There are a lot of alibis that Sergio Conceicao could point to but football is a results business, and they do not currently shine on the AC Milan coach.
Today’s edition of Corriere dello Sport (seen below) has an article titled: ‘Conceicao, slow pace. Fonseca closed better’. The premise of the article is that the change of coach has not driven away the ghosts of the points per game average.
Conceicao has not managed to bring consistency, just like his predecessor Fonseca, which cost him his job. With the numbers in hand, the current Milan coach is actually doing worse than the current Lyon coach.
In his first 15 games as Milan boss, Conceicao obtained 27 points at an average of 1.8 points per game, while Fonseca in his last 15 games at the club managed to get 31, at an average of 2.06.
The issue for both is that 70 points are generally needed as a minimum for a spot in the top four, and you cannot get to that market without being able to string wins together, which each coach failed to do.
Leaving aside the discussions on individual incidents and a lack of time on the training field, the fact that Milan repeatedly go behind in games is worrying. In his 15 games in charge, Conceicao’s side have gone 1-0 down in eight of them.
I wanted to believe in both of these coaches(having hope is a good thing) even if they weren’t who I wanted to be hired. But neither really excelled. Fonseca up to this point did better mostly because he was doing well in the Champions league. The way Milan crashed out under Sarge is embarrassing. Plus they haven’t gotten any better in Serie A. The only positive for Sarge is the cup win but Pulisic and a one great 2nd half in the final for Leão won that for him. Unless he gets to 4th in the league which looks increasingly unlikely he needs to be let go at the end of the season.
I think coaches are not problem but much more players .
Let’s take a look about players statistic this season all competitions.
Our attack is very thin. We gained Reijnders in scoring goals, 12 + 3 assist, Pulisic 12+ 9.
But those are statistics, for central forwards.
Our central forwards completely flops.
Morata 6 goals in 1600 minutes, Abraham 8 goals in 1400 minutes.
In my opinion Abraham can stay next season as back up CF only if he is going to play for maximum 3 million net salary.
There is no reason why we wouldn’t use Colombo and Camarda as back up options even if they are so unexperienced.
They would score same amount of goals.
Then Theo stayed at 4 goals and there is only one goal from right back position, that’s too little. And than Leao only 9 goals and Chukwueze only 4.
Chukwueze has less amount of goals than before messias or Saelemaekers.
There is no reason why we wouldn’t kept Saelemaekers and send Chukwueze somewhere on loan or even sell him.
We have only three goals from centre back positions and before Tomori knows to score 3 in 1 season.
No back up goals from midfield and when we add numbers from defensive part of a play where we have only 11 clean sheets with Maignan. And he concede 41 goal in 38 games, we can see this average result.
That’s the final result in UCL and current now in Serie a 8th position.
This is average team statistics and definitely not for something bigger.
True. I’m just basing it strictly on results. Not on how bad certain players are playing. In my opinion i don’t blame Sarge when players make huge blunders or boneheaded decisions on the field(which has happened a lot recently). I also don’t blame the Fons for penalty gate or the cooling incident. These are professional players getting paid a ton of money to play a game. I think this season shows that certain players need to be weeded out and bring in actual players who are hungry and who will fight for the club.
Yes.
Fonseca should have been allowed to finish the season or replaced in the middle of the season with a coach that has serie A experience like Allegri.
Conceição would have been a better hire in the summer.
But that’s what happens when inexperienced and incompetent management listen to the media and the masses and try to pander to the overrated players in the squad.
Just like at Napoli last season. They fired Rudi Garcia while they were 4th and 10 points behind inter, just so they can finish 10th and 41 points behind inter.
Conceiçao has collected
eight wins, three draws
and four defeats across all
competitions, averaging
1.8 points per game
In the last 15 games
before his sacking,
Fonseca had averaged
2.06 points per game (31
points), securing nine
victories, losing two
games and drawing four
Conceiçao’s Milan lost to
Juventus, Dinamo Zagreb,
Feyenoord and Torino,
while Fonseca’s only two
defeats came against
Napoli and Atalanta,
Vs Napoli Milan played without Reijnders and Theo because of suspension, plus Pulisic was sick and didn’t start, while vs Atalanta they lost in the last minute after a lucky bounce from a set piece fell in Lookman’s lap.
At the end of the day, it’s neither Fonseca nor Conceição fault that players make dumb mistakes over and over again. All they can do is bench those players and play others but that’s why Fonseca got fired, for benching the lazy bums.
Fonseca should never have been hired to begin with. Even today I see nothing in that man’s resume that says he would have been an ideal candidate for a coach. And when you remember that only him and Lopetegui were actually contacted, I’m actually very curious to hear what were the management criteria for a coach.
With the benefit of hinsight, it’s easy to say that Conceição (or Motta in the case of Juve) should never have been hired, but he did have a good resume and did achieve good results previously.
I feel like who’s better or who’s worse depends on the selected sample, Fonseca has a better tally in the last 15 games but overall Conceição is slightly better and he is certainly better if we compare the first 15 games. But you can say, and rightfully so that he was brought to improve upon the last results, not the firsts.
Neither coach did well and neither one can justify staying for more than half a season.
As for the players, they most likely stopped caring a this point (or most of them probably). Missing the UCL would be detrimental to Conceição, the management and the club finances, but the players will still receive their paycheck and will probably leave when the opportunity arise. Leão, Théo and Maignan might still think that big clubs are coming for them and that won’t change wether or not we make it to the UCL.
In the end when the management fails to hold the players accountable, they’ll understand that there is no actual hierarchy and that they can do as they please.
Milan defended against Atalanta before we conceded the late goal, while the game against Napoli was an embarrassment. Fonseca’s record before Milan was clear indication that he was not the right man for the job. He had good results against Real Madrid and Inter, but, he was going nowhere as far as the league was concerned.
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It’s what I’ve been saying for the last couple of weeks. I don’t think Fonseca should have been appointed to begin with, but the football we were playing with him was better, our defense was MUCH better, and all he needed to do was to figure out how to get the team to score a goal or two more per game, which ironically is still a problem. We might have been better off letting him finish the season.
And when I say “better”, I mean better than Conceicao, to be clear.
😉 What will they say now to defend Conceicao? He crashed us out of the Champions League where Fonseca had us in great position to go thru to the knockout round. The only thing the Conceicao defenders were clinging to was that he had a few lucky wins in the League. Now they don’t even have that. Fonseca was so much the better coach and the team would be in a better position overall if they just let him finish the season.
Now we are stuck with this completely over his head, clueless coach in Conceicao because they don’t want to make another change this season.
So much better coach based on what? They are practically even in points won with Fonzy averaging 0.26 more in points per game while he at least had a bit of preseason. Pioli is A class professor for these two.
They’re both failing because this team is bang average, mentally weak and without any leadership. We’re back in banter era after glimpses of hope in 3 seasons under different management. And that’s all thanks to Gerry and his army of football experts.
Maybe If you don’t think Champions League counts for anything. Fonseca had us sitting at about 90% to go thru to knockout round with 4 straight wins including a big one over Real Madrid. Conceicao crashed us out with losses to Dynamo Zagreb and Feyenoord… With a better squad than Fonseca had, as he did not have Kyle Walker , Giminez, Felix or Scotil.
Fonseca should have been allowed to finish the season as he had some promising performances, and was doing well in Champions League and maybe he could have turned the season around and finished in top 4.
Conceicao is over his head. He has no tactics. No ideas. Just yell, scream , grab, dive. Repeat.
I think it’s too early to grade Sergio, it has not been enough time yet..the team did not develop chemistry yet. Also some of the new players like bondo has not played a game yet…I think milan midfield should be fofana, bondo and reindeer, or fofana, bondo and felix….but we have not seen this combination and everybody is already grading sergio..give the man time, it’s management fault for going wt Fonseca, a coach wt a reputation of failing and for waiting so long to make changes and bring in new players
Fonseca without Gim, Felix and Walker.
Note: Both Fonseca and Conceicao are not Milan level coaches.
Conceicao’s numbers are also bloated by games like the Juventus supercoppa game and the Parma game.
Matches where we looked terrible until scraping a late turn around.
There have been few games where we have actually played well and won comfortably. 3:1 win over Roma in the Coppa italia is the only game like this.
I was watching an Enrico Silvestrin video on YouTube (Milan Content Creator) and according to his “sources” there is in fact a rift between Pulisic, Reijnders and Conceicao with the players not appreciating his tough approach.
Now these players aren’t lazy by any stretch of the imagination. And maybe it’s possible to think that while his methods worked at Porto with the younger players, many of our guys are more “established” so to speak and perhaps tough love doesn’t translate onto players like that the same way.
Also I can see how this would be a cumulative effect combined with confusing lineups and questionable subs that alienate some players from Sergio.
Fonseca style was horrible if you want to win a scudetto. 70 % possession but in our own half. whenever we were behind i knew we couldnt come back, because we didnt even create enough. Conceicao style is easy, as directly as possible to their goal. we always create, no matter how deep they park the bus or how little time is left. if he stays i’m sure of a scudetto next season, cause we’ll win almost all ‘smaller’ games. Media want to ki.ll him cause he isnt Italian, but he is strong and they wont manage to do it. then he’ll have fun with them for many years.
This is the most delusional statement I’ve read. “we always create”? Create what? All of our offensive players have regressed under Conceicao. Leao, Pulisic, Reijnders. 1 goal against Torino, 1 goal in 2 matches against Feyenoord, 1 goal against Verona.
And by direct you mean just kicking the ball forward without any purpose hoping one of your players can get on the end of it.
Arguing for who is better between Sarge and Fonseca is like arguing which is better between a sh!t sandwich and a turd meatball.
Who cares, he’s gone. Fonseca was never going to achieve anything in the league the way he was going. There’s a lot of things to be put in shape with this team. Not so much concerned about immediate results anymore. I just want to see the players play with a hunger. If we get carried away celebrating results, we will get stunned unexpectedly. We need to slowly build a team back. A new coach would still need time to do that, for those agitating for Conceicao’s sacking.