AC Milan have started the 2024/25 season really poorly, drawing against Torino and losing their most recent fixture against Parma. Today, Tommaso Turci has offered some honest truths about their start.
Starting a season in the manner that Milan have done is poor for any club that aspires to challenge for Europe, let alone the Champions League and better yet, the Scudetto. Yet, the Rossoneri have started in that way.
Of course, there have only been two games played, so the season is by no means a failure at this point, and it is way too early to create assumptions. However, change must occur quickly otherwise the season will quickly start to look that way.
Regardless of the opening two games, there are still 108 points up for grabs, and Paulo Fonseca can still turn things around, even if reports suggest that there are some doubts potentially forming about his position.
Following this weekend’s loss to Parma, DAZN journalist Tommaso Turci spoke to Radio Rossonera‘s YouTube channel and he reflected on the first two games.
Analysis of Milan’s defeat to Parma…
“In my opinion many more faults than last season in these first two games. Milan between Torino and Parma left a lot of space to the opponents, restarts, a team not organised and tidy. There are so many problems that in my opinion start more from the players than from a discourse of technical guidance.
“I believe that some players must be aware that when you are at Milan and you play in Milan you are always in question. The humility of the great champions is missing, that of thinking that every match qualifies you as a professional. There are matches and matches and one can only think of playing a few: it seems strange to talk about motivation with professionals who should find it even in friendlies.
“But you really have to get inside the heads of these players and understand how such an approach is possible. What I didn’t understand about Saturday’s match is the fact that after the game you played against Torino at home with the desire to go and get the result…
“I imagined a team that entered the field mean, careful, with the desire to be aggressive. But after 3-4 mistakes on one play, goal conceded, team at the mercy of events. It’s a Milan that goes in fits and starts, that struggles to be organised. But first of all it takes responsibility on the part of the individuals who have to raise their level a little bit, but it’s always the same old talk.
“Those who have to be the draggers today, not only technically but also in terms of character, must swerve immediately.”
Who bears the most responsibility?
‘I was asked a short while ago for an opinion on the Milan football market. If we go and analyse how it worked, it had to keep its three most important players, Maignan, Theo Hernandez and Rafael Leao, and it had to go and shore them up with experienced and future players.
“The club did what it had to do, Fofana was available in France and I have many expectations around this player. Then the results have to prove my thesis, you cannot just speak from the sidelines. Here we are talking about a coach who has been working for 6-7 weeks with this group and has always been optimistic in all the conferences he has given, as if there were no problems.
“That he says that during the week we work in a certain way and that on Sunday we struggle on the pitch. These are very worrying things: if you see the team in training in a certain way and during the match something is missing it means that you have negative answers, it matters little if you don’t give your soul in the official match.
“Clearly, it is a contest of faults, but the main culprits are those who take the field. If there’s a way of being on the pitch that foresees a certain type of aggressiveness and desire to go and get the ball and this is not respected… It’s clear that the coach is the one who puts them on the pitch, but the players must take their responsibility.
“If we go and analyse the goals that Milan have conceded, the second one in Parma there’s Almqvist going 60 metres on the ball after a bad horizontal pass. Someone has to come out there. The feeling today is that the team is mainly responsible for what is happening. Everyone is to blame, but guys, they are taking the field…”