AC Milan head coach Paulo Fonseca is continuing to sculpt and mould his side, and a report has highlighted the changes he is expected to make compared to Stefano Pioli’s approach.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) report this morning that the idea is to reduce the number of opportunities given away to the other team at all costs, even at the cost of creating fewer.
Fonseca will use possession to control the pace, he will ask for more dribbling and he will try to keep the team compact. The most visible shifts, however, are in the positions of certain individuals.
Five names above all stand out as having adapted roles compared to what they did under Pioli and those are Christian Pulisic, Fikayo Tomori, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Yunus Musah and Alexis Saelemaekers.
The heart of the team
Pulisic was used as a No.10 and not as a right winger in the friendly against Real Madrid and this has already been talked about a lot. The idea is that from the middle he can go left and right, use both feet, give more assists.
It’s difficult to do better than 2023-24 in which he racked up 15 goals and 11 assists across all competitions, but Fonseca believes in the idea and it means that Loftus-Cheek will move back from the attacking midfield role to the double pivot.
RLC was perfect for Pioli’s style as he found someone similar to Sergej Milinkovic-Savic but under the Portuguese the No.10 role as has different responsibilities, which means the Englishman can shift back and take advantage more of his physicality and dribbling.
The flanks and Tomori
On the right the forecasts say that we will see much more of Chukwueze and much less of Musah, who Pioli also used wide to differing degrees of success. In the new Milan, the USA international will be a midfielder and the past says that that is the position in which he can do best.
He has the physique to tackle, win the ball back and accelerate forwards, his most natural quality. Of course, he is likely to be better off with Tijjani Reijnders (or Yacine Adli) than with Loftus-Cheek, but preseason is helping establish which pairings work best.
On the left, in addition to Rafael Leao, we now see Saelemaekers. He has been shifted from his first spell at Milan as a right winger over the the opposite flank where he played at Bologna, though Noah Okafor will battle for the spot too.
Finally, Tomori is right-footed but at Milan he always played on the left side of the centre-back pairing. With Strahinja Pavlovic things change because he will shift to the right, and this helps the geometries when it comes to build-up play because he will use his preferred foot more.
I really like what’s happing to the club, players have to suite his style of play and with Fonseca exploring new tactics and giving opportunities to you players that something we missed out last couple of years.
Fonseca is known to give youngsters chance tp play and get more playing time.
Cant wait to see Theo, Leo and great Keeper.
Tomori looked the best at Milan when he was paired up with Romagnoli. 2 totally different CBs who complemented each other nicely. Kalulu and Tomori needed 3 DM’s in front of them to make them look good.
Pavlovic is more athletic than Alessio, but let’s see if he has Romagnoli’s positional awareness and discipline, because Tomori certainly lacks in that sense.
I’m not in favor of Pulisic being every day n10. In certain situations and vs certain teams, yes, but that cannot be his regular position. That would leave a hole between the midfield and the attack.
RLC should have never been playing that high as he did under Pioli. Bringing him back into central midfield is a great move. Same with Musah.
Some don’t like the praise Saelemakers has been getting. They say remember how he played before he went to Bologna. The difference is that back then Saelemakers was the starter, now he will be a back up. Not the same expectations, but he can be very valuable.
Cant really argue with any of your points. But the 3 DM comment made me laugh. lol we’ve never had 3 DMs let alone one after Kessie left. – like true DM, not RLC DM. but i get your point, and totally agree.
Kessie was still on the team the last time Kalulu and Tomori looked good together. Pioli played Kessie, Tonali and one of Krunic/Bennacer in the midfield.
I think Pulisic gets back on defense more than people realize, I don’t think there would be a hole between attack and midfield if he plays the 10. I do think winger is his best position though. He will draw an insane amount of fouls as a 10 with his ability on the half turn. I’m still not super excited about him at the 10, but time will tell if it works or not.
He does get back to the defense but that’s not the point, he still is a forward. Having Pulisic play as a 10 is pretty much the equivalent of playing with only 2 midfielders. Some forwards do help with the defense but that doesn’t make them midfielders. We need a 10 who can also play as an 8 and Pulisic doesn’t play as an 8
Against solid teams or team with stacked midfields (3-5-2, 3-4-3,…) we need 3 midfielders, 3 players with high workrate who can/do play deep, deal with pressure,….
This!
People seem to not realize how pulisic even when he plays as a winger he tracks back a lot and help Calabria in defense, obviously more so than leao does on the left side.
Puli did in fact track back to help in D more than any other attacking player I’d say.
We got the best Coach for the kind of players we currently have. Let’s keep supporting the team
My bigger concern is that, as you indicated, he will draw an insane amount of fouls (a few years ago, Atletico fould him so many times the year chelsea won the UCL, he tied Messi’s record for most fouls in a UCL match), but given his stature and injury history, he will NOT make it through a season without at least one major injury, if he plays as a 10 all season.
My second concern is that Chukwueze did show signs of improvement towards the end of last year, but I’m not sure that he can produce at anywhere NEAR the level Pulisic did, last yar.
Backup to backups? I have nothing against Alexis, there’s just no room for him.
I see the optimistic comments, but thus squad is simply just not good enough to win the Scudetto. Morata, Pavlovic, Abraham… None of them is world class or even near it. A top 4 finish would be a great ach, I’m not joking
@giga this is what Rei is there for. against team with stack midfielders
Rei can be played upward and Puli can move back to the right and we can have another good starter chuku as a back up.
i agree with you we don’t have a no 8 but with rei not having a decisive role under fonseca while not build him to be an 8. only his shot is terrible and maybe his drinking but every other thing works.
rei can be the next Wesley snejdier
Reinjders only shows up against small/weak teams. Goes missing all the time vs big teams. He’s nowhere near Wes Sneijder level.
We were having world class players when we won the league the last time?
Pls let’s just give this team support
It’s a new season with new players and also new Coach, let’s just hope the teams plan works.