GdS: ‘Fonseca furious’ – team harmony questioned as players disobey penalty hierarchy

Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images

The story that seems to be dominating the media headlines this morning concerns the issue of who takes penalties for AC Milan after the confusion during the defeat to Fiorentina.

As La Gazzetta dello Sport (via MilanNews) reports, last night was far from positive for the Rossoneri as they not only lost 2-1 to have their winning streak in Serie A ended but they also appeared to be lacking in intensity compared to a Fiorentina team who had played on Thursday night.

Milan missed two penalties either side of half-time, too. Firstly Theo Hernandez had his spot kick saved on his birthday by David De Gea, who repeated his heroics to deny Tammy Abraham in the second half.

Paulo Fonseca declared post-match that the one designated to take penalties is Christian Pulisic. Yesterday in Florence, referee Pairetto awarded two penalties to Milan, but neither was taken by the American.

Why did Theo and then Abraham step up to the spot first, while the American remained stood watching? The Rossoneri coach also asks himself this question, and after the match he seemed rather angry and annoyed about this issue.

“The penalty taker is Christian, I don’t know why the lads changed. I’m pissed off. I’ve already told them it won’t happen again.” The penalty taker issue confirms the confusion within the Milan team in the eyes of the paper, and now there is a two-week break to dwell on it.

Tags AC Milan

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  1. This sort of thing shouldn’t even happen at Milan Futuro, in the third league. You can’t just improvise and decide you want to take a penalty just because it’s your birthday or whatever reason you might have, especially when you’re 1-0 down in an important match.
    Theo and Abraham should be punished. Pulisic too, for not respecting the instructions. I didn’t see anyone taking the ball off of him by force.

    1. There’s a video circulating, yes the ball was not taken away from Pulisic in any mean, buy you can see clearly Pulisic asked for it to Tammy and Tammy directly rejected the request.

      On Theo, this is not the first he faced disciplinary issue (after that cooling break accident) in such a short time span. It’s only right if the team do something about it.

    1. I know, right?

      #SellTheo&LeaoSoWeCanSpendTheNext10TransferWindowsTryingToReplaceThem

      ##It’sAllAboutTheTransferMarket

      are trending big time.

  2. Tomori and Abraham can go take penalties for Chelsea.

    The way Theo behaved yesterday is not ok as a captain either. You are the freaking captain. You don’t take penalties from your team mate.

    Tomori and Abraham have no say in who takes the freaking penalty! Fonseca already decided who is the penalty taker. Bench them both!

    Leao needs to have some kind of good run and give us some magic so we can sell him in the summer. He has no will to run for the team when he isn’t involved in the play.

    Better have Pulisic as left wing which is the position where he is at his best.

    1. It’s incredible how people want to blame Rafa even when it’s absolutely not his fault.

      This loss is on Fonseca first, and then on Theo, Tomori, Abraham, and to a certain degree even Puli who got smoked by Adli in the first goal (but Puli redeemed himself by scoring our goal). This loss is not on Rafa who actually tried hard (including tracking back) and had a great shot saved by their goalkeeper (who was possessed last night) and set up Puli perfectly for a second goal but Puli never took the shot.

      And no, Puli is not at his best as left wing. He actually has evolved into a better right wing than left wing.

      If we sell Leão, he won’t be replaced with similar quality.

      Leão has had already 4 goal participations this season (1 goal, 3 assists) which is second only to Puli, and should have had more assists if his companions had converted some of the great chances he created for them.

      ———–

      The elephant in the room is not Morata not scoring. It is Fonseca and the halftime break.

      The first PK that wasn’t given to Puli was in the first half. So, with Fonseca’s public declaration to the press about not knowing why the players didn’t follow his designation of a PK taker (a disaster; these things are best said to the players, not to the press), there are only two possibilities:

      1. He did not address the issue during halftime break. If that’s the case, then the post-game declaration is self-serving, shifting the blame to the players for something that was Fonseca’s duty to address.

      2. He did address it during halftime but the players still didn’t listen to him and disobeyed him again for the second half PK. If that’s the case, then they don’t respect him and he has lost control over his own players.

      It’s hard to know which one is worse. They are both terrible, so whatever happened, it’s bad.

      ————

      This was our worst game of the 9 we played so far this season. It was worse than Parma, and worse than Liverpool.

      I am sad today, more than after our other defeats. It’s the manner in which this defeat happened (it should never have happened) that saddens me. It’s how this defeat is the symptom of much more serious problems.

      What has happened to my Milan? Amateur management, lack of leadership on and off the pitch, mediocre coach, insufficient mercato… it’s a full-blown disaster and if this continues we may not even make top 4.

  3. For those who watched Milan from 80 to 2007 we know Tomori does not deserve to be defence for Milan.
    Milan should go back to buy defender

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