AC Milan are just nine games into their Serie A season and despite a dire outlook in the standings, now isn’t the time to to give up or take the foot off the accelerator. Most importantly, Paulo Fonseca remains confident.
As highlighted by today’s edition of Gazzetta dello Sport (see photo below), ahead of the Monza-Milan clash, it’s necessary for Milan and Fonseca to work even harder than before. Winning the first game away from home would help them a lot, especially after the Napoli defeat.
In the last few days at Milanello, the Portuguese manager has reiterated his concepts to the group, behind closed doors in the locker room. He expects a prompt reaction to the defeat last time out and has worked on the mentality as much as the factors on the pitch.
After the wins against Udinese and Club Brugge, Fonseca was hoping that his side would fly even higher on Tuesday. Instead, a slowdown arrived once again and this inevitably affected the players, with Fonseca shifting focus to the mentality.
Fonseca remains confident
In his career, Fonseca is used to earning praise only after initial difficulties. Leaving aside his experience at Shakhtar Donetsk, where he inherited a winning team and continued to win, at Roma and Lille he had to deal with scepticism and with subpar results at the beginning.
He has never given up, though, and he won’t this time either. He will thus continue with his tactical approach, convinced that the group is following him and is on his side. He had confirmation of this against the league leaders, when according to him, between the first and second goals of the Partenopei, but also in the second half, Milan clearly put their opponents in difficulty.
Confirmation of this comes from the data relating to possession, shots on goal and running, which he illustrated in the locker room. Against Monza tonight, he expects the same attitude seen against Antonio Conte’s team, though eliminating the defensive errors that the Rossoneri are paying dearly for in terms of goals conceded.
In this respect, he thought and hoped to be further ahead and he didn’t hide this in his pre-match interview yesterday. That being said, he won’t stand to see these lapses repeat themselves throughout the season.
He has understood that the transition from Stefano Pioli’s style to his own requires more patience than expected. At the same time, he knows that the current path is the right one: the work that is carried out weekly on the Milanello pitches tells him so.
Focus on the now, not May
As highlighted by Fonseca, looking at the standings now is useless and won’t do the team any good. Instead, he’s only focused on the now and fielding the best team based on what he has seen during training and the last matches. Indeed, he will focus on the XI that gives him the most guarantees in terms of physical and psychological aspects.
In other words, he’s faithful to what he forcefully reiterated after the October break, when he gathered the group and announced that he wouldn’t accept anything less than maximum commitment and work.
Individuals had to take a back seat, and then the responses arrived against Udinese, Club Brugge and Napoli to an extent. Fonseca thus has no intention to switch things up again, making it clear that the players who contribute will be given the chance. At the same time, the focus will always be on the now and not on how the standings will look in May.
