Paulo Fonseca continues to get praise after his bold but successful moves in the derby victory against Inter on Saturday night, with the Italian media even claiming a new Milan is being born.
As this morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) writes, it took Fonseca six games to find the tactical framework for his Milan side but in light of what happened on Sunday night against Inter he might just have found something worth sticking with.
The turning point against Inter finally came from the defensive phase, which started from the front because the line of four forwards pressed high and didn’t allow the Nerazzurri to play out as Simone Inazghi would like.
Then there were individual performances like that of Matteo Gabbia who played a practically perfect match even beyond the winning goal he scored, limiting Lautaro Martinez. His composure was a nice complement to Fikayo Tomori and it will be hard to keep him out of the team now.
The difference, especially in the second half, was also made by Youssouf Fofana who provided a ‘perfect’ midfield screen and was a dam in front of the back line. This also allowed Tijjani Reijnders to act with greater freedom moving forward, and he could have had multiple assists.
The real tactical turning point, however, was the choice to use two strikers. Tammy Abraham and Alvaro Morata were used side by side and many thought it wouldn’t work but they were the first line of pressure out of possession and when Milan had the ball their movement dragged Inter around.
The mobility of the Englishman and the Spaniard not only created confusion among the Inter lines but also allowed Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leao to push on into the spaces that were created. The next step is to become more ruthless, and of course to build on this new platform.
I mean, it’s about the level of reactionism I expect from the press these days, but even so, it’s daft to set up for Lecce at home in the same way as we would against Inter ‘away’.
That said, it was nice to have three forwards willing and capable to press (Giroud always put a shift in but had his limitations), we just need to be aware that several teams will knock it long to bypass that and that the ‘knock the ball past Leao then switch it to the other side’ opposition tactic is still a vulnerability at the moment.
This is where Pioli failed. He didn’t plan for the opponent. Kept the same tactics for every game. Lecce is going to sit back and counter. We are very weak against a counter attack.
Also Inter was slower than usual. This result although amazing was against a tired or complacent Inter.
Before January we need to see the following:
if Calabria bounces back from his bad form (can he develop into a swiss-army knife type of player? he used to play as LB and CDM as well). if not, the solution clearly becomes Kayode’s purchase.
if Bennacer is usable or should we just send him to Saudi and hope to get the higher boundary of 30-50M range, and sign Ricci as replacement.
if Okafor is a better Leao understudy or should he be utilized centrally as Morata sub? but no matter the answer J.David would shine in this squad, as he can play both 10 and 9, he would be able to compete with both Tammy and Morata. and since his contract expires in summer 2025, Lille should happily accept a 10-15M offer.
But no matter the other reasons, RLC needs to leave and we can also get 20-25M from a random EPL team. Terracciano either loan or even sell. Florenzi, Ballo-Toure, Origi need to be dealt with as well.