Theo Hernandez was one of the goalscorers in AC Milan’s heroic 3-2 win over Inter this evening, kickstarting the comeback with a free-kick. After the game, he shared his thoughts on lifting the Supercoppa Italiana trophy.
Hernandez has been heavily criticised in recent months for his performances but tonight, he was brilliant. In our player ratings, he was handed an 8/10 – the highest score along with Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leao – and clearly showed his old self.
Speaking to Mediaset after the game, as transcribed by MilanNews, he admitted that it’s been a difficult time but that he’s getting back on track. He also apologised to Paulo Fonseca for getting sacked for what was partly their fault.
You’re back, a goal and a great performance…
“We played a very good game. It was a difficult moment for me but I’m getting back on track, I’m not 100% yet but I can help the team like I did today.”
We see a different Milan, more confident with Conceicao…
“Very nice. It’s also our fault that Fonseca left, not just his fault. I wish him the best. With Conceicao, we had little time but we used it well.”
Who do you dedicate the goal to?
“I dedicate it to my wife, to my son, now we’re having a girl too, and to my whole family.”
Cagliari are up next for Milan and in order to turn things around in the league as well, they will need Theo in good form consistently. Perhaps adding a left-back deputy this month will allow the Frenchman to rest when needed too.
I always thought that there was a dressing room mutiny against Fonseca when he was coach. This interview and assertion by Theo all but confirms it. The players never really wanted to work with Fonseca. They didn’t respect him.
It was mostly on you Theo. The fact that some think it is ok for a player to deliberately sabotage the team because he doesn’t like the coach is just mind boggling. It’s unacceptable to your teammates, the fans and the club. Theo used to be one of my favorites, now I’ve lost all respect for him.
You are right. I don’t like Theo’s personality. Too impulsive, too undisciplined, too prima donna, and not always willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the team (or I should say, RARELY willing to do that). Theo seems selfish and self-serving in his attitude.
However, WHEN he is willing, he is a very good player, and I was watching the video clip of Conceição’s first training session at Milanello, and Theo had a huge smile on his face. Obviously Theo hated Fonseca and he is thrilled that Fonseca is gone.
So, let’s hope that Conceição who is a strong man, will handle Theo’s prima donna outbursts and will get him to perform like Theo knows how to do.
His horrible first half of the season can’t be a matter of skills, because a player of his level and still young, can’t suddenly unlearn how to play football. It was obviously a mental thing and a bad personality thing, together with a lack of professionalism, and a willingness to sabotage the coach that he hated.
However, if Conceição can get Theo to deal with these shortcomings and just play his football, Theo will turn again into a contributor, like he did today.
It’s not for nothing that Conceição made Mike Maignan the captain in these two games, rather than Theo, who used to be the captain anytime Calabria was not playing. Obviously Conceição has already noticed that Theo doesn’t have the leadership and the self-sacrifice required of a captain.
So, I’m hopeful that Conceição will get Theo to at least minimize some of his negative traits, while maximizing Theo’s good side, that is, that of being a talented footballer.
If Theo doesn’t do it, I think Conceição is the kind of strong man who will then say “get the hell out of my team if you don’t put the team above your own ego.”
Now look at that.
When you are not busy twerking for Leoa, you can actually write a post that makes sense.
Salute 🫡
Lol
I talk about several other players, all the time. Given your enormous hatred for Rafael Leão, you only pay attention when I talk about him. At one point, idiots like you, flyingturtle, and K were so rabid about him, that I took upon myself to defend him a bit more; but my overall posting is not at all focused on him. It was temporarily a bit more on him due to you, the haters.
Who do you think you’re fooling? Everybody here knows of your unreasonable, ridiculous hatred for Rafa. You’re the guy who wanted him sold. He just won a trophy for us.
You should change the color of your first dot, to either blue or white. You shouldn’t call yourself a true rossonero. You are by far one of the biggest trolls here. I frankly doubt that you root for AC Milan in real life.
I’m a Milan fan, you are a fanboy of Leao.
Milan loses a game, Leao played like trash and you come in with a novel of how Leao played well while you crap on the other players.
Criticizing the other players for not being 4 meters tall to get an awful leao crosses going 2 meters over everyone’s heads.
That’s a true Rossonero I guess.
Leao isn’t that important for me to hate him. I just write what I see, while you are busy looking for excuses and blaming everyone else except Leao when he plays like trash, which is majority of the time.
And knowing that triggers the fanboys makes it even funnier.
“Milan loses a game, Leao played like trash and you come in with a novel of how Leao played well while you crap on the other players.”
Well… Double-standards, I guess. But give Luigi a rest, he’s so in love with Leao he can’t see any faults in him. You’ll only trigger him to write a two-page essay on how amazing (and definitely not-lazy!) Leao is. 🙂
For some reason your ridiculous post below doesn’t have a reply button so I’m replying here.
No, you’re definitely not a rossonero. You’re just a troll. You love to bash our players. That’s what you do. You’re not fooling anybody. And no, I’m not a fanboy. I’m a lifelong, decades-long rossonero.
You are the one who thinks the guy who has made 39 goal contributions since the start of last season, exactly as many as Pulisic, tied both for the first place among all Milan players, is trash.
That alone shows that you are a troll and not a true rossonero. Just give up. Your game is getting old.
If like you said, you say it like you see it, you’d have to be a man and say “oops, I guess I was wrong about Rafa; he came in and immediately had an impact despite coming back from injury; he transformed the offense, created 4 scoring opportunities, 3 of which got converted, thus winning the trophy for us.”
Because that’s OBJECTIVE. That’s a fact. Re-watch the game after minute 50 when he came in, and count the goal opportunities he created. Four. Tijjani squandered one. Theo, Puli and Abraham converted the other 3.
If you say it like you see it, either you agree with the above, or you need to go see an eye doctor.
But I know you’ll never agree, because you are a troll and not a true rossonero. Go away, troll.
At the red and black dots guy:
See the front page of today’s sports newspapers in Italy:
Corriere dello Sport: Leao entra e fa l’artista
Tuttoport: Decisivo Leão, entrato al 50′
La Gazzeta dello Sport: Leão entra e vola
Professional sports journalists see it. But this troll pretends that he doesn’t.
The sad truth is that Theo has had three coaches at Milan, and all three have struggled to get 100% from him. So far Pioli was the best at it, but even during his time Theo would disappear for some games every season. The real question: Is 80% Theo better than 100% some other LB? I guess that depends on who the other LB might be. But the question needs to be answered this summer so we can either move on from Theo and bring in someone else, or keep Theo and accept that it will always be a struggle to get the maximum from him.
Small clarification: Conceicao is just beginning, so can’t say whether he will struggle as much as the other two. A two game sample isn’t enough to say either way. We shall see shortly.
While I do agree or was unprofessional of Theo, you can’t pin it all on mostly him.
Remember when Musah said they don’t understand the coach’s instructions, or when the coach would come to the presser and throw his entire team under the bus?
How do you expect those players to respect him? It’s still the fault of the management for not reading the room and first hiring the wrong coach, then taking way too long to sack him.
You are exactly right. You said some things that I said, too. I understand how the players felt with Fonseca, and how unmotivated they were regarding playing for him. Like I said, it’s MAINLY Fonseca’s fault, not the players’. However, it remains true, like you also said, that some players acted unprofessionally. But I believe that you and I agree that the lack of professionalism started with Fonseca throwing them under the bus and starting a war against them for little reason. Nobody likes to play for a coach who does that. This is similar to how Mourinho lost Roma’s locker room and the players started to play horribly under him.
There were just so many incidents on field where certain players clearly showed that they didn’t respect Fonseca and weren’t paying attention to him.
I re-watched the entire 97 minutes and 48 seconds.
I realized that in my ratings in the ratings thread, I was a bit unfair to some players. Couldn’t post this correction there because the system mistakenly said it was a duplicate post; will try to post it here.
First, Theo. He wasn’t that bad in first half. He actually had the highest number of created goal opportunities for all players in both teams: five. He had the highest rating of all players for both teams in FotMob’s algorithm. So I take back what I said about his bad first half, and bump up his rating by 0.5 point to a full 8.
Calabria – indeed I hadn’t noticed how he set up Pulisic so that Puli set up Rafa who then set up Abraham for the winning goal. I didn’t give a rating to Calabria, but this action deserves a rating, so, 6.5
Emerson – not as atrocious as I thought. He actually did block at least 3 dangerous shots. He had two good offensive actions (although most of the other attempts to help the offense were bad). Still, he doesn’t deserve the very low score of 3 I gave him. I’m upgrading him to a 4.5
Morata actually was the second player with the highest distance covered, after Pulisic. He also had a great header that Sommer had trouble saving, and some other good actions. So I’m also bumping him up by 0.5 points, to a full 7.
Musah was also better than I thought. He doesn’t deserve to be rated any lower than Morata as he also worked very hard and most of his touches were good, so, I also bump him up by 0.5 to a full 7.
Tomori wasn’t as bad as a 4.5 like I initially rated him. Yes, he made a couple of bad mistakes (like he usually does) but was also very effective in many other plays. He got close to a pass. So, I’m upgrading him to 5.5.
Basically the entire team did better when watched coldly and not nervously, than I thought. During the heat of the moment and my nervousness, I got frustrated so I underestimated the efforts of some of our players. Overall we had a very good game; certainly with some shaky defensive moments but we did thwart several attacks by Inter and ended up scoring more than conceding, so, all is well.
It’s alright man! When we watch these birds, we burn with passion. Sempre Forza Milan!🔴⚫️
Tomori still isn’t good enough. I really hope Conceicao sees it and returns Gabbia to the starting lineup once he clears the flu. Don’t understand all of the Tomori fanbois who think he’s so great. Gabbia-Thiaw has been a great pairing this season. Scoring goals has been the problem this term, not conceding them.
Doesnt have what it takes to be in milan… if he sabotaged coach, he needs to go… well “if”… we all saw a drop in motivation after maldini was sacked… and another huge drop after about 10 games into the season… now back to his old self, ok… but we need to cash in as soon as possible, as much as possible… im sure leao did the same, as they both played at old levels yday