Paulo Fonseca saw Youssouf Fofana first hand during his two seasons with Lille and now he wants him under his orders in view of next season, a report claims.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) reports this morning, Fonseca saw all of Fofana’s attributes during Monaco’s 1-0 win over his Lille side last season, a game in which the midfielder scored the decisive goal.
The vision of the Milan management is now to have Paulo on the bench, Youssouf in the heart of the midfield to screen the defence and push the team forward, and things are lining up in the right way it seems.
Dwindling competition
The mission is possible, especially now that in Serie A the field has opened up. Juventus have turned to Kephren Thuram, for example, so for Milan it is now question of making the most of their work in recent months and regaining control of the operation.
There are also other clubs in the running, from Atletico Madrid to Premier League sides, but Milan knows they can play at least a couple of cards in their favour. Firstly, there is the fact that the player basically admitted that he would like to come.
“I think Milan is a really huge club. Everyone knows Milan and its record of achievements. But apart from the chatter in Italy, I remain focused on my mission,” he said to L’Equipe in recent months.
At 25 years of age he feels that the moment is right to move up to the next level and become a leader at a bigger team and in a bigger league, something that Milan could offer him the opportunity to do.
The project
France will close its Euro 2024 group stage campaign against Poland this evening, while at the Rossoneri there is a project that seems tailor-made for him. Milan needs size and balance in the middle and would entrust Fofana with a central role straight away.
The likes of Tijjani Reijnders, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Yunus Musah and Ismael Bennacer are all more natural box-to-box players, and that is why the Frenchman could be unique in the squad and would get a big role.
Contacts that have remained alive until today could soon ignite and get the negotiation off the ground. There will be a discussion on salary, but the feeling is that Monaco would sell for €20-25m, given Fofana has just a year left on his deal.
Fofana is a central midfielder not a defensive midfielder. He can play in the double pivot as a box to box midfielder. The defensive midfielder in Monaco is Dennis Zakaraia and Camara, previously partnered with Tchouameni. He can form a good partnership with Bennacer. The problem is that the Algerian has become injury prone and unreliable. This brings back the same dilemma which is a classic n6. Unfortunately, none of the midfield hired last year are able to fulfill the defensive obligations expected from the double pivot, which shows how terrible our scouting department is. This led Pioli to play 433 instead of 4231 and later returned to his favourite formation. I think if Fonseca wants to play 4231, we need to get rid of Pobega, Musa, and RLC . Also we need to play Reijnders in AM because he is terrible defensively. If we want to keep our midfield players, we need to switch to 433 and bring Wieffer, who can take care of the defensive duties of the Midfield.
Agree if we are not playing 4-3-3 next season it would be best to sell RLC, Pobega and maybe even Musah. Doesn’t make sense to keep them and they still have a good market value.
We should get rid of Pobega no matter what tactic we shoild play
The scouting department is so bad, it’s a serious one. Hopefully this summer they get it right.
I said it as a joke but sometimes I think the scouting department doesn’t know what a defensive midfielder is (and most people honestly). Box-to-box and mezzalas tend to be valued higher and more appreciated while destroyers tend to be underestimated because they don’t pass the ball forward and are not creative or involved much offensively, forgetting their crucial role in the recovery department.
We need a player like Wieffer, Hojbjerg, Hjulmand or heck even Amrabat.
Good player but not what we need because he is not defensive. We already have those players like bennacer, Rinjders, loftus cheek, musah. We need a gattuso type player. Closest player that comes to mind is Paulinho of Portugal who was close to joining Bayern but stayed at Fulham or Ugarte of PSG. We need that type of player to protect that back 4.
I actually think Musah will be just fine in a double-pivot in the near future. He’s actually quite good at breaking up attacks if you give him that job — his 1v1 defending is solid and he’s physically strong. What he isn’t good at is passing with any kind of range. So he needs a partner with passing range who will also kind of tell him what to do, more of a deep-lying regista. I like Musah in the shuttling role, with either RLC or Pulisic at the 10. We still need somebody with good passing range to play the 6 or in half the double-pilot. Is Fofana a good passer?
Musah has no footballing intelligence. He’s a headless chicken.
I think Matty Waffles is a better option than Fofana.
Apart from pride and stubborness, bringing back Kessie would be the best thing we should do