While Paulo Fonseca deserves praise for getting his tactical approach right in games like the Inter and Real Madrid wins, he also continues to make some strange decisions.
MilanPress have published a piece which casts some doubt not just on the selections in terms of the starting line-up, but the roles of the players that he chose and their instructions during the game.
It seems that Milan are severely lacking in balance. In aiming to shore up the defence they lost all attacking threat against Juve, but then when they play with the handbrake off they concede goals like the three in Cagliari.
We can detect some problems in the construction of the squad, with signings like Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Yunus Musah, Emerson Royal and Alvaro Morata arousing some doubt. There have been some below-average performances by individual players too, yet Fonseca still shoulders some blame.
For example, Tijjani Reijnders’ position in the 4-4-2 in the non-possession phase (a good part of the first half) did not allow him to show his quality between the lines, neither in the transition phase nor in regular possession.
Rafael Leao’s narrow position together with Alvaro Morata did not pay off, because we know that the Portuguese’s strength is to start wide and attack the area, getting in isolation with the opposition full-back/centre-back.
It did not bring benefits in the non-possession phase either because the press was often triggered late (not only by Leao) and it allowed the Bianconeri to play out. Perhaps this in itself was an instruction, so as not to be over-aggressive and leave big spaces.
Morata reverted to type in the sense that he did a lot of the dirty work without actually having any meaningful touches inside the Juve box. The team really struggled without the creative presence of Christian Pulisic, whose free-roaming role often links the attack together.
Yunus Musah was played wide on the right and he had the task of trying to recreate Samuel Chukwueze’s (or Pulisic’s) attacking output up against Cambiaso, but that is not his strength either.
All this confusion and rigidity in tactical tasks seemed more like an attempt to limit the damage in a game declared ‘important, but not decisive’ when a win was needed to hang onto any faint Scudetto dream.
A coach who doesn’t know his 1st eleven will keep experimenting, continue to confuse the players, destabilize any momentum and create a team without a clear identity. It is way too late in the season to still be tampering with formulas…just not good for any growth. There is a difference between rotation and not understanding your players and their individual strengths. Fonseca doesn’t inspire confidence.
2015 /16 GAME OVER 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🇺🇲🇵🇹👍🏻🤢🤮
Did anyone noticed Roman sacked juric and signed Ranieri.
I see no reason sacking De Rossi and sign Juric at first place.
What a game. Juventus playing with 6 mids due to injuries and Milan opposing it with moving the only Forward to CM position. What’s the point of spending 17mln on a RB if we need field another player with defensive qualities just to cover his f/ups?
Substitutions can be made before 80th minutes are already gone! Also why we are changing Gabbia, who played quite well considering there wasnt much to do with another defender when score is 0-0 and absolutely nothing works in attack. We are already doing too much CB rotation, which prevents creating a good cb pair, but doing it mid game another lvl of absurdity.
Honestly felt like the players missing easy passes and crosses all night was a bigger issue than the tactics.
The attack clearly wasn’t working all game and yet Okafor, Abraham and Camarda were not used. And Chuk got 9 mins to try and have an impact.
Why was Gabbia subbed for Pavlovic?
When Pulisic came on (70th min) he played in midfield and LW and Musuh continued on the RW.
Yep. Completely inept coaching. Pulisic should have come on at the 60th and WITH Chukwueze, or if you don’t want to go from ultra defense to ultra offense so quickly, Pulisic at the 60th for RLC with Musah moving to mid, and then Chuk for Musah in the 70th with Puli moving to the middle.
Complete fail with having Pulisic play LW and insisting Leao stay in the middle next to Morata. Any one of us and the groundskeeper could have told them this worked ZERO times the 5-6 games Pioli tried this a couple of seasons ago.
No confidence in Royal holding Yildiz? OK, then either give Calabria a shot or play 4-3-3 with Musah as the outside right MF, so that Puli and Leao can stay high and wide as they should be. Don’t play bloody 4-4-2.