AC Milan had the chance to prove they belong in the Scudetto discussion on Tuesday night, but the 2-0 defeat to Napoli simply reopened old cracks.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) have a rather provocative headline: ‘Milan, have you seen Conte?’. Who knows how the match would have ended with Conte in charge of the Rossoneri instead, but he certainly gave the management something to mull over as they moved 11 points ahead in the league.
With this defeat, Milan are ‘unofficially out of the Scudetto race’ in October as per the paper. The team need to discover a consistency that has not been there for a long time and even if they win almost all the games they are now relying on others declining.
Despite the absences (and the defeat), last night we still saw a proud Milan that played the style that Fonseca wants, conditioned however by too many individual errors that inevitably affected the final result. Chances were missed which – coupled with defensive mistakes – meant the game was only going to go one way.
Fonseca remarked that he has ‘never seen it won or lost’ after 10 games, referring to the Scudetto battle. At this rate, and with this consistent inconsistency, it will be very hard for Milan to have a say in matters.
They keep saying that Rafael Leao is not a saga at Milan, but yesterday’s exclusion against Napoli says otherwise, even more so if we consider the absence of Christian Pulisic.
Something seems to have broken, and if Milan don’t have their best and highest-paid player out there producing, a title challenge is impossible.
Nah, we’re unofficially out of the top 4 race. The s word shouldn’t even be mentioned, it’s insulting to our great owner & entertainer who thinks winning is boring.
We’ve criticized Leao this season for essentially having stalled since 2021/22 and being subpar when it comes to shooting, passing, tracking back and defending.
We’ve criticized Tomori and most importantly Theo for their misbehaviour and their plummeting output.
We’ve criticized Emerson, Loftus-Cheek, Musah and Pavlovic for being mediocre, and of course the management who is behind all of this.
However I think it’s about time we adress Fonseca. He seems to have got away with some criticism because he won the derby and because he was bold enough to adress Leao and Theo’s indiscipline and at some point, things seemed to be heading towards the positive since we were only 3 points behind the leader. Many excuses were given since he got many new players, some missed preseason, he started late…
Currently however, we might already have lost the scudetto and even a fourth place is not a guarantee. Qualifying to the next round of the UCL is not a sure task either.
Under Fonseca, with the exception of Pulisic, every player who was there last season seems to be on the decline or in stagnation. It is mostly noticeable with Leao and Loftus-Cheek. And yet we have articles about confidence or playing beautifully or whatever…
So I’ll say this: if between november and january it becomes clear we won’t win anything or won’t make it to the next round of UCL, he should be sacked, period. Maybe we will still have time to get Conceiçao or another respectable coach, at which point we should instruct him to prepare a team for next season.
Can’t wait for the next interview from any of the idiots at the helm with the usual key words “no panic”, “patience”, “vision”, “ambition”. After all, only 25% of the season has been played. It’s time for Fonseca to organise a barbecue to get a win over almighty Monza.
We’ll beat Monza – we’ll actually look pretty good because we “needed a strong response” after the last game. Same with Cagliari after Madrid.
Then we’ll be complacent as f*** against Juve because we “definitely turned a corner” in the last game, and clearly don’t need to try any more.
Rinse and repeat all season.
You’re all forgetting we are in this for participation and not to win trophies. Winning is boring.
Chill.
“Something seems to have broken, and if Milan don’t have their best and highest-paid player out there producing, a title challenge is impossible.”
Well, to be fair, their best player had flu and only played in the end. Or tried to play but wasn’t himself.