Ismael Bennacer will remain at Milan at least until January after a summer move did not materialise, and now Paulo Fonseca must find a way to get the best out of him.
As MilanNews report, there were a few weeks where Bennacer’s departure seemed increasingly likely to make room for a new signing in the midfield, with Manu Koné (now at Roma) and Adrien Rabiot the most heavily linked.
However, the Algerian midfielder ended up remaining with the Rossoneri and has also been included in the UEFA squad list for the first part of the Champions League too, all after an ending to the window that had everyone on edge.
In addition to the strong interest of a Saudi club that lasted practically the entire summer, Atletico Madrid and Marseille enquired about a loan on deadline day, but in the end an agreement was not reached as Milan wanted to sell him permanently.
The report also confirms that the player did not train for a few days at Milanello and it was not because of injury but rather because of the interest from other clubs. He did not even participate in the trip to face Lazio, officially due to gastroenteritis but he had trained the day before.
Milan’s management of this matter has certainly not been the best. The club were probably certain of selling him and instead now they still have him in the squad, and so now the mission to recover Bennacer begins, especially from a psychological point of view.
The former Empoli man – who is currently with his national team – certainly cannot be happy about being put on the market by the club and therefore a lot of work will be needed both by Paulo Fonseca and by the Milan directors, in particular Zlatan Ibrahimovic, to recover his mentality.
The added complication is that Youssouf Fofana and Tijjani Reijnders (plus possibly Yunus Musah) are ahead of him in the pecking order so minutes might be tough to come by, which will further damage his morale.
Nonetheless, there are many games to play in a crowded schedule and therefore it is in everyone’s interest to get the best version of Bennacer, all while waiting for January when the window will reopen and clubs like Marseille could come forward again.
Moncashi…
In a team, cohesion, good mood, chimestry, motivation, hunger for the win and love of the shirt are keys to success and sometimes (often times ?) are more important than the individual quality of each player.
Unfortunately for our management (and thus us) this attributes cannot be quantified or qualified through an algorithm. They require good understanding of the sport, daily presence and also treating players like they’re humans and not like they’re robots.
In 2021/22, despite ou lack of individual strength, we managed to win the scudetto thanks to having a lot of what is mentioned above, but right now, with Fonseca having no control of the locker room, Leao and Theo sulking and perhaps wanting to leave, Jovic renewed only to be left out of the UEFA list and Bennacer seemingly heading out but now staying it, I doubt there is a lot of confidence among the staff or the players themselves, that something good can be done this season.
Fonseca would be wise to integrate him back and into a 3 man midfield.
Milan reminds of Marseille now, which is also owned by an owner who has no knowledge in football and hired the wrong people to manage the club. Every year they shuffle the squad with promising and exciting prospects because the sporting director gets nice commissions on every transfer, the coach is the scapegoat every season because it’s not going according to the plan and they struggle to sell the deadwood and put them in the « loft ». And of course the constant revolutions prevent the club to succeed in competitions. And every year they promise that it’s going to be different this time. I guess this is modern football and what happens when you have an incompetent management.
It’s crazy that Furlani and Moncada wants to sell Bennacer, a better midfielder than Musah, Fofana, Reijnders, and RLC.
But i’m not surprised since they sold Tonali and since this days we don’t have replacement with his quality.
This is the trading model. Every year the team has to sell players to generate revenues. This is why they buy many useless players and focus on the youth teams so every year they have some players that they can sell. So far it’s not convincing because the money generated from the sales is partly wasted in brand new useless players like Musah, Chukwueze or Emerson Royal.
It could work in theory, as long as they keep the best players and starters, but Milan needs a good sporting director with football knowledge to make smart acquisitions and not a management by committee with bankers and a video scout.
Sssssttt…. you can’t write something like that in this blog, some people here will say we dodged a bullet by selling Tonali. NO, WE’RE NOT!
Neither Milan or Newcastle knew about it, and he has accepted & carried out his sanctions.
He may or may not be as good as the best tough midfielders in the world today, but one thing that sticks with me, when he defended Theo when he was fouled by Dumfries in the derby and Theo was asked to stand straight back up, Tonali defended Theo & shooing that inter bum away, that’s a character not all players have.
Man it was nice to see the Newcastle fans saluting Tonali’s return with many banners; “Midfield maestro from Milano”. Meanwhile the fans here would call him a degenerate gambler and say he was a poor player. I guess we have the management and team that we deserve.
https://video.gazzetta.it/video-newcastle-che-coreografia-per-il-ritorno-di-tonali/d2381b2a-9f2f-46e4-a21a-7d75d95a4xlk
True. Deep down I’m really happy to see him being treated very well by the fans there. And still we have some members here who thinks Sandro is average and prefer to have 2 or 3 Musahs.
It’s the same thought for me. I would say Reijnders is potentially a better midfielder with a different set of skills than the Algerian though. But it’s crazy how hard they keep trying to sell our better players for average ones and expect to have better season results than the previous one. Pavlovic has been a God send so far, but I guess the verdict is still out for the other acquisitions. I wish we could keep Bennacer but the way things are now, I think this romance has come to an end already.
There’s absolutely no reason for treating Bennacer badly after his contributions to Milan.
It’s very bad, now I wish he can do the same to Milan.