Paulo Fonseca compared AC Milan to some of the other teams vying for supremacy in Serie A when asked about the idea that patience is wearing thin.
Fonseca arrived at Milan during the summer transfer window to replace Stefano Pioli, and with it a new era was launched after nearly half a decade under the previous coach.
Expectations and optimism were high that the Portuguese would bring a new lease of life to transform what had become quite a stagnant environment, but there have been growing pains.
The Rossoneri currently sit 10 points off top spot and nine from the Champions League positions. This is despite the fact that teams like Napoli, Lazio, Fiorentina and Juventus all made big chances too, hiring Antonio Conte, Marco Baroni, Raffaele Palladino and Thiago Motta respectively.
During his pre-match press conference before the Empoli game, Fonseca was asked the following: There are teams near the top of the table who changed a lot in the summer, like Milan did. Is the excuse of change running out?”
The response was as follows: “I’m sure that in the end we will be ahead of some of these teams. But let’s talk about us. We started the pre-season with 15 players and the ‘kids’.
“We went to the USA, things were beautiful. We started eight days before the first game with the other players, the most influential players of the team who were at the Euros. And we worked on things for eight days. After that we never had time to train.
“And now, little by little, our training is more video, we are improving. But when you change so much it is more difficult. I don’t think that these teams, except Napoli, have not had the players in pre-season: those are 4-5 weeks of training that are very important when you change.
“Then one of these teams does not play in the Champions League during the week. Napoli have a new coach but he has the whole week to work.
“Then there are two very strong teams like Inter and Atalanta with the same coach for years. If we only want to talk about results I am the first to say that we have to do more.”
It’s possible that lazio and fiora will lose steam at some point, but we are losing steam since day 1. Or better said never had any to being with.
I don’t see this Milan going on a winning streak and bagging points. We aren’t improving. In fact it’s far more likely that overused players will blow a fuse and we will get even worse
We had steam in pre-season, playing teenagers 🙂 Now we’re a couple of injuries away from a full-blown collapse.
Brave words man.
Let’s see if they can come. To effect.
Fonseca can be saved in terms of crazy luck
He needs to grab fifth position and pray for Italian teams to reach very high in champions league, Europe and conference league this season.
All of that talking is worthless if you not gonna make it work
Aaaand how long did it take for Conte to make Napoli play how he wanted? I think it was right after the Serie A opener against Verona where they lost 3-0. After that they’ve looked like Conte started there 2 years ago.
No we are not improving, we can’t even have win more than 2 games in a row ffs. We can’t improve with this endless CB switching, Royal starting, Pulisic as an AM and Loftus-Cheek starting. Every single team, with the exception of Venezia and Lecce caused problems, EVERY SINGLE ONE.
Also, I do acknowledge that making a team improve takes time, but we’re also bounded by some minimal results. If by the next 3 or so serie A games, including tonight, we don’t clause the gap significantly with the fourth place, we have to consider that the mission has failed and that Fonseca, Ibra and Moncada have to be relieved of their duties.
Conte “fixed” Napoli in a week. We’re soon at halfway of the season and our defense is probably leaking more than ever. Scudetto race, eh? 😀 😀 😀