AC Milan midfielder Youssouf Fofana has shed some light on what head coach Paulo Fonseca asks of him tactically, while he also spoke about what the derby win over Inter means.
Fofana was Milan’s fourth summer signing and many believe that he is the most important player to arrive given that the whole balance of the side rested (and continues to rest) on having a more natural defensive-minded midfielder to protect the back four and link with the players further upfield.
Against Inter we saw the former Monaco man fully at work. He amassed 10 duels (six won), two tackles, 73 touches, 68 passes with seven into the final third, three clearances and 10.4km covered at an average speed of 10.8km/h.
Those might seem like a list of random numbers, but he was either first or second among all the Rossoneri players in each statistic, which Sky’s Manuele Baiocchini said makes him a ‘360-degree’ player.
Fofana spoke to SportMediaset and reflected on the past few days as well as revealing what the coach expects from him in his midfield role, with MilanNews relaying his comments.
What has changed after the derby success?
“Almost nothing, just confidence. Just the confidence that we lacked a little. I know that in my head, and in the heads of my team-mates, we wanted to do well, and that’s what we did. We just needed a victory to increase the confidence to start something new.”
What does Fonseca ask of you?
“He asks me for balance between attack and defence. This relationship is necessary, and I am that relationship. When you have the ball, when you don’t have the ball. Basically he asks me to be, in inverted commas, aggressive, to give aggression, to win the ball and let my team-mates play.”
Great 👍 more of the aggressiveness in the upcoming matches. Welldone lads. Forza Milan to the moon and back
Yea he basically needs to be the Van Bommel of this team. His tackles need a little more strength but it may just come with more confidence in everything he does as the team itself becomes more confident. But his positioning and aggression really made the dif and allowed reijnders to terrorize inter so they could never really stretch Milan except on that goal of theirs. Fofanas play is also the most easily transcribable thing from the derby, that should be the same for almost every match we play regardless of the other teams style.
He has still work to do to improve but hopefully he will get there.
He was technically never a true defensive midfielder and was always paired with players just as good if not better than him defensively (the likes of Tchouaméni and Kanté for example). Right now he is being paired with Reijnders, so he will need to learn how to morph himself in order to help winning back balls and provide balance to our midfield. Also, because of the Euro and our lowball, he couldn’t enjoy the preseason and had to come a bit out of shape and unprepared.
He did however improve compared to his first games, let’s hope he keeps the trend.
Anybody else finding the new ad banner on this site really f@#king annoying?
Between the video you have to close and the now the new ad banner at the bottom of the screen. I typically see 15 to 20 % of the screen. Every time the screen reloads you have to do two clicks before you can read the article.
Your taking the p!$$ Sempre Milan.
People will stop reading and give up on such a bad user experience.
It’s terrible, I agree.
shut up brody. this media be looking for Fonseca secrets and they be spilling in front of the press 🤦🏽♂️
He’s a good player, and will certainly improve in terms of the rapport with his teammates on the field.