Youssouf Fofana provided his importance to AC Milan with probably his best performance since arriving during the defeat to Bayer Leverkusen, but this in turn has raised a doubt too.
This morning’s edition of Corriere dello Sport (via MilanNews) has the following headline: ‘Fofana unique at Milan. An alter ego is needed’. The notion is that the Frenchman, who arrived in the summer on a permanent basis from Monaco, is becoming increasingly essential for Paulo Fonseca’s team.
His work as a screen in front of the defence is fundamental to offer balance and to protect the back line, especially given that Fonseca has switched recently to playing a four-man front line which also includes a more creative midfielder at his side in Tijjani Reijnders and two attacking wingers.
The paper highlights an issue though: the squad is missing another player with his characteristics. For now, the Portuguese coach sees Yunus Musah as Fofana’s deputy, specifying though that the American must move from being a ‘ball-conditioning midfielder’ to a ‘passing midfielder’.
If the former Valencia player does not prove himself up to this role, then the club could sign another midfielder in January who has more similar strengths to Fofana, with four different names recently linked.
It only took them 2 summers and 90 millions wasted on midfield to realise what’s been missing and what fans been crying for.
Anyway, what about Vos? After all the opening hype, suddenly everything is quiet around “the bargain of the summer”.
Well I’m sure he will get some minutes sooner or later but to be fair I think it has always been the plan to slowly integrate to a new life in Italy probably at minimum staying in the futuro for the first part of the season regardless of the recent media hype.
Imagine if we had Fofana and Tonali, then the attackers can do whatever they want. Better yet Kessie and Fofana. Fofana reminds me of a mix between Kessie and Tonali and has that extra bit of grit (the thing last summer’s signings lacked).
Imagine in summer 2023 after selling Tonali, instead of getting Reijnders (20M€+bonuses), Musah (20M€+bonuses) and Loftus-Cheek (16M€+bonuses) for a total of 56M€ we went for Koopmeiners (valued at 30M€ in 2023) and Hjulmand (sold for 19M€ in 2023) and got a young prospect like Ricci with the remaining money.
Right now we could have had a midfield made of Hjulmand+Fofana+Koopmeiners.
Disgraceful.
Even more when you think they sold fan favourite who fits the need to buy new 60 million midfield that don’t fit at all.
So we have Reijnders and Fofana who are a must starter and no one can replace them.
Bennacer is injured and Adli has been ditched so technically no one can replace Reijnders’ creativity and passing range.
Loftus-Cheek is a mezzala buit for a 4-3-3, he can’t play as deep as Fofana, cut the opposition’s attacks and help the defense, nor he can pass and create the way Reijnders does.
Musah is a NFL player who can just hold onto the ball and run with it until he is stopped. He can’t pass, can’t create (like Reijnders) and doesn’t know how to position himself to stiffle the opposition (the way Fofana does) and is too eager to dribble and left holes in behind. I guess the common point he has with Reijnders is that neither can shoot.
I had optimism for Vos but so far Futuro is struggling and Fonseca doesn’t seem eager to test him.
Liberalli and Zerolli are too young and haven’t been tested enough to be considered reliable replacements.
This current midfielder costed us 79M€ not including bonuses (Fofana 20M€, Vos 3M€, Musah 20M€, Reijnders 20M€ and Loftus Cheek 16M€) and yet our best game was when we used a striker like a midfielder and it still seems we need more midfielders…