It would be fair to label AC Milan’s beginning to the 2024-25 season as a ‘false start’ with just one point from six available obtained under Paulo Fonseca.
La Gazzetta dello Sport speaks of a crossroads approaching on Saturday night against Lazio, a game in which Milan cannot afford to take another misstep. Dropping more points – let alone a defeat – would risk opening up a big gap to the teams at the top such as Juventus and Inter.
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We know well how important it is to start off on the right foot because the psychological aspect could be even more destabilising than the arithmetic one. The Rossoneri started with the ambition – honestly and proudly flaunted by the coach – of wanting to aim for the Scudetto, but that feels tough at present.
Milan have what it takes to avoid all this, to take the right direction and leave behind this difficult start. However, the discussion – perhaps more outside than inside the club – focused on Paulo Fonseca’s faults.
He certainly has some to answer for, as he himself admitted, such as the fact that his team seemed too disconnected which contributed to the continued poor defensive record after a disastrous 2023-24 under Stefano Pioli.
However, there are things that the club must answer for as well. The report states that another striker is needed, better than the current alternatives are not good enough and today’s savings could in fact become tomorrow’s regrets.
There is a collective responsibility to dig deep and correct the course. Everyone must give one more run, one more thrust and one more recovery to support a team-mate in difficulty. Starting with the big names – Theo and Leao to be clear – there can no longer be any excuses for anyone.
The first crossroads is there and – even if we are only in the third round – the season and the league table does not wait for anyone. Milan need to turn the page and fast.
The fault is that they hired Fonseca instead of Motta.
This.
Agree…
please hire parma coach is good strategy event play with milan
Fonseca , ibra, furlani,and of course that old clown scaroni should all be fired ,moncada could stay but only as a scout ,, gazidis,maldini,massara was the real deal
Tammy Abraham is close to Milan, I do understand that we need another striker but what was the point of giving JOVIC a new contract ? We need a proper DM instead of 3 strikers!
Because of greed. They want to get something from his sales than to let him go freely
The fault is from Fonseca. Milan weren’t playing like that before he join us. Milan is not Lille. How can you send Kalulu out & bring Emerson Royal? What sort of thinking is that please
It is baffling really.
By the end of season I would expect Kalulu to be an important part of the Juve team and will be worth a lot more money.
Emerson will end up being another player we can’t get rid of. Tottenham fans are rejoicing that we took him
Fonseca is at fault….. after 2 games….. in charge of a new team…. with new players…..
Briliant.
In the first 2 games I saw 3 things.
1. Suicidal tactics – Pioli did the same with insisting on playing a high line. Why are they doing that without a proper defensive midfielder is suicidal to me.
2. Bad formation – this team is built for a 433. My 10yr old nephew can see that. We don’t have a trequartista or any attacking midfielder to play 4231.
3. Using players out of their natural and best positions – Musah is not a defensive midfielder. RLC is not an attacking midfielder. Pulisic is not an attacking midfielder or trequartista. His best position is LW or RW.
4. No in game tactical changes – we were being out played by Parma and Torino as they exploited Milan’s high line the same way Inter ALWAYS exploited our high line on counter attacks and Fonseca did nothing to fix this problem c during the game.
Instead, he continued with his game plan that wasn’t working. That lead to our wingbacks and CB being caught out of position and in 1 on 1 situations.
5. Poor pressing and players not tracking back – Milan were not pressing as a team. You can’t have individual players pressing while other players are standing around ball watching until the ball is on their side of the pitch. This is causing too many gaps for our opponents to easily play through.
Theo and Leao are not tracking back to help the defense. Again, when players make a bad pass they just stand there watching the game like a spectator in the stadium.
Everything I mentioned above are ALL COACH DEFECTS. Milan management has no courage to chose a better coach to take us to the next level.
Instead they went for a yes man who is similar to Pioli if not worse in my opinion. I did not want Fonseca who is a passive coach.
Milan need a strong coach with strong leadership and good tactics. Sergio Conceicao Allegri and Sarri are still a free agents.
At this stage even Allegri would have done a better job than Fonseca especially with organizing our defense and midfield.
We need a defensive minded coach because we have very fast wingers who are capable of making things happen on 1 on 1 situations and we have midfielders who are good with the ball at their feet and they can launch a counter attacking quickly to get to the opponents goal.
Correction above: 5 things. Typo. At this point even Allegri is a better option than Fonseca. When given the proper players he still wins trophies regardless of how boring his football is at times.
Juventus beat Atalanta in the Coppa Italia finals and they outplayed Atalanta. A team that are very attacking and a team that beat Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League final.
Good points. But the management knows nothing about football anyway. Zlatan has no say, he wanted Fonseca. Fonseca is obviously here because he raised the value of some young players at Lille.
Absolutely nobody was pleased with the hiring of Fonseca besides Redbird’s shareholders. Pioli is definitely a better coach, he built a Scudetto winning team from scratch with young players and a few veterans and went to UCL semifinals. Fonseca last played in UCL in 2018 with Shakthar. He failed at Roma and at Lille. Lille fans couldn’t care less that he left this summer.
He was hyped thanks to the overwhelmed PR team at Casa Milan. We were told all summer that the team would play an “exciting brand of football”. Yeah so exciting that he’s already on the hot seat.
Zlatan wanted Conte, I mean.
the problem is alot with fonseca he had bad tactics and didnt make the right sub at the right time