One thing that Paulo Fonseca has shown already is that he will use every resource available in his AC Milan squad, which has led to frequent rotations.
La Gazzetta dello Sport speaks of the ‘democratisation of the Milan squad’ under Fonseca, who made it clear that he sees benching Rafael Leao as a normal thing to do, just as he had no issues giving Francesco Camarda his first start.
The Portuguese sees everyone in the squad as useful, with no one indispensable. Fonseca has even explained this concept through the different players who have worn the captain’s armband, revealing that he sees five players worthy of doing so.
The top five for overall minutes played across all competitions is as follows: Christian Pulisic leads (1,168 minutes), followed by Youssouf Fofana (1,139), Tijjani Reijnders (1,094), Theo Hernandez (1,026) and Emerson Royal (976).
The least-used players are because of their injury problems: Ismael Bennacer (60), Luka Jovic (78) and Davide Calabria (221). For the rest, in the 15 games so far in 2024-25, all have amassed at least 350 minutes.
Some of these are reserves, too. Filippo Terracciano for example is on 359′, Yunus Musah 396, Tammy Abraham 482, Samuel Chukwueze 549 and Noah Okafor 446.
The minutes for centre-backs tells its own story. Fikayo Tomori (905 minutes) is followed by Strahinja Pavlovic (722), Malick Thiaw (547) and Matteo Gabbia (539), the latter having been out for a while
Frequent rotations is what’s harming their results.
no passing skills more
Wow…”reserves” is just sad reading. Under 600 mins. Chuk and Musah….costing 50m. What a royal waste of money.
People complained that Pioli only made squad rotations when the players got injured and he was forced to do so and people will complain when Fonseca utilize the squad as best as possible.
Personally I like it and even though I’m still pretty angry about Saturdays result it was largely the same squad compared to the Madrid match so if anything they should still have been able to get the job done.
In regard of the reserves and the minutes they currently has amassed then it looks like they will at least double their minutes compared to last year so that is fine with me.
He got the job to develop the players, that’s why there is a strong rotation, to raise the value of the players.
Well first of all a coach’s job is to utilize the squad as well as possible and get the max potential out of its talent and that does happen through rotation even if there still is a core set of players. Secondly even if a semi goal is to increase the squads value of its players and some gets sold down the road it isn’t necessarily negative either as long as the overall squad moves in the right direction. I’m pretty sure that is the long term goal.
There’s so much rotation because this team lacks the top players that we are expecting since winning a Scudetto. A few players only are paramount because most of the team is average. We live and perish by the cheap policy. Pavlovic over Buongiorno is a great symbol of this Milan in many ways.
It is really funny that everyone complained when Pioli didn’t rotate and now that Fonseca is rotating, he’s been bashed for doing so. Conclusion? If we don’t win each match, it’s on the coach. Even if theos on the pitch aren’t putting enough effort for the team. It’s on the coach.
Well… Fonseca (at least momentarily) has transformed Leao so now he should focus on Theo and others who are underperforming.
Well Buongiorno also cost roughly twice as much but I do actually like Pavlovic and if he can improve a bit on positional work and decision making then I think he could become a pretty great defender so I have no issues with us acquiring him.
@bb I didn’t complain that Pioli didn’t rotate so I can’t tell for the others. Nobody was complaining when Milan won the Scudetto with obvious starters. But right now the coach is lost and most of the team members are average players, hence the huge turnover.
@Martin Pavlovic never played in Serie A before, will need time and patience and is not a reliable player right now. And Buongiorno is the exact opposite, hence his price. Milan favours the budget over the quality, nothing new here.
Of course he needs time to adjust and I’m also willing to give him that. I think long term Pavlovic could turn out as the best of the two but sure not at present. We probably should have brought in an older player short term that both possesed leadership skills and quality to have easened the Serbs transition and helped guiding the lot of players.
“@bb I didn’t complain that Pioli didn’t rotate so I can’t tell for the others. Nobody was complaining when Milan won the Scudetto with obvious starters. But right now the coach is lost and most of the team members are average players, hence the huge turnover.”
Yes, and my comment was directed at you but to continue your story. When we won the scudetto we had more than one #9 and there was competition for all positions (excl. GK). We were supposed to have more depth now but it turned out it was only numerical.
*WASN’T directed
But why change the most crucial role from Madrid game? Why couldn’t he just stick with Tomori-Thiaw pair? Consistency is the key of central defense pair and the more they play together, the more they’ll understand each other.
“Consistency is the key of central defense pair and the more they play together, the more they’ll understand each other.”
You just answered yourself. He played Pavlovic because “the more they play together, the more they’ll understand each other”. Which is a better opponent to do that than Cagliari who had scored only 9 times?
Tomori, Thiaw & Gabbia have played enough together to understand each others. It’s time to get Pavlovic there too. That’s why he played. For the exact same reason you said yourself.
There can be various reasons why that was the case. As bb also pointed out a good match to let them pair but it could also be the fact that maybe Tomori didn’t have many minutes in his legs for that match.
In the end the loss of points is more down to the players than Fonsecas XI as they clearly should be able to win that match but didn’t due to individual failures.
No way this is accurate. This would mean musah has the same number of tackles won as fofana and more than RLC in 1/3 of the minutes. The same number of assists. Same number of goal creating actions. More key passes than fofana and loftus cheek. Same successful dribbles on half the attempts with the highest rate on the team. If he were playing that well. He wouldn’t be on the bench if they were trying to win games.
No team in the world is gonna win anything with changing formation on weekly basis.