One of the issues that the new AC Milan head coach Paulo Fonseca and his staff must fix is the issues that have decimated the squad in recent seasons, and they have a few ideas in mind.
La Gazzetta dello Sport recall how it became a familiar sight for fans to see a Milan player grabbing the back of their leg last season. Perhaps the lowest point came on November 28 in minute 53 of Milan vs. Borussia Dortmund, when Malick Thiaw went down and came off.
Given the issues already present in the defensive department, it was the snapshot of a year marked by a horrifying number of stops due to physical problems. Milan would close the sporting year with 44 injuries, for a total of 254 games missed.
New staff
How can the issues be fixed? The change to Fonseca brought some changes to the staff, though Mazzoni was confirmed as head of the medical staff. After all, the blame for muscular problems does not fall on the doctors, who are more responsible for relapses and premature returns.
The key is therefore in the athletic preparation phase, which will see Paulo Mourao as the new manager in place of Matteo Osti. It is there that the aim is to plug the hole that has left Milan too often without key men during the most delicate moments of the season.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has instead revolutionized the team of physiotherapists. After years, Marco Paesanti, Roberto Morosi and Albino Rossetti have left Milanello. Tony Roberts will be the goalkeeper scout, and the new GK coach will be Antonio Ferreira.
Among the new physiotherapists is Leonardo Belotti, formerly of Sassuolo and Atalanta. Among the important changes brought by Fonseca, there is the return to double training sessions.
A ‘massacre’ to avoid
The main problem last season was the excessive number of goals conceded: 49 in the league – the worst among the top 11 in the final league table – and 69 in total. The mitigating factor, not a small one, was injuries.
Pioli lost Pierre Kalulu on October 29 against Napoli due to a lesion of the left rectus femoris tendon and only got him back 115 days later, only to lose him again for a substantial period shortly after. Simon Kjaer spent 48 days out due to yet another muscular problem.
On December 22, Fikayo Tomori sustained an injury that forced him to have two months on the sidelines. As mentioned above, at the end of November Thiaw went down too with a serious muscle injury, spending 76 days out.
Pioli found himself having to continually field new central pairings, inventing solutions like using Theo Hernandez in the middle, while the management scrambled to bring Matteo Gabbia back early from his loan at Villarreal.
Fonseca’s Milan will certainly be different from every point of view. Starting from tactics, preparation, and obviously also from the key men. Traumatic injuries are unavoidable, they are part of the game, but on the muscular ones there is the aim to take more control of things.
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That is a crazy stat. Hope we fix that this year. That alone is worth a few points.
I don’t think this is talked about nearly enough with our defensive performance last year.
Couple that with a crazy complex inversion of FB and it feels like we can expect improvements in Defense by default this season.