Although AC Milan were playing an opponent that were more prepared from a fitness point of view, Saturday’s draw against Rapid Wien made it clear how much work there is to do.
As MilanNews rightly point out, the Milan side we saw in Austria were far behind their opponents in terms of match fitness, given that the Rossoneri were their last preseason game and they play in the Europa League qualifiers in three days.
Paulo Fonseca, who took office at Milanello on July 8, has been working with the team for just over two weeks and considers it normal for some hitches in the practical demonstration of the ideas that he has been trying to get across.
The issue is that the trip to the United States is just around the corner and only Luka Jovic out of the internationals will be back for the game against Manchester City on July 26. He will be followed by Rafael Leao on July 28 and Noah Okafor on July 30.
Mike Maignan and Theo Hernandez will resume training on August 2 at Milanello, in addition to Tijjani Reijnders who will be back there on August 3. Alvaro Morata will make his first visit to the training complex on August 5.
Therefore, the is quite a large segment of the preseason that Fonseca wil lspend without the top players, with the squad returning to Italy after the friendly on August 7 against Barcelona. From there it will be more or less 10 days until the season begins, which is not long.
Not only that, but the mercato has been a slow burner so far. Aside from the signing of Morata from Atletico Madrid, the incoming operations currently seem to be experiencing an impasse that is starting to frustrate fans.
Therefore, with less than a month to go until the start of the new season, not only does Fonseca have to do without the players who were at the European Championship and Copa America, but he still does not have the players he wants to fill the obvious issues that last season highlighted.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has assured that new faces will arrive and the choices will be well thought out, however the longer that things drag on the more difficult it becomes for Fonseca to integrate them. Time is money, and both are slipping away.