AC Milan will take on Juventus on Saturday night in a crucial game at San Siro, and Paulo Fonseca is reportedly plotting further tactical alterations.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) recall this morning how Fonseca has already got Milan fans accustomed to a changing side. The switch to the 4-4-2 in the derby against Inter and playing with a five-man defence against Real Madrid are just two examples of bold calls that paid off.
Alarm triggered
The three goals conceded against Cagliari showed that Milan still remain too exposed and too fragile. Thus, here is another possible change with the aim of strengthening the defence: a three-man midfield, and inside the new midfield the physicality and dynamism of Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
The Englishman has not had a great season so far with five games as a starter in the league, the last against Napoli and the penultimate in mid-September against Venezia. In the Champions League he was a starter three times out of four, starting from the bench in the success in Madrid.
After a first season with six goals in Serie A and four in the Europa League, this year he remains stuck on zero but with few shot attempts. A starting spot against Juve would also be a strategy to restore his confidence, in the hope that it will be reciprocated by an up to par performance.
Movements
Adding an extra body and some size to the midfield and providing a leading role for Loftus-Cheek would have inevitable consequences on the other departments. The goal is to protect the defence, but the attack would also suffer.
For the derby the masterstroke was to use Alvaro Morata as more of an attacking midfielder and Tammy Abraham as the striker, but this time the Spaniard would take up his duties as a centre-forward, with Rafael Leao and Christian Pulisic (the latter no longer central) on the wings.
The changes would be notable, as they have been on other evenings: Noah Okafor and Filippo Terracciano on the left flank against Napoli, and then Yunus Musah as the right winger/wing-back at the Bernabeu to slow down Vinicius.
This time Milan must win against Juventus, in order to try and catch the Scudetto train before it definitively leaves without them. Against Inter and Real the Diavolo were underdogs, but the San Siro crowd expect Fonseca’s side to impose their game and entertain.
The preparation
Being among the few players who have remained at Milanello can be considered an advantage for Loftus-Cheek, who was able to work uninterrupted with the coach at the training complex, aside from when time off was granted.
Fonseca will have had the opportunity and will have the chance in the next few days to give him specific instructions, even if for the coach the three-man midfield would not be a real turning point.
“In reality we always play with three midfielders, in Cagliari they were Reijnders, Fofana and Pulisic,” he said after the draw in Sardinia, an away match in which evidently something didn’t work.
Pulisic will only be available from Wednesday and Fonseca will not be able to ask him to work overtime on the pitch. RLC, on the other hand, is ready to do so to try to relaunch his season. Milan must do the same.
Ruben on AM again? Urgh, bye, bye 3 points vs juve..
I’ll never understand why we keep buying mezzalas and then play in a system without mezzalas. It’s plain crazy
I remember that 2 former players or coaches said that Milan should use a 4-3-3 rather than a 4-2-3-1 to which Fonseca expressed his disagreement, plus he was essentially a 4-2-3-1 coach to begin with. So this might be him being stubborn about a 4-2-3-1.
I’ll never understand why a system that allowed us to win against Real Madrid was completely ditched.
Young man let me sound this very clear to you Acmilan are not the 4-3-3 type Acmilan are the 4-2-3-1 because our game is on attacks not on touches thank Acmilan should remain in their 4-2-3-1 rather than aimless 4-3-3.
Cruyff, on the differences between a 4-3-3 and a 4-2-3-1, Holland. “The problem with two holding midfielders is quite simple, but somehow, many coaches don’t see it. The buildup happens too slow. Holding midfielders always need that extra touch. You always need to have a look when they have the ball already. That takes time away. The opponent can position themselves to stop the killer pass, and the forwards are all marked. Plus, having two holding midfielders means there is one less creative playmaker. It’s a double-edged sword.” “We need one good controller in midfield and two creative players on the wide midfield spots as Barcelona does. Or Man United and Man City, for that matter. This way, if the wide players have the ability to run as well, it’s much easier to control the opponent, to put pressure on the ball early, and to play with forward pressure,” “I believe this was done because our defensive line was not that strong. We didn’t have Strootman nor Nigel de Jong in those days and Sneijder, Van Persie and Robben were not yet as good and confident as they are now.
We need to play our strongest defenders, and that could mean Douglas. But, as I always say, the best way to keep pressure off your back four is by attacking!” “Coaches use the 4-2-3-1 system to avoid risk, but with two defensive midfielders, you lack a creative player, and your team will fall apart in two sides. You can’t make triangles, and it’s essential to have triangles to play good positioning play.” “If our build-up is slow, the effectiveness of our creative forwards will decrease significantly. Van Persie got a lot of criticism last World Cup, and I believe it was because we played too defensively and passively. We became a counter team. Our best players are up front, though. They need the ball, and they need it quick. I love that fact. All nations would love to have our problem, even Germany, Italy, Spain and England. Spain has sensational midfielders but could use a Huntelaar or Van Persie. I believe we need to play our strongest team, with the best players. We need to field one holding midfielder – and we can field one who can play football too! And take the game to the opponent Relentlessly.”
Fluidity As Cruyff says, it is a “double-edged sword” to play with two holding midfielders. Most problems with information can be solved with the fluidity of the team.
When teams are too static, they are really limited in their positions within that formation. Say a 4-2-3-1 had a double pivot holding midfield; with that fluidity in midfield, your 4-2-3-1 can turn into a 4-3-3 in attack and maybe even a 3-4-3 if the now single holding midfielder decides to drop between the two center backs. It is a lot of transitioning in the team’s positioning and needs to be done quickly and intelligently to work, but it could solve the problems any formation has by being more fluid. If you lose the ball, you can press cause you are in a sort of 4-3-3 formation now, anyway. If you can’t win the ball back immediately by pressing, then your holding midfielder who moved forward can now drop back next to your second holding midfielder, and your team can defend in a 4-2-3-1. Most problems can be solved with intelligent movement and fluidity.
It is when teams become too static that they start having these sorts of positional problems that Holland was having. Being too static can slow down ball circulation and make your team become very predictable. Attacking or Defensive formations? One thing everyone should remember is that no formation is more “attacking” or “defensive” than the other. In the end, what decides that is the attitude of the players you have. Barcelona play a “4-6-0″ and everyone agrees that they are a very aggressive and offensive team. Scotland played a 4-6-0 and sat very deep and defended. Roma played a 4-6-0 with Totti as a “False 9″ and played counter-attacking football! Ultimately, it is you and your players’ attitude on and off the ball that decides whether or not you have an attacking team or a defensive Team, not just their positioning in a formation on the field, even though some formations may have more players positioned defensively than others.
(obviously full credit to the god father)
Sounds more of a 433 next to Reijnders in the middle. My guess (or hope) is, The Flying Dutchman is doing the 10 role with RLC on the RT side in front of defense.
Either way, more sensible plan than the damn 4231
Half the world has suggested we play 433, the coach doesn’t want to, so not sure what this article is about.
RLC has been hopeless the season so i dont expect much regardless of position he plays.
We should be trading him in whatever our future system looks like
lol…the coach has obvious answers to our problem and its been tested and it worked,but for some reason,our coach keeps changing formation unecessarily. musah patnering fofanna in d pivot will allow reijnders roam freely and improve our attack while d pivot of energetic musah and foffana will shield d defense well.but now we are turning to loftus cheek.well,we’ll see
I have said it before that the coach is a wrong move Milan i swear 😂🤣 clueless and aimless
RLC physicality is for the opponents half upfront, not to shield our defense.
Know this FONSECA and win games with RLC.
RLC is forward minded not one that pays attention to defensive duties.
The very last person we should be building around a strategy… might as well say the plan revolves around Emerson. This guy is clueless. It’s almost like he’s mad that everyone told him to use a 433, then it worked, and he couldn’t handle the fact he was wrong🤡
When did he use 4-3-3?
fonseca never learns omg how dumb is this manager
Fonseca is always getting it right and Fonseca is improving in Acmilan day by day and I advise Fonseca to remain in the 4-2-3-1 Acmilan are not used to 4-3-3 and that’s simple
Wow, I’m so glad that you AREN’T the one coaching or managing the team!!! So you actually believe that our tired 4-2-3-1 has worked better than the other formations? You should be able to look back at all the games this season, and realize that we dropped points mostly when we used the 4-2-3-1, and we were a lot more successful when the formation was different such as 4-3-3 and 4-4-2.
If Fonseca is always getting it right, please explain why we have had losses and draws to and with some rather awful teams???
No, SOMETIMES Fonseca gets it right. Most definitely, he doesn’t do it always. THAT’s what is pretty simple to see; just look at the games when we dropped points to very bad teams.
All games are worth the same 3 points. It doesn’t help if we beat Inter and Real but then we drop points to the likes of Parma, Cagliari, and Fiorentina, and struggle to have a lucky win by the minimum score against relegation-level Monza who should have beaten us if only Daniel Maldini had a better aim.
So, you call losing to the newly promoted Parma “alway getting it right”???
Unbelievable!
I mean these are all point lost based on poor performances from fofana. Granted Maldini didn’t finish those chances. They were given up by poor positioning and mistakes from fofana. The last game fofana assisted them a goal and was the highest man up field on the game tying goal instead of staying home so that Theo could cover the back post…Parma, fofana checked in and immediately they scored as he argued with Theo over who was the one supposed to cover the runner. He doesn’t add nearly enough in attack to warrant the defensive lapses.
Oh no. Why not have Musah there in a 4-3-3 so that Musah helps with defensive duties (especially, helping Emerson Royal)? RLC can’t defend.
Fonseca is always trying to reinvent the wheel, and he has this unreasonable preference for the mediocre RLC. Given that even a broken clock is right twice a day, these constant line-up changes that supposedly are tactical rather than to rest players, often backfire but also occasionally work like against Inter and Real.
This is exactly why we are inconsistent, given that Fonseca seems unable to learn from both his successes and his failures.
We saw it clearly against Cagliari. There was no reason to rest anyone given that we were going into the international break. So, there was no downside in keeping Musah there, and in keeping the CB pairing that worked in Madrid. But no, he didn’t learn from his success, and had to change it all again, thus making we drop two points.
Fonseca is incredibly frustrating. He is a professional coach but doesn’t seem to see what even regular folks like us, the supporters who aren’t professional coaches, can easily see.
Why does he keep doing stuff like this???
Can’t someone from management sit with him and say, “look, Paulo, we have hired you and have supported you and we don’t want to interfere too much with your choices, but as the club managers with a responsibility for the success of the team, we are interested in an explanation. Going into an international break with no need to rest anybody, would you please explain why you felt that making changes to a winning formula was necessary? Frankly, the changes didn’t work, so what gives? Can we count on you for some consistency and for learning from both your successes and the failures? You don’t need to reinvent the wheel every game, when you achieve something that obviously works. Stick with what works!”
What on earth are you even talking about? Who exactly did he rest? Morata was injured and he played the rest of our regular starters. Musah was not being rested, he’s not a regular starter. He makes changes based on the opponent we are facing as most good coaches do. Just because you play one way against Real MAdrid doesn’t mean you will play the same way or that it will work against Cagliari. Tomori and Musah played against Real Madrid to try and deal with the pace of Vini and Mbappe. It worked. Against Cagliari he knew they would try a lot of crosses which is why he had our 2 biggest CB’s in there. As a coach you cannot account for individual player errors or for Theo just deciding he doesn’t want to play defense or mark anyone that day. We shouldn’t need to play 5 at the back to defeat Cagliari. Sometimes it’s on the players.
So far in the big games Fonseca has gotten his tactics right and has outcoached Inzaghi, Ancelloti and Conte. I expect he will do the same this week against Juventus.
He’s not talking about playing 5 in the back. He’s talking about dominating possession using the midfield so you don’t defend the final 45 minutes. Possession as a way to defend. Musah and reijnders can run circles around them. They did it last season in a 5-1 victory. There is no need to defend when the other team never has the ball…
Even loftus cheek in an interview before the season talked about how he was likely to lose most of his minutes to musah given his talent…I don’t get it. He doesn’t get.
I’d like to see that interview.
Is Redbird toying Milan? lol
Have we already been there. Is this a joke?
Anyways, like they said “hope to win the next game.” /haha
RLC has zero ability to play defense. He’s too slow and sluggish. That big body of his is what makes him so slow and useless as a defender (apart from in the air).
He’s only mediocre on offense, occasionally making good passes and shots.
If he starts against Juve, the defense and offense will suffer because he isn’t up to par for what Milan needs. If he starts against Juve, Fonseca will have proved himself to be an utter fool because the match will be either lost or at best tied.
RLC has proved to be like having to play with only ten men. I don’t know why Fonseca can’t see that