Paulo Fonseca has opened up about his short stint at Milan, saying that he would have liked more time, having now proved what he’s capable of with Lyon.
Milan appointed Fonseca as their new manager in the summer of 2024 after saying goodbye to Stefano Pioli at the end of the season. Before the end of the year, however, the Portuguese manager was relieved of his duties as the Rossoneri sat in 8th place.
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A month later, he was appointed the new manager of Lyon and hasn’t looked back since, despite a very turbulent time for the French side. Indeed, they are currently on a 13-game winning run and Fonseca has been massively praised, rightfully so.
Fonseca wanted more time
Speaking about his time at Milan in his interview with The Athletic (via MilanEye), Fonseca admitted that he would have liked more time with the Rossoneri. After all, as he put it, the management pushed for a new style and that takes time to implement.
“I deserved more time [at Milan]. Milan is an amazing club and I enjoyed it a lot. I’m really sorry I didn’t have time. Their proposal was to change the game to a more expansive style.
“To change one thing they had for so many years is not easy; you need time, especially in Italy, where it’s even more difficult, almost impossible.
“We had amazing games, playing really good football. We needed to be more consistent, it’s true, but to change something in Italy is really difficult,” he stated.
Which success? He is 7 points behind Lens. A club that develops and sells players. He has a team worth double than Lens team. 7 points behind. We had enough of this loser. He will finish 3rd and talk like he won something.
Barely 3rd, just ahead of a Marseille team that’s currently IMPLODING at the seams yet still right behind his team
Absolutely he deserved more time, if nothing more to finish tge season, but the media and certain players in the squad were working on his firing before he even got announced.
He got time at Lyon. He is 7 points behind Lens…
No he did not🤣🤣🤣 we were shambolic under him
You don’t have time when you play for club like Milan. Thanks to you and Conceicao we are out of the CL this year. Yes French league is better then las few years, but Serie A is different, harder and more tactical…Maybe his game style is good, bud look at Como with Fabregas, they play beautiful game and still they are out of cl spot. Serie A is not PL and Milan is not Arsenal. Arteta has 3 years time because they have lot money from PL and TV, but in Seria A you need to be good every season and also play in CL every season
First of all, he is a possession based coach brought into a team that cannot play his style given the players that it has.
He isn’t a bad coach and perhaps under different circumstances (and different attitudes from the players…) he would have done better. But the truth is, he didn’t do well. We were 8th when he left, not 5th, not 6th and any hope of winning a title or even qualify for the scudetto was gone.
Yes, he is doing well with Lyon right now, but that’s Ligue 1, a league where he already has experience and quite frankly he has never done so well in that league prior to this season. So excuse us for not trusting him despite our poor performances because we couldn’t see that in the future Lyon will look “good”.
For every excuse you can give him, you can give 2 or 3 to Allegri. Allegri was brought to the thinnest squad in serie A (22 players then 23) with the greatest overhaul of recent history (every player brought since 2022 with the exception of Loftus-Cheek, Pulišić, Giménez, Fofana and Pavlović were gone), depleated of its best midfielder (Reijnders) and defender (Thiaw) and had to wait january to get an injury prone failed center forward. From october onwards, Allegri also didn’t have a healthy sustainable attack parternship, with Giménez gone, Leão unable to sprint, Pulišić constantly having issues, Füllkrug not ready and Nkunku being Nkunku and yet we’re mad at Allegri because we’re SECOND no longer in the scudetto race and 8 points from fifth place.
He’s talking like hes got them ahead of PSG or something. Theyre in 3rd, barely above a Marseille team that’s actively falling to pieces. Top 4 is the bare minimum for a club the size of Lyon.
Also we can all remember how bad we looked under him. His style never fit from day 1 and he never adapted. He wasted 17mil on freakin Emerson. He had us losing to teams in every part of the table. There was no consistency whatsoever and no clear plan to fix anything. All this after a season where we finished 2nd. He deserved the sack undeniably, he was atrocious
Terrible coach. Just terrible.