Paulo Fonseca will soon be announced as the new head coach of AC Milan, and La Gazzetta dello Sport have had a go at naming the team for 2024-25.
The paper are reporting today that Milan have will announce Fonseca as their new coach in the coming days now that he has officially left Lille. The plan is for it to be made official on either Wednesday or Thursday, when the Portuguese should land in Italy.
They also tried their hand at predicting how the Milan starting line-up will look under the former Porto and Shakhtar Donetsk boss, starting with four existing players in the rearguard: Mike Maignan, Pierre Kalulu, Fikayo Tomori at Theo Hernandez.
The first alteration comes at right-back, where Fonseca is expected to ask for a player who guarantees more in terms of attacking output. Spurs’ Emerson Royal or Lille’s Tiago Santos are the options there, with the former having a slight advantage.
In midfield La Gazzetta believe that Tijjani Reijnders will operate as a deeper-lying playmaker in the double pivot and will be joined by Youssouf Fofana. The Monaco midfielder continues to be linked, and could offer more defensive balance.
The attacking trident remains unchanged with Christian Pulisic on the right, Rafael Leao on the left and Ruben Loftus-Cheek as the attacking midfielder, though Samu Chukwueze could get more opportunities.
Up front it is pretty much certain that a new name will lead the line and the newspaper have Joshua Zirkzee as the centre-forward with Chelsea’s Armando Broja as a potential back-up, given the doubts over Luka Jovic’s stay.