AC Milan are back in Serie A action tonight as they take on Fiorentina at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, and Paulo Fonseca is determined to play another strong team.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) report this morning, the pre-match press conference held yesterday at Milanello saw Fonseca preach the importance of having stability at a time like this.
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After a more than turbulent start, the Rossoneri have found their way out of the mess starting with the great victory and performance in the derby with Inter, but now they need to give continuity to that result and avoid aftershocks like the one in the first 50 minutes of Leverkusen.
To find this stability, the Rossoneri coach has decided not to rotate. The discussion mainly concerns the defensive side: “For Pavlovic the opportunity will come sooner or later but now it is important to give stability to the department.”
Translated: this evening against Fiorentina the starters will once again be Matteo Gabbia and Fikayo Tomori. Milan still have huge margins for improvement, yet it can be said that Fonseca can already count on some certainties , cornerstones on which to graft and carry forward his ideas.
One is certainly tactical and concerns the two strikers, with Alvaro Morata and Tammy Abraham currently irreplaceable (net of physical condition). The other two instead concern individuals, like Matteo Gabbia who has earned the trust of the Portuguese after not having seen the field in the first few outings.
A little further forward Youssouf Fofana is showing evident growth game after game in his role as a screen in front of the defence, as Fonseca admitted: “For our game structure, Youssouf is the most important piece, the engine of everything.”
Fonseca is right. I’m growing a lot of respect for Fonseca. We need to have a clear starting XI and rotate moderately due to the long season with lots of games, but also due to the need to keep collecting Serie A points to remain competitive for the Scudetto.
Pioli never realized that the best way regarding rotations is to start your best XI, secure the result, and then and only then rest some of the starters with subs. Pioli used to do the opposite: massive rotation then we’d be behind two goals and he had to bring in the starters anyway to try to chase back the result. Stupid. Inter never did it this way; they start their best XI game after game.