Paulo Fonseca has ended up in the crosshairs after AC Milan’s poor start to the season, but a journalist has claimed that an early sacking can be ruled out.
Milan drew 2-2 with Lazio away from home on Saturday night, which followed a 2-1 defeat in Parma and a 2-2 draw against Torino, meaning two points from three games to begin the new era.
Milan’s priority now is to use the break to calm things down, because when the games resume there will be a huge trio of games at San Siro with Venezia, Liverpool and Inter all within a week.
After those three games ‘Fonseca’s position will be evaluated’, as per Sky, even if at the moment there is ‘no desire or intention to change coach’. There will not be any knee-jerk reaction from the management, therefore.
The Corriere della Sera journalist Monica Colombo spoke to Calciomercato.it about the uncertainty surrounding Fonseca, and suggested that any notion of him being sacked soon is wide of the mark.
“The scene of Theo Hernandez and Leao on the sidelines during the cooling break against Lazio, from a visual point of view, was not very edifying: we must remember that for Theo it was the second benching of the season, so he had more reasons to disagree with Fonseca than Leao,” she said.
“Milan started the season in the worst possible way between results and image losses, but they have all the time to recover because the top is only five points away and upon the restart there is Venezia – last in the standings – before the debut in the Champions League against Liverpool and the big match with Inter.
“Fonseca has been put in the crosshairs of criticism: either the club strongly supports the coach as Berlusconi did with Sacchi, or the players are the first to follow the wind…
“It is no coincidence that yesterday the CEO Furlani went to speak with Abraham: a strong voice from the club was needed on the Theo-Leao affair, on Fonseca and on the absence of Ibrahimovic.
“Allegri or Sarri if Fonseca does poorly in the next three games? Absolutely not, I don’t see Milan putting a third coach on the payroll, one with such strong personalities that the club has shown to be allergic to. I completely rule it out.
“Given how Milan has moved so far, I think that before a change on the bench there will be a lot of time. I find it hard to believe that after four games Fonseca could be shelved and it’s even harder to think about Pioli returning, given how they parted.
“We had been told the fairy tale of an agreement for a friendly farewell to pay tribute against Salernitana at home and now it turns out that the agreement hasn’t been reached.”