Multiple AC Milan players admitted to mentality issues after the defeat to Feyenoord last night, and Paulo Fonseca’s warnings are still ringing in the ears.
As MilanNews write, after a month and a half of work, we can already have some indications of Sergio Conceiçao’s impact as the head coach and – despite the Supercoppa Italiana win – the difficulties that were encountered by Fonseca have remained.
In 12 games under the former Porto boss the team are yet to win three in a row. The longest streak is two, snapped by the the home draw against Cagliari after the Supercoppa, the horrific performance in Zagreb and then last night’s game in Rotterdam.
Against Empoli, it must be said that the situation was unlocked in the second half and after Luca Marianucci’s red card. In the first half Lorenzo Colombo had hit the post and who knows how it would have gone if the ball had gone in.
In Holland, however, the team sank at the first unfortunate circumstance, with Mike Maignan’s blunder on Igor Paixao’s shot. A reaction never came, and the symbol was Rafael Leao’s getting one-on-one with Wellenreuther, then falling over.
Milan once again displayed the wrong attitude. The poor first halves with Conceiçao are countless: Juventus, Inter (both in Saudi Arabia), Cagliari, Como, Dinamo Zagreb and now Feyenoord. If the alarm goes off, it is at half-time and no sooner.
Many have spoken of an aggression problem, starting with the coach himself, but the reality is that this is an issue that has been dragging on since the days of Fonseca. After the victory against Red Star, the desperate appeal of the current Lyon boss was clear.
“The problem is that our team is a roller coaster. Today we are doing well, tomorrow I don’t know. It’s like tossing a coin and waiting to see what happens. It’s impressive,” he said after the win, back on December 11th.
Nothing has changed since then as Reijnders admitted to Dutch TV: “It’s always up and down. We have to be much more consistent. This week we win in Empoli and then we lose here today against Feyenoord. That shouldn’t happen if you want to compete in the competition and in the Champions League.”
Luckily the situation with Feyenoord is not yet compromised, but at this rate with this lack of consistency, it is really difficult to think of qualifying for the next Champions League, even if the top five get in. Conceiçao’s anger in the post-match press conference, in this respect, says a lot.
Ad nauseum: Three coaches, similar trends amongst certain players. High time those players are changed. End of story.
Agreed. We’re running out of things to fix.
The payers have to be looked at and held responsible. Shape Up or Ship Out.
The problem is that with RedBird in charge, it’s all about brand value. And players like Maignan, Theo, Reijnders, Leao, Pulisic elevate the brand value regardless of how they perform… So unless RedBird sells I don’t know that any of them leave.
When I watched the game I saw it as more tactical issues. Overrun in the midfield. Should have played a 4-3-3. Secondly, just setup to repeatedly go down the left. At some point the manager needs to have the team start using the whole field. The players can’t say the manager set us up wrong.
Leao trying to dribble three players in a row, or trying a dribble when 1-on-1 with the GK when he should shoot instead, or not defending, or lying on the ground for 3 minutes trying to claim a penalty when he clearly isn’t getting it while his teammates are trying to defend isn’t a tactical issue. Sorry.
Yet, they kept going to him over and over. That’s a tactical decision by the manager to run 85% of the attacks thru Felix and Leão on the left side. Felix was not centered in the field but on the left. Pulisic and even Gimenez were more on the right and got little service.
You have a point, but given how despondent Conceicao always looks on the sideline, my guess is that he’s not instructing the team to play down the left predominantly. My guess is that the players reflexively gravitate to the left because Leao-Theo has been our “superstar” offensive engine for so long that they naturally look for these players. So in that sense it could be construed as a tactical issue, but I think it’s still more of a mentality issue. You can’t physically force a player to pass to the right side in the middle of a game. If he gets instructed otherwise in training and disobeys, it’s a mentality thing. So these players need to be moved on so that tactics can be properly implemented. Can’t use any tactic if the players can’t understand, or refuse to understand it. Making an effort to press or track back in defense isn’t about tactics. It’s about wanting to make the effort.
If a player doesn’t do what you want, sub him off
Puli and Tiji don’t deserve to be on the same sentence as Leao, Theo and Maignan. They are actually decent.
Both coaches are partially to blame here, the truth is, neither of them succeed in winning consecutives games and beating opposition whatever they’re top teams or low level teams. Under Fonseca the team was a mayhem during the first few games. He eventually succeed in showing good performances against both Inter and Real Madrid, but that never lasted long. The team was overextended and was uncoordinated in attack leaving the defense exposed and by the time the defense improved, the attack had became so dull that scoring was almost impossible or due to luck. Under Conceição the team is still a mayhem, with seemingly no plan whatsoever for either attacking phase or defensive phase. The only time he had a “plan” was when he parked the bus during the last derby during which we conceded 3 shots on the post and a goal in the dying minutes. Say what you want about the players, but when the coach is either an average one who never found success unless it was in low level leagues (Fonseca) or one who abandonned the coaching and tactics for yelling and more yelling (Conceição) what results do you expect ?
Now onto the players themselves. We don’t have a good team, we don’t even have a team. This squad is a collage of a bunch of individuals suited for a style but not the other. 4-3-3 ? We don’t have an actual defensive midfielder and a box-to-box midfielder whose strength is carrying the ball (Fofana) doesn’t count. 4-2-3-1 ? Our best midfielder (Reijnders) isn’t an attacking one and isn’t suited in the double pivot. 4-4-2 ? Same remark as the double pivot and our wingers aren’t suited for this type of system. Aside from them not being a team, most of our players are either average/below average (Abraham, Musah, Terracciano, Royal, Loftus-Cheek, Chukwueze and formally Morata, Okafor and post-injury Bennacer), exhausted players that can no longer show anything good (Reijnders and Fofana) or former “good players” that decided they no longer care to be good (Théo, Leão and Tomori). There is no leadership in this team, no desire to win, nor discipline whatsoever.
We can theorize all we want about who is good and who isn’t but in the end the results don’t lie and they are the only thing that matter.
It’s not the coach. It’s the players.
The mindset, the mentality, the approach, the intensity, and the energy is set by the leaders and best players on the team. Every team in every sport will go as far as the best players on the team take them. The other players follow the leaders.
Look who tge leaders and “best” players are on Milan and you will understand why Milan is the way it is.
Milan is inconsistent because they have appointed players to be their best and leaders who are inconsistent. Most media and fans call superstars players that play 1 good game out of every 5. I guess that is consistent in some way.
No urgency and no awareness of the moment and importance of the game. Milan “best” players and leaders stroll around the field in UCL knockout game like it’s a pre season games in July. Leao sat on the ground in the penalty area for a whole minute yesterday. That’s supposedly your best player.
Get rid of the overrated players who are a negative in every aspect and bring serious players who will set the standard. Bringing another coach will not change anything until you get rid of the real problems on the team.
Gotta agree.
Doesn’t matter how many different bakers you put in front of an oven that doesn’t work – your cake will still be overdone regardless of the recipe. Gotta fix the oven.
I agree. Milan midfield is a joke, anyone can run it over. That is 70% of the problem. When you can’t control the game through midfield you can’t do anything properly. You can counter but Milan doesn’t try that. You mention Leao, but what did Reijnders and Fofana do again? Leao is the scapegoat but you never mention the midfield that couldn’t play for Bournemouth or Plymouth. Those 2 would get rapped in England, literally.
Fofana can’t do it alone and Reijnders is more offensive minded than defensive. Him and Felix occupy the same role. There’s no balance.
That’s tactics. He would have been better off with a third midfielder. People rag on Musah, but the team is more balanced when he plays.
This is 100% true. Unfortunately Musah was suspended for this match. The 4-3-3 with Musah in there is the way to approach this team. Musah would have helped deal with that quick little fella that was giving us all sorts of problems and it would have freed up Pulisic from having to track back so far to help out Walker. Hopefully Conceicao will learn from this. I also think Abraham should start over Giminez on the return leg. There are some opportunities to use our athleticism but Giminez is a little slow on the ball and too reliant on service from others.
4-3-3 with Tiji, Fofana , Musah, with Leao(Felix), Abraham and Pulisic up top is the way to deal with them.
Musah was suspended due to the red card against Dinamo Zagreb.
Truth is, Against Feyenoord the only possible formation was a 4-4-2/4-2-3-1.
No, it’s both the players and the coach.
Conceiao also doesn’t seem to have any ideas or convictions.
I got hopeful after the Roma game that we finally had a game plan but then after that it was same old same old.
Mike, Theo, Tomori, and Leao seem to be stuck with Pioli’s times. They just cannot move on from the past.
Yep and these are the players Milan should sell this summer and rebuild the team. I would definitely sell all of them. Starting with Maignan, Theo, Leao and Tomori.
There are quality players out there who are hungry for success. These players are EXTREMELY INCONSISTENT. It’s time to move on from them and rebuild the squad.
Yes, but first Fofana and Reijnders. You can’t have 25+ year old children in midfield. You need real men.
No, first those 4.
Reijnders and Fofana at least can be useful backups.
I’ve got to say I was amazed that the only recognised midfield players in the squad last night, were Fofana, Reijnders and Terraciano.. IN THE SQUAD! You’re not going to get a result in Europe with such an attack focused play, especially against the Dutch who are generally very technical players. Fofana is not a DM and Reijnders certainly is not a holding midfield player, so where was our backline protection, where was our invention from midfield? Next week we will have Musah back but we should have taken perhaps Liberali, Alesi or someone form the b list to give us some options in this department.
And that, is on the coach.
One thing that will instantly improve this team is to have Leao benched to come on with 15 mins to go, if we need him…
i watched the game yesterday and i will say its the players. especially the ‘technical and decisive’ players, that is, those players tasked with the job of unlocking the game: creating chances, spaces, sending the killer pass etc. these players, leao, joao felix, pulisic were not making the right decisions when with the ball. Thats what i noticed, maybe it stemmed from fear or being over-confident (i can say for leao) i cant tell…when felix should shoot a well placed shot, he wants to pass, a lot of mis-timed passes flying everywhere in the attacking third last night. Not enough decisive shots. THeir attacks were always disjointed and out-of-sync. No wonder Costacurta said there were efforts but they lacked quality. WIth the standard of players, even if they have not gelled well, at least the quality of play (which would have led to goals) would have been obvious. But it wasnt there all because of poor decision-making on the decisive player.
the only player who looked ready to score but didnt have much service was Gimenez, the midfielders, the defenders even the goalkeeper (apart from his howler) all tried their best, but those in the attacking third were dismal.
this is not coach tactics, or right players being selected, this involves the players themselves not being with the right mentality for each game and being too scared or in some of them over-confident.
this is what you get when you dont have a core of italians that also have roots in the club…. we only have mercenaries, we need to add a core
We should consider bringing SOME of these Italian players into the 1st team and start building an Italian core again:
Gianluigi Donnarumma
Sandro Tonali
Bryan Cristante
Manuel Locatelli
D. Udogie
Francesco Camarda
Mattia Liberali
Davide Bartesaghi
Kevin Zeroli
Daniel Maldini
Raoul Bellanova
Matteo Gabbia
Lorenzo Colombo
Get serious. There is maybe 2 of those players you listed that could start for this team.
And nothing will change because this club is rotten from the ownership down. They managed to destroy in two seasons what M&M built in three.
All they had to do was build on the foundations they were given, but they were like no thanks we’re good. Egocentric narcissists. Serves them right.
I don’t think there is a problem with coach, Fonseca has some good systems and ideas, but his problem was in relationship with players.. Conceicao is in my opinion much better and believe me if he train clubs like Atletico, Arsenal or even Liverpool, they are killers..
For me he is good coach, problem is in players mentality, mainly in Rafa…
Rafa needs rest, long rest and play from bench…he is good player, but he is something missing this season
These players don’t know what it means to play for AC Milan because they are not Italians.
Key positions on the pitch should be held by Italians, at least, the two central defenders and the AM and Dm positions.
Leao should be sold in the summer with speed. His negative attitude is robbing off the team.
I think we need to temper our expectations a little bit. We played a brand new lineup, with new players who have had zero time to play together. On the road in a LOUD De Kuip (I can’t remember the last time I heard an environment like that), and gifted an opening goal. And we dressed three midfielders.
We don’t have the talent to win a champions league, no matter how good our tactics and player performances. We probably don’t have the talent to win a scudetto either right now. That’s just reality, we can complain about the coach and players but we just don’t have enough right now.
I think we’ll still advance past Feyenoord, and would have a solid chance against Inter in the next round (but not Arsenal). I think we’ll still end up in a champions league spot for next year too. But Santi and João are €30-40m players, not €80-100m+ players. Kyle Walker is 34. We improved but we didn’t become world-class overnight.
Concecao is much better.. the thing with Milan is that some players have not clue how to play in UCL they just don’t give everything.. Feynoord played ucl game Milan play like vs como