Paulo Fonseca made it clear that he believes AC Milan should have had a penalty late on against Bayer Leverkusen but praised his side for their performance in the second half.
Milan fell to their second consecutive defeat in the Champions League as they were beaten 1-0 by the German champions at the BayArena in what was a performance of two halves from Fonseca’s side.
In the opening 45 minutes the Rossoneri could be accused of being passive and letting the hosts dominate, but they sprung into life after Victor Boniface’s opener and had good chances to equalise.
Referee Sandro Scharer is the subject of criticism from a lot of Milan fans and the players too after the decisions he made to not award penalties after incidents involving Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Alvaro Morata and Tammy Abraham.
Fonseca spoke to Sky after the full-time whistle to try and make sense of what was a night full of action but unfortunately not yielding any points. MilanNews relayed his comments.
How do you judge the performance?
“The performance I liked the most this season since I’ve been here. Mainly in the second half we played a fantastic game, we created a lot and it wasn’t easy against a team like Bayer Leverkusen.
“We’re sad, disappointed but we also have to be balanced and understand what we did. And I’m satisfied not for the result, but for the courage and how we played.”
Do you think it was a penalty late on?
“For me the strange thing is that VAR didn’t intervene. For me it’s a penalty. They didn’t even look at the situation. But I felt during the match that the referee had no doubts about going against us. I don’t like talking about referees, I don’t want it to be an excuse but we feel these things.”
Did Bayer Leverkusen offer what you expected?
“I think Bayer have a very strong positional game. In the first half it was very difficult, we closed the spaces but then they created problems with the combinations on the right corridor. It was difficult but in the difficulties we defended well.”
Do you think they targeted your left side?
“We had more problems in the first half on the right. It’s true that it’s difficult to get Rafa to help Theo but I think we suffered more on the right.”