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.