It was always expected that Paulo Fonseca would conduct his evaluations of players when he arrived, and it seems that the Portuguese coach could halt AC Milan’s search for a defender due to some training experiments.
Even though Milan have a healthy mercato budget, sometimes, you find new solutions to problems that aren’t drastic, and this seems to be the case in the early stages of the window.
It has been reported for months that the Rossoneri could look to strengthen at right-back, not due to massive issues with Davide Calabria, but rather to offer the captain some more viable competition than an ageing Alessandro Florenzi.
Understandably, the Diavolo looked to the mercato initially and had a three-man shortlist, which has gradually become a one-man shortlist. However, they could halt their pursuit of the man, Emerson Royal, due to some findings in Milan’s early training sessions.
In his first press conference, Fonseca stated that he was going to experiment with Pierre Kalulu to see how feasible it would be to use him as a right-back, and according to recent reports, the experiments have gone very well.
With this in mind, Corriere dello Sport (via Milan News) have reported that Kalulu could provide a balance to the defence, and allow greater tactical flexibility to further support Theo Hernandez’s attacking tendencies.
Therefore, the key to unlocking this balance could be Kalulu, a natural central defender with experience on the right of a four, and if he is seen as a right-back, then it would presumably stop the pursuit of another full-back, giving more reason to invest in a central defender, or two.
We still need the 4th cb unless they promote simic
Simic is already promoted
promoted to be sold if he doesnt renew and if he does renew send to futuro. poor S.O.B
we usually need 5 cb in squad, so need another 1.
We get Pavlovic, and Kalulu as RB is a good option, but I’m worried by the fact that he’s been an injury prone for quite some time now
I would rather not buy anyone at RB than buy Emerson Royal tbh. I am not saying that he is a sh%% player, I am just saying that, we already have players with his characteristics.
if kalulu play RB, he still has the highest number of back up in the team, with calabria, florenzi, and terraciano.
“Even though Milan have a healthy mercato budget”
Really? I think they have no budget at all apart from CdK sale and some peanuts they’re saving from Caldara’s, Giroud and Kjaer wages and that’s why they’re lowballing for Fofana and Pavlović.
You know what is starting to worry me a little bit, the number 10 position since fonseca uses a 4231 formation and we don’t have a player who can play naturally in that position.
some people may say pulisic can fill that role but he’s shown last season that he is more of a winger and pioli experimented with loftus-cheek last season who scored a few goals but he doesn’t have the qualities of a number 10.
Facts
We got 3 players who can play the cam role perfectly,that is pulisic, reijnders and Adli. Pioli just prefer to use very physical players as his 10.same way he used kessie as 10 back then and tonali and bennacer as double pivot.
Reijnders.
Fonseca likely doesn’t see his defense as strong enough for the pivot, the 10 gives him more freedom.
Pretty funny to read all these articles as if Fonseca is a tactical genius and as if he hasn’t already coached in Italy and other countries with sub-par results (excluding Ukraine – as that doesn’t really count). I mean I guess anyone is an upgrade over Pioli from a tactical perspective – but these articles make it sound like Fonseca is a genius and that he and his tactics will save us from doom… let’s surely hope that in the case – but I’m not sure it’s that simple or he can be a miracle worker these articles seem to imply – we are talking about Fonseca – not Pep, Klopp or Carletto. He has a lot to prove IMO. Fingers crossed
The article says he likes Kululu’s skillset at fullback and plans to play him there. I don’t see much mention of tactics or genius? Indeed, it was doom when the club was almost relegated last season under Pioli. Hopefully it doesn’t repeat itself.
OK, but the problem is, one CB gets hurt and we’re having to pull Kalulu in as a CB which means we go back to Calabria’s sh|tty offensive output as RB?
If Pavlovic comes in, we can mitigate. But having Kalulu’s versatility certainly helps.