One of the solutions that AC Milan head coach Paulo Fonseca could try is playing Christian Pulisic centrally as the playmaker, according to a report.
La Gazzetta dello Sport write how Fonseca himself even admitted to the possibility of using the American down the middle: “Pulisic? He can play as a 10, even if we already have Loftus-Cheek in that position.”
By moving Pulisic behind the striker in a 4-2-3-1 formation, Fonseca would be changing the position of a player who got 15 goals and 10 assists in 50 appearances playing almost exclusively on the right wing last season.
However, he did play three times as a No.10 and his performance at San Siro against Lecce was especially memorable as he scored a brilliant goal and looked to have no problems being deployed further infield.
Having played across the forward line for Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea and the United States national team, Pulisic is comfortable in all positions behind the striker. Pulisic has played 71 games so far for his country, covering almost all the attacking positions and amassing 30 goals plus 18 assists.
With the new coach, a move to the centre naturally invokes discussions about Alvaro Morata too, a striker who has certain characteristics that are very different from Olivier Giroud. The theory is that interesting spaces on the wings could be created for Rafa Leao, Noah Okafor and Samuel Chukwueze.
On the right, the Nigerian would then take Pulisic’s place, with a greater chance of snatching a starting spot. Another intriguing hypothesis for an attacking Milan, without forgetting that Ruben Loftus-Cheek had great numbers for his first season.
RLC had “great numbers” in his first season due to his scoring number, which mostly also thanks to his great physic (tall and strong), being the right man at the right place to score. But in term of connecting midfielder to wingers and striker, which is also one of his jobs as AMC, he was more often being loss and off than being effective. He is just like when scoring, he is more functoning like SS than AMC. I am not expert, but thats just my observation watching Milan games last season. And I am not saying RLC is bad, it is just his numbers can be misleading, hence I still see RLC better as box to box.
And I would like to see Puli as AMC. I personally like quick and agresive AMC (such as Kaka, or Puli), or skillful AMC (like Rui Costa), more than “tank” AMC like RLC, but hey, it is coach decision anyway to play tactic he designs
Yeah ur observations are in order 👍🏼
Dont need to be an expert to notice issues. I also ageee about RLC. He is probably better coming off the bench if needed to force a goal
fans waiting for Fonseca to start balling at the press conference gather here.
lord this man is triple platinum silent. last match was a friendly but i can see what he his doing. his future look bright. the management have good foresight as well.
they are genius but they need to know that the next title they need to go for now is Being Special. Then we fans can stop nagging and starting having fun.
Last season Puli was a good 10 against weak teams. But against strong/organized opposition he wasn’t showing up along with the rest of the team.
Nonsense.
While his stats may not have been as good against strong teams, the strong teams concentrated more effort on him. And even more to the point, NOBODY showed up against the strong teams. So your phrase that he wasn’t “showing up along with the rest of the team” is nonsense. What the truth is is that he made fewer mistakes than most of the rest of the team against the strong teams.
I keep reading all the time that Pulisic didn’t show against strong teams. The truth is, last season, none of our players did anything remotely close to good against any decent team, so why always try to pin-point this issue on Pulisic ?
Also Pulisic was used a an attacking midfielder literally in 2 games (Inter and Genoa), so the sample size doesn’t allow to properly assess him, but at least he is/can be an attacking midfielder, in contrast to Loftus-Cheek who is a mezzala made to play as a second-striker: great scoring abilities, but none when it comes to creativity.
But all and all, I do prefer seeing Milan using a 4-3-3 (with no inverted fullbacks please) since, you know, Loftus-Cheek and Reijnders were brought specifically for that.
I agree with u all but we can still have Reijnder, RLC and Pulisic in the midfield, what we should be concern is Tomori form.
Ruben Loftus-Cheeks is perfect as a pivot due to his physically strong trait, technical, good in attacking & defending phase. RLC is our best mid, with Reijnders. So double pivot : Reijnders & Loftus-Cheeks might make AC Milan control Serie-A midfield.