AC Milan head coach Paulo Fonseca is planning further tactical tweaks to try and get the best out of his squad, with changes expected in each department against Venezia today.
La Gazzetta dello Sport this morning talks about ‘Fonseca with scaffolding’. The coach will ‘restructure Milan’ compared to the Lazio game that came before the international break, with the alterations aimed to provide a bit more balance.
Starting in defence, Matteo Gabbia will have a chance from the first minute. He will take Fikayo Tomori’s place and will partner Strahinja Pavlovic, who played 180 minutes against Spain and Denmark during the break but will be called to work overtime.
The Tomori-Pavlovic duo against Lazio disappointed and the upcoming week includes Liverpool and Inter on the horizon. The feeling is that the Englishman will be back in for Tuesday’s game, but for tonight Fonseca wants to see how the more calm and composed Gabbia does.
The biggest development concerns Tijjani Reijnders: the Dutchman was tested as an attacking midfielder, in the position normally occupied by Christian Pulisic or Ruben Loftus-Cheek, and he should play there as he did for the Netherlands against Bosnia and Germany.
The idea is to give him freedom to exploit his vision and to use his smart runs, so he will operate behind Tammy Abraham who in turn is good at creating space with movement. As for Ruben Loftus-Cheek, he will move back to add more physicality to the double pivot.
Come on Gabbia!
Come on Ruben !
One thing to be said about Fonseca is that he tries to mix up players starting and doesn’t stick with the same line up. I’m hoping the players will respond and he knows who he can trust for his rotation. To be fair, most of the players have underperformed since the season started. Time will tell if that is Fonseca’s fault or not.
Really hope this is all correct
Me too. The move of Reijnders up to attaching midfield is LONG overdue. He should have been playing there since last season. I am a little worried by overworking Pavlovic, as Tomori did not participate in the internationals, so maybe it should be Gabbia-Tomori instead, but who knows. Maybe we will discover something with Pavlovic-Gabbia.
I think both are the right moves. Gabbia was our best cb in the second half of last season so it’s only right to give him his shot. I hope him and pavlovic do well together! Even reijnders going more attacking is a smart idea! At least fonseca looks at what the players are doing and want to try to put them in a position where they perform best. We need to see a change in performance today!
The smart thing to do would be to field Gabbia with Tomori instead of Pavlo if you’re trying to do load management here. Then use the Serb against Liverpool and Inter.