
The situation in the league is clear, but the same cannot be said for Supercoppa Italiana and Coppa Italia. Aside from the Scudetto in 2022, Milan haven’t exactly lifted a bunch of trophies and the two competitions are thus interesting opportunities.
As such, why not try to go all the way in these two competitions? Fonseca has already shown that he takes these competitions seriously, leaving early for Riyadh to properly prepare for the semi-final against Juventus.
Winning one of these trophies would be very important for Fonseca, especially with the absence of the Scudetto (yet again).
Champions League top 8
Last but not least, the Champions League revenue from this season is crucial. After the two defeats with Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen, Milan have won their last four games in the competition (Club Brugge, Real Madrid, Slovan Bratislava, Red Star) and are serious top 8 contenders.
It would allow them to reach the knockout phase without the play-off tie, and it’s certainly possible since Girona (at home) and Dinamo Zagreb (away) are the final opponents. Fonseca just has to get his tactics right for these games, and the opponents cannot be underestimated either.
I have to laugh. Quite awhile back when I was being critical of management after the Maldini sacking, I made the comment that winning improves the value of your players so when you sell, you sell high. Focusing on off field activities and skimping on the in field production will cost us in the end.
Guess what ended up happening?
I can’t wait for management to realize what missing out on the UCL will do to our bottom line and player values.
We are literally going to be back to square one that we were at before M&M came in. Plus we won’t have Maldini to sweet talk players to take a chance with us. We’ll have Zlatan instead.
Incredible how quickly they’ve went from a great position, full of potential to concenr and worry. I was “sceptical” at first because their first window was media-glamourous but eventually logic prevailed. It made little sense to what they were doing. They couldn’t fool.me by dangling trinkets (signings) in my face. Dismantling the very team that mad them win then Dismantling their own team they constructed just last year is the height of st.upidity. They don’t have enough experience to follow through on their own plan and to have patience to build a winning team, something Maldini clearly knows something about and tried to implement. He might have had little academic and corporate but he fully makes up with sporting intelligence.
I still insist it was Pioli that rubbished Acmilan completely have a look on Pioli reigns before Acmilan sacked him he was using the wrong players and Acmilan conditions was worst because we can even Qualify for champions league group it was disappointing but Fonseca change Acmilan system in champions league and even league it was not worst so Fonseca needs more signing and also time because alot of Solid performance will come from Fonseca.
Are you an APC supporter? Because you sound just like them…always blaming the past for your present failures?