AC Milan finished the winter window with a flourish and one of the signings they got over the line was Joao Felix, which generated quite a buzz among the fan base.
As Tuttosport (via MilanNews) recall this morning, this excitement only grew with Felix’s great showing against Roma on his debut in the Coppa Italia. He scored his first goal that night too, receiving a through ball from Santiago Gimenez and chipping over the goalkeeper.
Unfortunately, however, apart from a few flashes in the following matches the Portuguese has shown very little. In fact, the paper writes that he has ‘already suffered a strong decline’ because he isn’t producing what is needed in terms of end product to justify occupying the No.10 role.
The former Benfica and Atletico Madrid player has limited himself to showing only glimpses of his his obvious technical quality, but that is too little for a player of his class who could be decisive in every match.
Obviously there are some mitigating factors, such as the fact that he was no longer used to playing so much given that he was playing very little with Chelsea. In addition, playing every three days means he has not trained much with his new team-mates, including Gimenez who is also a new signing.
Conceiçao, who pushed hard for his arrival at Milanello, has great faith in his compatriot. The Milan coach is convinced he can relaunch him, but up until now the results have not been satisfactory, both in terms of what Joao Felix has produced and the team’s performances.
Given that there had already been speculation about making the loan permanent after his impressive debut, things have cooled down now a bit, as Tuttosport’s headline of ‘the Joao Felix effect has already suffered a sharp decline’ conveys.
How can you decline if you’ve never been on top? Lol 😂
bullseye! on point
Al final de temporada vemos TROFEOS!!! HASTA AHORA!!! 1 A 0 (SUPERCOPA) “”LÍDER”” JAJAJAJJA JAJAJAJJA
Haha true
Ha ha, true true true
A homerun. Sorry to say I predicted this as I’ve actually seen him play. Lots of tricks, but slow and doesn’t work well with others. There will always be a team that thinks they can unlock his ‘talent’.
The same journalists that were writing about him like he was Maradona! Clowns.
and its why it will cost conceicao his job. i hate these man-crush coaches.
Like pioli and krunic🤣🤣🤣
The same clown fans who wanted to sign him permanently after 1-2 matches lmao.
Give the boy a fair chance. Technically is better than a lot of the current crop of players we have on display week in and week out. Sometimes I wonder if he is surrounded by the right type of team mates to take his game to the next level. Wait till the blue side of town get ideas of taking hum over…the Calha if we are not careful…curious to see what a coach like Sarri can get out of him…
I don’t get why Felix is being forced into the team. Our front three clearly don’t know how to play with him yet. He keeps getting in everyone’s way and his position suppresses Reijnders’ stellar form.
Yet Conceicao starts him every damn game.
Yes Felix seems to increase congestion in the box.
We don’t have a hold-up player, something both Ibra and Giroud were capable of. That’s one quality we could use in the attack.
The same people who called CDK a flop, the same people who called Diaz a flop, are now calling another n10 a flop, when will you people understand that the n10 position is just difficult to play in Seria A, especially when every team plays low defense against Milan, the guy has crazy skill and is very well rounded.
Of course he does look good when every team Milan faced in the past 3 games is not interested in attacking and are only looking for a tie, the only time you can correctly judge a 10 is when you’re in an open game or when the opponent team are behind and are having to get out of their area, I cant wait til they give him away to Atalanta and watch him get a balon d’or while you guys whine about the next n10
I’ve only seen him for a few games, but it seems to me that his ability to recognize opportunity, make decisions, and execute them is a bit lacking. I think those more subtle skills are the most important things for a playmaker. He looks a bit selfish, too, which doesn’t help, but perhaps he is only selfish because his situation in the game is much clearler to himself than the situation of the others around him. Technical ability is easy to see but it is not as important. When someone is technically gifted but isn’t good at reading the defense, recognizing opportunity, making decisions, and executing on them their play at a playmaking position is likely to look haphazard and inefficient. Maybe he’s just had a bad few games, but it sounds like the question of “why isn’t Joao Felix doing better?” has followed him around for several years. Perhaps it’s just something like his decision making process that can be improved more easily, but if he’s not recognizing the opportunities then it seems an outside shot for him to reach his apparent potential at this point.
He gets fouled 3.33 times per 90 min…for context that’s about double leaos rate. But he doesn’t have the strength to fight through. He’s reliant on technical ability to win those duels and many just can’t be won, he will get brought down… I feel like this was very foreseeable… ( yamal can start in la liga vs young attackers in serie a). He will need time to adjust and get the ball out of his feet before he can get fouled but until then…it’s muscle memory…when players don’t receive a card you see the dispair as instead of him now getting a cautioned player being careful, he knows that he’s in for 90 min of strategic fouling. It removes a large part of his game. Not a fan of his but anyone can see the ability and it seemed like a not great fit league wise