Paulo Fonseca pledged to work on AC Milan’s defensive phase during the preseason, and yet the team have let in six goals across the first three Serie A games of the season.
MilanNews recall that the worrying thing is how many of the goals that Milan have let in have come from similar circumstances, which indicates a trend that they have failed to fix after other teams attempted (and succeeded) to exploit it.
Against Torino it was Ilic’s cross from the left for the incoming Bellanova on the right, then Lazaro from the left for Zapata in the middle of the box. Against Parma it was Valeri from the left for the arriving Man on the right, then Almqvist from the left for Cancellieri in the middle of the box.
Last night, Nuno Tavares ran down the left to find Castellanos in the middle of the area: goal. Then, five minutes later, Tavares again cut back for Dia in the middle of the penalty box: goal. Milan have conceded six goals in their first three league games and all in exactly the same way.
If in Parma-Milan there were some individual, tactical and attitude shortcoming (Theo Hernandez’s lack of intensity, mainly) in Lazio-Milan we saw all the tactical shortcomings of players out of position who did not have a clear idea of where to be and when.
This, however, is nothing new. Milan has been conceding goals like this since Stefano Pioli’s time and while Fonseca preached a radical change in the defensive phase and in the way of defending, the mistakes so far remain the same.
Strahinja Pavlovic admitted after the game that there is an issue to be fixed: “All the goals we have conceded are similar but we have to work better and grow as a team, we will work on it in the coming weeks.”
Fonseca did not hide his concern: “It’s a good question, but it’s not difficult to answer. Today we conceded the same goals but we were organised, we also have to work individually on these details to avoid conceding these goals. Obviously I’m worried about the goals always conceded in the same way.”
The starters for Lazio were outstanding in the first half and should remain in the starting lineup. In the Parma game, it seemed like Theo allowed one of the goals to happen intentionally. Both Theo and Leão might be better utilized as substitutes for now.
maybe if we give theo a better contract he will play better he arns 4 million per season which is as much as chuk who barerly does nothing pulisc who is good but isnt on theo level and reijnerds
How would giving more money to Theo stop us from conceding goals on the opposite side of the pitch? It is Emerson and Calabria being incompetent that are the cause of this issue, not Theo.
I wonder why they’re not defending with their arms like Fonsy taught them 🙂
Seems like we don’t know how to block incoming crosses from (our) right. Because of personnel and positioning. Emerson so far has been out of position more often than not …
I will never blame the team, but I will blame the management. First we don’t have defense. And we play without a natural 10 in the middle. RLC, Tomori, and Polvihic. They are all avarage players. Chuk cannot even beat one player. The management never go for quality play. Check the mercato, all the good player they never put effort because all they are after is making money, not making the club to the old glory days.
We all know Emerson is not Cafu,or even Kalulu but we should see the entire picture here cause there were a couple of frauds in these games in our defence…Tomori with all the respect is a defender of poor quality,0 awarness,0 anticipation,0 positioning.Franco should go down there and show him some things but Tomori doesnt seem too bright to understand anything..his only quality is his speed…Check his position on most of the goals and see that he was nowhere close in a good position to try to cover Emerson or Calabria…Teraciano??In the name of God how this kid ended to Milan???He must have slept with the”lion”…We play with Teraciano for God sake…Nothing against the kid but cmon man…Jagernaut 1on 1 is pretty good ,but he doesnt have the quality to cover Tomori’s dreaming ass.He scores goals but in defence when he needs to act like a part of the entire doesnt look very good.The defensive midfilders are a joke,I used to be a fan of Benni,I still want to believe in him but he looks more and more rusty..The others brought there are even worse…Fofana was very poor there…No real support offered to defenders…yeah its only the begining at this team for some of them but still they dont look good at all..trying to be positive and not trashing players but many of them are not Milan material