Every manager has favoured personnel, and for AC Milan this is clear – Paulo Fonseca adores Youssouf Fofana and Christian Pulisic, but why?
The past two summers have seen Milan strike gold with their business at least once, and the Rossoneri are reaping the rewards of this now. In the summer of 2023, Pulisic became available and the Diavolo haven’t looked back since, and now this feeling is being repeated with Fofana.
Throughout the summer, reports suggested that the Frenchman was the perfect candidate for Fonseca’s midfield, and this is evident. At first, the former Monaco man was not at his best, but he has grown in the past two months and looks fantastic.
As Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) writes, the duo are the ‘immovable totems’ of the Portuguese head coach’s squad. For Fofana, Gazzetta deems him as the ‘midfielder that Milan have been missing for so long’ – a wall in front of the defence, bringing balance and physicality to the midfield.
Then there is Pulisic, the ‘most decisive’ player on the Rossoneri’s books. With seven goals so far, he is leading by example and a rare point of consistency in the attack. For this reason, it makes sense to see that he is Fonseca’s most-used player.
Call me crazy, but I’d rather try one of Liberali or Zeroli or Vos in the attacking midfield rather than dealing with Loftus-Cheek again. Vos in particular doesn’t seem to have issues with strength and physicality and he also could play as a CDM (he did play as a CDM in many games in the Eredivisie).
With Reijnders, Theo and Gabbia available, Brugges was still able to dominate us when Loftus-Cheek was fielded even when they were down to 10 men, and now we’re supposed to field him again against the much stronger Napoli with so many key players absent ?
They should play with chuku in the right and Puli in the CAM
I would be fine with the young players playing against lesser opposition in the last 20 minutes. However, the criticism of RLC here is extreme, especially considering he had a good season last year.
“especially considering he had a good season last year.”
Last season he scored a good amount of goals against tomato cans playing as a second-striker in what was essentially a 4-2-4. His contribution to the midfield and buildup was close to non-existant and he didn’t score or assist against big teams.
But what is relevant is his current season, and right now he might be our worst player so far so I don’t know if want to test him yet again against one of the best teams this season.
@Gal: I’m not too much of a fan of Pulisic as a CAM and Chukwueze on the wings, but I guess we don’t have too many options anyways.
I hate this coach he talks too much and he never wants to take responsibility he always points fingers to the players