Paulo Fonseca has not started his time at AC Milan in the manner he might have expected and improvements will need to be shown very quickly before confidence gets too low.
As highlighted by La Gazzetta dello Sport, there are five problems that Fonseca needs to quickly fix to put the 2-2 draw with Torino and the 2-1 defeat against Parma behind him.
Leadership from experienced players
Milan lost a lot of experience in the summer with Olivier Giroud and Simon Kjaer departing, and Alessandro Florenzi’s injury means he is out of frame. It falls to players who, whilst not old, have been at Milan the longest, to guide the new players which means players like Theo Hernandez and Rafael Leao need to step up.
Bedding in new players
There are four new players working with the first team and Fonseca needs to make sure that they make a tangible improvement to the team as soon as possible. If the Rossoneri are to fight for the title, there is no time to lose whilst players get settled with Juventus and Inter already further ahead.
Tactics
So far, Fonseca’s tactics have appeared very reckless with the defence leaving a huge amount of space for opposition attackers to exploit, especially against Parma.
Clearly these things take time, but Fonseca’s ideas need to be understood by the players quickly if Milan are to fight for the title.
Spirit
There was a late reaction from Milan against Torino that led to the 2-2 draw with two late goals, but against Parma there was almost no fight shown whatsoever. Fonseca can’t allow that mentality to remain.
Some of his coaching principles centre on intensity and winning the ball back quickly, but that was not shown against Parma.
Fitness
All of the reports from Milanello during the summer suggested that Fonseca was working the players harder physically than Stefano Pioli used to, and that can be seen with how sluggish some of the players have seemed.
That, presumably, will improve in time as the players get fitter and also start to take on Fonseca’s ideas better.
Fonseca is the actual problem itself. He has no vision.
Agreed. I am disappointed in Fonseca’s lack of vision as a coach. He should have studied the team with his staff to understand the players strengths and weaknesses so he could know what is the best formation and position for them to play.
He is doing exactly what Giampaolo did when he arrived. Instead of using a formation that works best for the players he decides to use a formation that is best for him which is ignorant.
In Pioli last season when Maldini was fired, Milan worked with Pioli to sign the right players to play a 433 that’s why we buy Reinjders, Musah and RLC but Pioli decided after just 5 games to abandon the 433 to play 4231.
Now Fonseca arrives and he is doing the same when Ibra clearly stated in his first press conference that Milan will play 433.
So why is Fonseca still trying to play 4231 when we don’t have any NATURAL attacking midfielder and we don’t have a natural Defensive Midfielder?
Instead he is trying RLC in both roles as an DM and AM and it is not working. He is also trying Pulisic as an attacking midfielder when last season Pulisic best position was Right wing. Pulisic is better at left wing or right wing.
There is no need to make these players adapt to new positions. Just play them in their best position so that they can adapt to your tactics better instead of them having to adapt to a new position and new tactics at the same time.
If he plays a 4231 against Lazio and lose or draw the game then he deserves to be fired and replaced immediately because it will show that Fonseca and his staff are clueless morons who are complicating simple things.
One way to describe the current Milan team. Total mess. I feel sorry for the bunch of top class players we have.
Also management should accept their mistake and put the useless player like RLC, Cukwatze on the market.
yes and no. Chuck has had flashes of form. He’d still be good as a backup. (a quite expensive bench player for us but good enough). on RLC, he was bought for a 4-3-3 and as of now, does not fit the 4-2-3-1, even though statistically he was one of our best mids last season. Some stats do lie, but last season he was pretty good. This season he has sucked badly
Haircut is great, so is hairline. I see no issues
Gotta play the fit players for now and bring in subs when they have nothing left. All 5 of these issues are related.
pulisic okafor and chuk,
reijnders (at the 10 if thats easier but they all should be pretty tight anyway), musah and fofona,
Jimenez, Pavlovic, Tomori, Royal
Mike
…the system takes fitness, so play the fit players at least once as a proof of concept while the others are getting back.
if bennecar and saelemaekers trained today. plug them in for chuck and fofona (just looked far from ready last week but hopeful). I assumed they didn’t.
Was Torino not enough indication for you that your starters need to actually start?
Torino was a good indication that reijnders and pavlovic especially (when healthy) should start and Musah and Morata when healthy should start…When you say starters…I guess I’m not sure specifically who the starters are yet for this team as its so early in the season. RLC is unconvincing…
Allegri on Standby. Watchout Fonseca.
From the first match against Torino, I knew Fonseca has a sight problem and I question his appointment as Milan coach because what was his achievement when he coached AS Roma. Meanwhile the players also are part of the lacklustre performance in both 2 matched player so far and I wonder what will happen when playing Lazio on Saturday, Morata is out due to injury he sustained. Rafael Leao is a lazy player and unserious player because of his focus in music 🎶, while Chukwueze is an inconsistent player and the Milan defence is too open for an opponent. What happened to all the pre-season training techniques, fitness that make Milan beat Real Madrid and Man City.
Prior to Paulo Fonseca appointment, atleast Milan management should have a listen ear to the fans because Tiago Motta could’ve be best for Milan because of his modelity and approach to game that lead Bologna to UCL qualified and Juventus have got him perfectly well. And I forsee another defeat against Lazio on Saturday.
When would Milan management have good foresight