AC Milan dropped points after conceding a later equaliser against Cagliari this evening, with 3-3 the final score. A couple of players did really well, while some struggled, and below are the player ratings for the Rossoneri.
If you haven’t already, make sure to check out how we decide the player ratings. From the scale to what affects the rating, we have compiled everything there.
Starting XI
Maignan (6.5): It was a rather busy first half for the goalkeeper, conceding after less than two minutes (he could do nothing), and then making two great saves on Zortea and Piccoli. The second half was just as lively and unfortunately, saw him concede two goals he could do little about. Absolutely zero help from his defenders tonight.
Emerson Royal (5.5): He wasn’t really that convincing in the 1v1s and found himself out of position quite a lot. As we saw on the chances Cagliari had, they crossed a lot from the left and the Brazilian didn’t do a good enough job closing them down.
Thiaw (6): We have certainly moved on from the Thiaw who made big mistakes week in and week out, as he now looks rather solid. He won a lot of duels tonight but with three goals conceded, it’s hard to get a high score.
Pavlovic (5.5): He had a couple of questionable moments tonight, including a cross he failed to clear, but also some good interventions at the back. He’s a very tough one to grade, in other words, also because the second goal was clearly Fofana’s fault.
Hernandez (5): Not a good night for the captain, as Cagliari created dangerous chance after dangerous chance by crossing the ball to the far post. While it was a great strike by Zappa on the third goal, the Frenchman could have been more alert, but the rating is above all for the consistently poor positioning at the back.
Fofana (6): It was a fantastic pass for Leao on the second goal, slicing through the Cagliari defence, but the mistake on the second goal was brutal. Of course, Milan did score after that so it wasn’t decisive per se, but it definitely hurts his rating a lot as aside from that, he was actually good.
Reijnders (7): Just like his midfield colleague, he bagged himself a wonderful assist with a little dink over the Cagliari defence. He had some more good runs and even clearances at the back, but that assist alone deserves a high grade.
Chukwueze (5.5): He had a bright start to the game with some nice dribbles, beating his man often, but the final touch was missing. Camarda set him up for a good opportunity at the start of the second and he failed to hit the target.
Pulisic (6): Because he had a hand in the third goal, with a nice low-driven shot, he gets a pass here but aside from that it was pretty bland stuff from him. He also had a poor giveaway in the defensive phase, so not a hugely successful night.
Leao (7.5 – MOTM): There’s only so much he can do, scoring two wonderful goals and posing a threat to the Cagliari defence in possession. The dink was lovely and the run was timed to perfection, building on what we saw against Real Madrid (and finally scoring!). Such a shame it ended 3-3.
Camarda (6): It wasn’t a poor display by any means, but he needed a bit of time to adjust to the game. In the second half, he had a few good moments – including a pass for Chukwueze – but was subbed off shortly after. Still, would be harsh to not give a 6 here.
Substitutes
Abraham (6.5): Right place, right time as he found the back of the net with his first touch (?). He also had a good defensive intervention at the end.
Okafor (5): Coming off the bench, you simply have to be energetic and Okafor showed that he wasn’t, jogging back on Cagliari’s equaliser. Yes, Theo could have done better too, but the winger didn’t make his life any easier. He also missed a header at the end.
Loftus-Cheek (6): He was involved in the build-up for the third goal and did okay otherwise.
Musah (6): Good defending and a couple of nice runs forward, including a great cross for Okafor at the end.
Tomori (N/A): We didn’t see enough to give him a rating.
3 goals conceded plus 2 goals canceled for Cagliari. There is no words that can describe how bad our defence was in order to be so exposed by a bottom team.
This. Absolutely fng disgusting performance. 5 goals against the 2nd worst attack. It really sums up our defense pretty well.
We have 35 million new defensive signing pair, 15 million royal flop and 20 million pav.
And we dump kalulu
Wow. Shocking ratings for the defenders. Cagliari could have scored 10 goals.
Theo was the worst, but whenever Pavlovic plays, there is chaos in the defence.
Cagliari’s gameplay was so simple, yet Fonseca did not find any solution to defender their crosses.
Cagliari deserved to win. Milan defence was amateurish.
Pavlovic is joke
Yes, he is incredibly horrible. Please bench him for several games.
Theo needs a defensive lesson from someone also. He was much better in defence a couple of years ago. This game was a joke from him. So many chances created by Cagliari in the same matter over and over again.
Pavlovic and Emerson Royal are hopeless. They are not top Serie A players.
Milan are leaving Sardinia like thieves in the night after stealing a point from Cagliari.
Outplayed, outrun, out hustled by Cagliari all game long. If it was 6:3 it would have been fair.
Fonseca sooner rather than later will have to go to a 3 men defense. When you have 2 poor defensive fullbacks you cannot continue playing with 4 at the back. One of the 2 fullbacks might be the worst defensively in the whole league. And it’s Theo not Emerson. Space cadet. Play him at wingback where he will hurt you less defensively.
If we analyze all the goals Milan have given up this season, at least half of him are Theo’s fault, but the designated scapegoats Calabria, Emerson were most likely assigned the blame.
Outside of Maignan and Leao, no one deserves anything over 5, with Theo getting minus 5.
Cagliari should be mad they didn’t win this game.
And in the last minutes, he plays with three stoppers and imagines a prime goal. You see it doesn’t matter.
THEO WAS TERRIBLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT KIND OF LEADER LACKS THAT AMOUNT OF EFFORT. MOLLER YOU NEED SOMEONE ELSE DOING PLAYER RATINGS!
Milan game was boring, too slow and a lot of players were selfish
Theo deserves a 2. He was wretched. Didn’t do anything offensively and was miserable on defense. Thiaw is the only defender who should get a pass here. I’d convert Musah to right back. Can’t be worse than Emerson. All the midfielders and offensive players were fine(Leao was great) bar Chuk. He needs to bury that pass from Camarda. It’s frustrating that they can beat Real and then a few days later blow it against Cali. I wouldn’t let Theo be the captain again and I’d consider starting him from the bench for a game if he doesn’t start playing better.
“Theo deserves a 2. He was wretched. Didn’t do anything offensively and was miserable on defense. Thiaw is the only defender who should get a pass here. I’d convert Musah to right back. Can’t be worse than Emerson.”
Agree 100% here.
Scratch that. Not even Thiaw gets a pass. No one gets away with conceding 5 against Cagliari. Ever.
Ok well I guess I should have said he was the best of the defenders. Which isn’t saying much.
Exactly.
Why are you singling out Chucks? Haven’t your favourite players miss a sitting before? Don’t be so bias!
Not singling him out. He just didn’t do anything and missed a golden opportunity. It’s ok to not have a good game. Happens to all players. It’s not his fault we lost but it’s ok to say he didn’t have a good game. No reason to get upset.
Rating Emerson 5.5 is so harsh. Fonseca saw how he faced double threats from Cagiliari wing and did nothing to help him. Their winger facing Emerson was enough threat due to his pace and directness, but their left back is hell good at putting those crosses in time and time again, what do you expect Emerson to do with such double threats? Chuckueze didn’t help in limiting the threat and his attacking input was poor so to speak. The worst players would be Chukwueze, Pavlovic and Theo. And the biggest flop goes to the coach. Why, sub Chukwueze at half time to bring in Musa to play alongside Fofona with Tijjani moving forward and Pulisic back on the wing, that way, their left back has enough threat to limit his forays forward and Musa can help in defending helping Emerson. The coach needs to go seriously.
This guy gives Emerson a poor rating no matter what. He wasn’t great for sure but he was not the problem and was probably our best defender tonight which says how bad the other 3 were.
i dont want to slow down
So true.
Ever since Fonseca has come to Milan we have been exposed on the flanks.
He’s been through 6-7 FBs on either side and they’ve all struggled because he gives them no support from the wing, ’midfield or even CB.
I’ve no idea what his defensive training is but this is all basic stuff.
Rating players is pointless.
Theo’s getting hammered as the vultures turn but he’s one of our few world class players who has struggled under Fonseca.
As for the decision to leave Calabria on the bench – Fonseca needs to go.
I don’t see much difference between Fonseca and pioli. Also, what does royal give that’s better than Calabria?
All opponents need to do is whack that cross field ball down the flanks and we are in trouble. And every crosses into the box rarely get dealt with comfortably. No CB dominates the box. Not to mention we don’t close down players, letting them cross in their own sweet time.
RLC and okafor subbed in but running as if they have been playing the whole game. They don’t add the extra energy.
We should switched to 541 to close the game but we didn’t defend with numbers. Theo had to go inwards because there was 3 attackers against 2 CB. That’s why he left the scorer free. No mf tracked back to help.
There’s a huge difference between Pioii and Fonseca.
Pioli delivered 4 top 4s in a row, 3 of which were in the top 2.
Where things changed under Pioli was last season when we lost our midfield and replaced Saelemaekers with Pulisic (an upgrade offensively but downgrade defensively).
Ever since then our defence has been exposed. But it’s never been as exposed as under Fonseca.
Emerson is certainly not an upgrade on Calabria (or Kalulu) but none of the players are performing particularly well so there’s little point judging until we replace Fonseca.
So if Emerson is not an upgrade to Calabria then why is the decision to leave Calabria out indicative of having to sack Fonseca?
Between Calabria and Emerson is like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Makes ZERO difference.
Was really hoping Theo would get red carded again so we could get back to playing defense again. He’s n̈ot a defender, has no interest in playing defense or marking anyone. Should have stuck with the 2 CBs 2 wingback formation they used against Real Madrid because this team cannot defend with 4 at the back. Not with Theo . B UT the entire D was bad. Don’t know how Thiaw gets a pass on this. Disaster.
3cbs*
The last two games = this team in microcosm. Fix whatever’s making us follow up the Madrid game with the one tonight and we’re onto something.
When they go up against a top team they take a defense first approach. When they face “weaker” teams everyone just wants to attack and there is little focus on defense at all.
Milan players played like the match was already won before the kick off.
Could be bit of arrogance too – whatever it is all I know is I’m tired of it.
This guy thinks he can fix everything, but he is so absurd that never see him post a good suggestion on any of his comment. Sometimes he critic on peer milan fans’ comments.
Who knows, maybe Dejan works for Mr.Redbird.
Btw lets hope next game we can have stellar performance against real madrid. Yeah haha /Dream
Theo needs to be bench when we face mid to bottom team in the league. He’s to overconfident, not focus and overlook the opponent. And that’s not a captain mentality. Better played Terraciano or even Bartesaghi there, they’re more motivated against a weak team. And Chuck have to learn to track back and help the RB
But the attack turns to sh*t as well – we never look as hungry as these weaker teams – I don’t get it.
Our attack is clearly not a problem when we score 3 goals and DON’T win a game.
Yes. Well said.
Is this a manager strategy ?
Is Fonze out of his depth with this club?
What will the board do to change this sad, sad state of affairs?
Will they sack the manager or will they sack the board who have failed to deliver quality?
Well we finally figured out our midfield agree a year and then Fonseca decided to change it again.
Not sure why Musah was rested, and setting up the team all offensively with Pulisic sends the wrong message because we’re underestimating a very competent Cagliari team.
Our defense completed imploded…Cause for concern. We can’t be beating Real on one day and labour to a 3 all draw against a midtable team a few days later. Just not good enough. Too many chances we conceded on target, making one wonder if we are even UCL contenders to start with…
Midtable team? they are 18th and will likely be relegated.
People won’t like to hear it but we beat a Madrid team in crisis and they missed a boat load of chances.
We need to play 433 to give some control, what we are seeing is just chaotic rubbish
Crisis?
They are in second place in la liga.
Incredibly poor display against one of the worst teams in the league, they made us look like relegation battlers.
3 goals conceded and 2 more disallowed, thats 5 Five!
Emerson needs to be sold to Saudi immediately. Theo should be dropped more often as he is not motivated for these games.
Pavlovic is always chaotic.
Fonseca should have brought on another midfielder much much earlier, they kept cutting us open and he did nothing.
The overall rating for performance is 5 at best.
I assume this means we are not even trying to win the league this year.
If that is the case, give more youth players a chance particularly in the full back and DM positions where we have no depth
“Theo should be dropped more often as he is not motivated for these games.”
Exactly what I was thinking. He’s a liability – even worse – against the weaker teams and he should be rested. For his own and most of all the team’s sake. No one wants to see him playing like he did today.
motivation problems against weaker teams was said also about Leao a lot. i think we all agree that Leao was MOTM.
Why has this only now become a problem for Theo?
Every single full back has struggled under Fonseca.
There’s no cover coming from CBs, CMs or Wingers. It’s remarkable.
16 goal attempts for Cagliari. Wow!! Milan’s defence was invisible. The ball was like a bomb for the defenders… run away!!!
P.S. I really wonder who scouted Pavlovic and Emerson.
A complete waste of money (35m) on 2 players we never needed and actually downgrade the quality of the squad.
Give us back Simic and Kalulu and our 35m which could have been added to the cost of a goal scorer and /or a midfielder.
Please sell RLC also, then we can reinvest in someone useful, not that mountain of sh1t.
How our scouting/purchasing department has not been fired is beyond me. It’s like they are trying to ruin the squad
“How our scouting/purchasing department has not been fired is beyond me”
They got Reijnders so apparently that covers for all the other failure
Jekyll and Hyde defensively today… so inconsistent. I don’t like the double pivot. The extra man in midfield makes a lot of difference and makes things more balanced.
Jekyll and Hyde today? You’re suggesting there were good moments too? In our defense? I missed all the good parts if that’s the case.
Yeh I agree. Fonseca likes to change according to his opponents from game to game… Back in the day I remember watching Gattuso Pirlo Seedorf midfield every single game no matter who we were playing.
There’s no tactics for weak defending. Simultaneously step up claim that space and no one did that on our left side whether it was pavlovic or Theo or who ever. I think Fonseca got his tactics right again but the mentality and focus in the back is worrying. That’s gonna take something else from Fonseca to fix it. Zlatan never looked happy the whole match and maybe that is why he saw how fragile we looked.
I agree. It had nothing to do with tactics as it was all on the lack of motivation from the players. They didn’t think they needed to work to get the 3 points. Arrogant – just like someone said earlier.
I blame Leao…….that’s a shoutout to Luigi.
I’m sure he’s already writing a loooooooooooong loveletter describing how wonderfully Leao played today and you are just a hater. 🙂
so, the passing was really bad throughout the game. we are really, really bad at receiving passes, except 4-5 players.
that Tiki-Taka game needs to be part of the practice. passing needs dynamism, not this pace…
LOL, freaking Cagliari was better than us and the average rating here is 6…
Try stupid stuff, get stupid results. It’s one thing to rotate a bit, but when you dramatically alter the shape instead of using the last winning formula, when you use players out of their prefered positions or when your subs clearly indicate that you thought the game was over, you can’t expect better than this even against Cagliari.
I don’t think many Cagliari players can walk into Milan’s starting 11, so Fonseca was essentially out-coached here and the players out-willed. And before Fonseca talks about the lack of space in Italy, we scored 3 goals right ? So what’s the excuse. Onto the players.
Maignan: Saved from what could have been a 5 or 6 goals loss, and I don’t think he could have done a lot about the goals we conceided anyways.
Emerson: Offensively, he looks like a fish out of the water. Sorry but outside of games where we essentially use him as a 3CB, he offers nothing and tonight he also lost many duels.
Theo: deserves a 3, because all 3 of Cagliari goals came from his side. Not only that, but somehow they always cross to our left and get a free header. A fullback is essentially a defender and Theo didn’t do any defense tonight. For me he is arguably the worst player tonight and with Emerson’s poor display, our tactics looked like 2-2-3-1.
Thiaw & Pavlovic: Thiaw was the better of the 2 but was average at best. With Tomori not playing with the NT, I don’t understand why Fonseca didn’t use the same pairing than against Real Madrid. Centerbacks need to play together quite often to get used to each other, so changing pairing every game doesn’t make sense, especially when you pair the worst 2 defenders of the team.
Fofana: Aside from the assist, he looked poor tonight, failed to help an already miserable defense and of course was behind Cagliari’s second goal because of poor play.
Reijnders: He took control of the midfield and was involved quite a lot in our offense with that chip to assist Leao being the peak, so it is overall a good game from him. However he is still a bit of a liability defensively.
Pulisic: Notice that he IMMEDIATELY contributed to a goal when he went back to the right wing. I don’t know for whom he voted, but he belongs to the right wing, not the center. But overall not a good game from him.
Chukwueze: very balanced tonight. He did nothing defensively, nor offensively, we might as well have put a cardboard instead of him.
Leao: For the Milan side, he is easily MOTM, he was essentially the difference between a loss and a draw. Yes this is Cagliari, but these aren’t easy goals to score. He might be the only player who can go back with his head held high. I did think that either he or Pulisic should have been kept longer and I think I was right in the end.
Camarda: For a kid, I thought he did well and he tried to press Cagliari’s defenders. Obviously he needs more time to mature and develop.
Loftus-Cheek: helped a bit in our third goal, but didn’t make that much of a difference afterward.
Abraham: He did score which turned out to be crucial.
On a side note: do your comments dissapear sometimes ? I took time to post this one so I don’t mind doing it again.
Fofana looked poor? You don’t know anything about football. The guy was ALWAYS available, he was forward-thinking, making a lot of passes between the lines, including the incredible assist for Leao, he did a lot of dirty work in defense. How can you say he was poor? That’s just clueless
Maybe it’s you who needs to rewatch games or put glasses instead of insulting people.
GDS had everyone but Pavlovic and Theo with a better rating than Fofana.
Take the assist out of him and you have nothing, his positioning was poor and he didn’t communicate well with his teammates with the second goal of course being the most obvious mistake.
You say he did a lot of dirty work in the defense, you mean that same defense that was pried open for the entire game by a relegation level team ? They didn’t seem to have a hard time getting there and shooting.
Fofana was both good and bad in the game. He was the reason we conceded the second. Can’t have those
Spot on as usual!
5 conceded goals and all of them from the left side while Theo as a spectator. Fng disgusting concentration from the whole team and horrible defending (if you can even call it that). Not much to cheer about the offense either though.
everyone talking about a weak defence, but the actual problem was that we never took control of the game in possession. if we’d been more confident with the ball, we could have moved our backline a lot higher and then what should they do with 2-3 attacking players 50 meter away from our goal instead of 5 players in or around our box? and then Tomori should have started instead of Pavlovic, so if they hit the ball far, he is there first. i understand that we dont want to have them sit deep at the beginning, but latest with the lead at halftime it was the perfect situation to bring Tomori for Pavlovic.
The lack of consistency isnt suprising when there is no clear plan in any phase of the game. Zero.
Stole a point from Cagliari. Only Leao and Mike deserve a pass. Fonseca Out. Management look in the mirror and have some balls. Enough is Enough.
The small club mentality is evident with the celebration after Madrid. Celebrate after an important win yes but this is Milan not Sheriff.
So sad.
Trying to figure out why my comments are getting swallowed..anyways basically…were inconsistent it’s who we are …coach is the issue. This is a shameful result and performance. Win against Real, can’t beat Cagliari. Someone needs to answer. In the past we had to wait until January/ February to see if our season is over, now it’s end of October, early Nov. And we’ve “improved” apparently
Reality. All the defenders should rate a 4. Here’s how you beat ACM- put a bunch of players in the box and cross the ball in. Our defenders can’t pass the ball. You score 3 goals, you expect to win.
if Theo can’t control himself, then…
Never in my life have I seen such poor defending from a Milan team. I’m actually trying to suspect some players are using these “low profile” games to boycott the coach. If not, then we have complete amateur on our hands.
i have.. a lot, even in the last 2 years. i wont even go into banter defending with lord zapata leading the way. gives me shivers
Pavlovic just isn’t Milan level at the moment. I think he should be sent to ritiro, develop his play, he’s young he can improve. But we have better defenders in Serie B than him, and you can add Emerson Royale to that as well. I always say, go watch Milan Vs Inter 2000/01, that intensity is what we need, not standing around. Cesare Maldini had us playing fluid press. We can’t have this.
Well this was the game we were waiting for… not the real Madrid game. Fonseca out.
Leaving the flanks open is something I still don’t understand.
And are our wide men barred from crossing? Aguello was busy whipping in delicious crosses which our defense were scrambling to clear. At times it seems that we are playing with 4 centre backs because the back four are way too close to each other when defending, Leaving the flanks open…
I am still wondering why we signed Emerson and pavlovic.
We had two players who were instrumental up front, and two more who did their part up there. Those were Rafa of course with a brace, both brilliant goals, and Reijnders with a superb assist and other dangerous offensive actions. They get 7.5 and 7, respectively. I could call Rafa the MOTM as we’d have lost without his two goals but that would be offensive to Cagliari because we didn’t deserve to even tie; we should have lost; actually a Cagliari player therefore should be the winner of the MOTM award, and was (the official Panini MOTM award did go to one of Cagliari’s players).
The other two forwards who did their part were Puli who participated in the third goal, and Abraham who finished what Puli started. I’d give both a 6.5; even though Puli didn’t do much more and Abraham didn’t have time to do much more, goals obviously are important.
However, the defenders cancelled these four players’ good work.
Theo had one of his worst games ever for Milan, and was in great part responsible for two of the opponents’ goals (the first and the third) with atrocious positioning – he doesn’t deserve more than a 3 because I consider that we dropped 2 points in great part due to Theo’s terrible game.
Okafor was also at fault in the third one for losing the man who scored (and he again showed low power in a wasted header; a 4.5). I hope that by now, the Leão scapegoaters will have realized that Okafor is a much weaker player than Rafa.
Fofana was responsible for their second goal. On the other hand Fofana also added a great assist for our second goal therefore his failure was less damaging than the other players’ but I can’t give him more than 5.5 despite the assist because that second goal by Cagliari was pretty much on him.
Emerson looked lost and he gave the ball right back to them for the early corner kick that started their first goal. However he wasn’t the one most responsible for that goal, and he did block a couple of good shots by Cagliari so I’ll give him a 5.5.
Thiaw and Pavlovic, the former was indeed somewhat solid (although with a partial failure in one of the goals) and this has been the case lately, and neither can be called directly responsible for any of the 3 goals, but with 3 goals conceded it is indeed hard to give to any defender a pass (except for Mike), so 5.5 for both. This may be a bit unfair, but it is kind of what we didn’t see that justifies it. We didn’t see Thiaw and Pavlovic being really outstanding, clearing numerous attacks by the opponents, and organizing the defense. Not being at fault is not enough when your department concedes 3 times so I have them below a passing grade.
Mike Maignan had two great saves that prevented us from actually losing the game and that qualifies him for a pass, so, 6. However he can’t get much more than a pass because even if his defenders left him unprotected and are much more at fault for the goals, if you as a goalkeeper concede three goals, earning more than a 6 is not possible.
Chuk was ineffective and failed to make anything of a good pass by Camarda. 5.
Camarda didn’t have an impact but did have that one good pass that could have been an assist if his companion had converted it, so he deserves more than Chuk; 5.5. Too bad that his first senior start wasn’t remarkable, but given his age, that’s normal.
RLC and Musah entered the game well. They played just a few minutes but there is no reason not to give them passes, so, a 6 for each; one helped with the third goal and the other one could have had an assist if Okafor had converted it. After they came in we actually improved, and Cagliari’s third goal was entirely independent from their sectors, so a pass for them is appropriate.
Tomori, I didn’t see enough from him, but we can’t say he entered the game as well as Musah and RLC did, so we’ll stick with a 5.5 for him, like the other center backs achieved.
Mister Fonseca: well, this draw was clearly not his fault. He had to get a more offensive formation to start with, to break a defensive-minded team like Cagliari while playing away, so he did that, and the offense did deliver; in most games, when you score 3 goals you win. That formation did increase the defensive fragility but he did read well what was going on, and reacted appropriately by switching to a 5-men back line in an attempt to secure the result, when we were leading 3-2, and it almost worked because we did get more solid, but still conceded a third on another individual failure that was not on Fonseca. He can’t be responsible for so many defenders botching their assignments. He certainly didn’t ask them to be this bad. I grant a 7 to the mister. He has been showing that he is actually able to react tactically to the opponents and to what is going on inside a match, something that Pioli rarely did, if ever.
I’m starting to realize that Fonseca was not a lateral move or a downgrade from Pioli, or at least, from Pioli’s last season. He actually seems to be an upgrade, although not a huge one, when we consider that even though Pioli had a bad last season, we were still 2nd, while our current Milan is a mid-table team. But on the matter of reacting to what is going on and making adjustments that make sense, Fonseca does seem to be more capable than Pioli who tended to be inert in second half of games and to sub too late.
Fonseca wasn’t at fault? You mean his complete inability to study Cagliari’s game or the very least adapt to it is someone’s fault? They literally created 10 identical chances and we never seemed prepared, resulting in four goals conceded, one of which was disallowed. And what about the awful subs? You see a team that’s struggling in defense and you pull out Leao and Pulisic who would’ve kept the ball and hurt them on the counter? He basically invited Cagliari to attack us during the last minutes.
Read the long post I just posted down there where I further explain why I thought that Fonseca wasn’t at fault.
Fonseca deployed a 4231 that wasn’t working and we all saw it. I was expecting Chukwueze to sub at the half and shift to a 433. If I can see that was the proper move and I bet most here agree that’s on the manager.
Theo what a shame, you do not deserve to be captain to many mistakes in many matches..
The dichotomy that is Milan…
I don’t like rotating the defence like this. Pick your best pair and stick with it
Yep just commented something similar above. Why’s he swapping out cb’s against Cagliari based on whether they’re faster or more physical than Real Madrid? If Thiaw and Tomori cb pairing bossed Madrid stick with em for Cagliari ffs.
Yep, I’ve never been a huge fan of rotation for rotation sake…although it is necessary at times. Every great side in history retains its core. Maldini and Nesta played 2 games a week deep into their 30s…what this Milan needs in abundance is consistency, you ain’t getting that be swapping out CBs like this. For me unless there’s a same good reason, Mike, Tomori, Gabbia, Theo, Reijnders, Pulisic and Rafa play every game, that’s our core, that’s our elite spike imo. Others can come in around them.
Agreed.
The rotations in CB and midfield after Real were unforgivable.
Between his ridiculous fight with Leao that probably cost us 6 points, and now this ridiculous rotation, these are just unforgivable mistakes.
Fonseca needs to go asap.
We need to give these players a clear run into January otherwise they’ll do a fire sale in January, blaming the players for the poor coach they hired.
Wrong
The fact that we signed pavlovic while letting Simic and Nsiala go still baffles me.
You shouldn’t be baffled, our transfer campaign is run by a moneyball algorithm.
bb
4 November 2024, 18:24 at 6:24 pm
We will not lose this , our players will be all horny on Real and will give their best,but after this they will lose vs cagliari 99% ,that is mentality of losers,i expect good old theo and leao vs real but after this they will convert to lazy snails again
I am just too god for this game, we didnt lose but we definitely should, i just owe apology to leao cause he did good again
Also my comment on ibra’s news about his speech after real madrid ->
bb
7 November 2024, 18:01 at 6:01 pm
Yes we know that he only apears after big victories ,after cagliari he will probably be hidden in some hole
I am just priceless ,smarter then our menagement ,fake @bb should be proud of sharing a nickname with me
you’re not good. we didnt lose. so you were 100% wrong.
Deal with it
don’t be jelous ,it’s not healthy
Don’t be an ****. O right. You can’t help it. No cure for that one
Fake bb? How original to copy someone’s username that has been in use for years…
More importantly, who saves their own comments?! You have a fragile ego or something?
Moneyball algorytm my @ss , take ur algorytm and stick it in ur @ss cardinale
This team is ridiculous,they are r€tarrdded i sw€ar
Palovic do not know how to pass the ball.very bad for a defender
pavlovic and his passing was the least of our problems tonight
Outside of Leão everyone else was absolute rubbish. Can we stop with the 4231, please? We are pushing Pulisic too high and leaving our midfield wide open. Fonseca get the defense right and our front line will provide goals, we simply can’t go on like this and expect to win.
Reading the posts above, I’m a bit surprised at Fonseca collecting a lot of criticism for this draw. He tried to stick with a more offensive formation to get us ahead on the score line and it actually worked as we scored 3 goals. For most teams in the world and for most games, when you score 3 goals, you win.
I mean, is he responsible for us conceding with 2 minutes of play in the first half, out of Theo leaving the guy who scored completely unmarked? That’s on Theo, not on Fonseca. Fonseca didn’t say to Theo “look, buddy, just don’t mark you guy, OK? Leave him wide open so that he scores at will; who cares?”
Could Fonseca have brought in more help for the defense sooner? Like bringing Musah in sooner like some of you said? Well, the game was 2-2, we needed to get ahead again. We got to 3-2, he brought Tomori in as a third CB and could be heard saying “now we go to a back line of five.” For several minutes the defense did get a bit more stable and it seemed like we’d win. That went on until minute 88. Then they equalized again in another failure by Theo that again wasn’t Fonseca’s fault. At what point, all 5 subs were done; he couldn’t do much more about it. He had sacrificed our biggest offensive threats, Rafa and Puli, trying to solidify the back which was needed, after we were ahead. He correctly took out Camarda who wasn’t effective, and Chuk who wasn’t either, and brought in Abraham who did score, and when Puli went to the right side instead of Chuk he did construct the third goal.
He brought in Okafor and Abraham and they both are more defense-oriented than Rafa and Camarda. He brought in Musah who can help with defense, and got a third CB.
Say, he did it all sooner like some of you wanted. Well, then maybe the game would have been 2-2. Still a draw. He needed to get us to 3-2 before he tried to seal it. What was the point of trying to gut the offense to help the defense if we weren’t ahead? There aren’t other people available. If you want to introduce more defenders, you’ll have to take out some forwards.
OK so the formation of the Real game should have been used against Cagliari? We were trying to defend and counter against Real. Against Cagliari we had to break a defensive team, so actually he had to employ a more offensive formation to start with. AND THAT PART WORKED!!! We scored 3! If we were playing with 5 men back against Cagliari, then maybe we wouldn’t have conceded 3, but we wouldn’t have scored 3 either! And we were behind from minute 2. So what did you all want? A 0-1 loss?
Had the defenders not been complete failures, we actually would have won.
You also said, why not have started Tomori? Well, a couple of weeks ago a lot of people here were crucifying Tomori for his frequent defensive mistakes. There was no guarantee that Tomori would have been any better. The problem there was the absence of Gabbia, not the absence of Tomori. Gabbia is the one who inherited Kjaer’s ability to organize the defense. Between Thiaw, Pavolovic, and Tomori, all three have been equally bad. OK, so maybe Pavlovic is slightly worse than the other two, but not by much.
Tomori had a good game against Real but that hadn’t been the case for a long while. Everybody did well against Real so I can’t say it was Tomori’s great merit.
Like someone here said, having lost Kalulu and Simic and having signed Emerson and Pavlovic were actually bigger problems for the defense than whatever Fonseca is doing. Also, Gabbia is injured; not Fonsy’s fault.
The one part I do fault Fonseca for, was for saying to the managers that he liked Emerson Royal. I think he hoped that Emerson wasn’t doing so well at Tottenham more because of how fast-paced the EPL is, and he’d do better at Milan in Serie A. That hasn’t been the case. So Fonseca is somewhat responsible for that. But that’s water under the bridge. Emerson is who we got. Should Fonseca have played Calabria? He was a lot more of a disaster last time than Emerson. OK, Jimenez or Terracciano? Both these players are not good defensively either.
The coach can’t accomplish a miracle with this defense, given how mediocre our defenders actually are.
So, no, I don’t feel like this draw was on Fonseca. I think it was on the defenders (and partially on Fofana who did redeem himself by providing an assist).
I see your logic but I think we would have put 3 across and not given up 3 if we played a 433. Scoring goals isn’t are problem it’s our defense.
It’s hard to think of “what ifs.” The fact is that Fonseca went with a more offensive formation and that part worked as we did score 3; he tried to solidify the defense once we took what seemed to be the winning lead, and then it almost worked, but the defenders still individually failed and we conceded a late equalizer, at which point, with the 5 subs all used up, there wasn’t anything else that Fonseca could do.
I’m not the biggest of Fonseca’s fans. I’ve called him a clown, a mediocre loser, a yes-man… but I’m changing my mind about him.
I’m just starting to think that it’s more on the management than on Fonseca, for not providing to him a better defensive roster, and for letting go of actually some promising defenders like Kalulu and Simic while bringing in people like Emerson and Terracciano.
Fonseca’s style of football is offensive, and like you said, most games we have little trouble scoring. The defense however is a disaster. But who exactly do we have who are world-class defenders? Only one: Mike Maignan, but poor Mike can’t do much if the defenders leave the opponents’ forwards wide open in front of him, like if they were taking PKs. He still skillfully stops some of those shots but he can’t stop them all.
Theo may be a world-class player but it’s not thanks to defensive skills. Theo’s best characteristic is his ability to help the offense, not the defense. Then, we have Emerson, Thiaw, Pavolovic, Tomori, Calabria, and Terracciano, and these are definitely no world beaters. To tell you the truth, if we are to be really frank, they are all six kind of mediocre. We have Gabbia and Florenzi and they are both very decent but they are both injured right now.
So, is it actually Fonseca’s fault? Who exactly can he start, if he has 6 mediocre defenders, two good but injured defenders, and one irregular player who is capable but not exactly as a defender although he plays in a defensive position?
I can think of Fonseca going home, laying down and staring at his ceiling, shaking his head and thinking “God oh God, what did I do to merit these defenders who keep sabotaging all the good work that my offense does???” Can you imagine how frustrating this is?
Fonseca said in his post game press conference, “I never thought that we’d still draw while scoring three goals. We lost 68% of the air duels. We can’t concede in all those crosses and still win.” Indeed. Poor guy.
I’m not sure if it’s always a formation issue. It seems to be rather an execution issue by players who often engage in horrendous individual failures. We should be able to defend even in a 4-2-3-1 if our center backs and full backs actually performed competently their defensive duties.
Good job being unbiased Luigi. Some people here can’t help trashing Fonseca even though the main culprits are the players today.
Sorry but no, in a catastrophic game like this, the coach doens’t get to go with head held high, he put this team in place and he has the share the blame.
– The secret for a good center defense is to maintain the same pairing for as long as possible unless one of the player is injured. Our main pairing was Gabbia-Tomori, since Gabbia is out, it became Tomori-Thiaw. Pavlovic is currently our worst defender, the man can’t even pass. Tomori-Thiaw was successfull against Real Madrid, neither of them got injured or tried and both won’t be playing with the national teams, so he literally had 0 excuses not to use them.
– The 4-2-3-1 with Chukwueze on the right and Pulisic as an attacking midfielder displayed some of the worst football known to mankind. It was obvious for anyone watching our previous games that Pulisic is a natural winger, he is not in his element in the center of a front 4. The 4-3-3 with Musah as a RM/CM seemed much more natural and it can be used in a defensive shape. Besides Musah could have helped the defense which clearly needed it.
– Tonight we were so lucky that at some point we played an offside trap.
– Cagliari kept getting crosses from right to left during the first half and the same pattern kept repeating in the second half, the coach didn’t adress this issue.
– Subbing out BOTH Leao and Pulisic meant that if (when in our case) Cagliari scores, we have no creative player to go for a win. We basically pinned all of our hopes on not conceiding a third goal.
– Obviously the fans did like the idea of starting Camarda, but he didn’t have a big impact, he should have started with either Jovic/Abraham or sub Camarda sooner.
Still the players are at fault. If they do their jobs Milan win easy. This defense is pathetic. Maybe fonseca is at fault if he wanted Emerson and Pavlovic but other than that I blame the players.
Don’t get me wrong dude, the players ARE at fault, especially Theo, Royal, Pavlovic, Thiaw, Fofana and Chukwueze and I’ve pointed it out in my first post.
This comment was just a response to the idea that the coach had nothing to do with it.
Ah ok my bad. It seems Fonseca gets blamed a lot on certain situations that I would put the blame on the player. Maybe his selection was wrong today but I’d only say he got Pavlovic wrong. I don’t think his subs were wrong either minus RLC who hasn’t been doing anything. And Milan looked susceptible on D so he was trying to shore the D up. Anyways I tend to blame players first especially after they play horrible like today.
Dude, you’re even faulting Fonseca for not starting Jovic tonight, who is injured and unavailable.
Fofana did grossly fail in their second goal but he also gave to Rafa a superb assist; one thing cancels the other.
Chuk had been doing a lot better for the last 3 games; it was fine to start him, given that Morata’s injury made it necessary to displace Puli to the center. It didn’t work out but it wasn’t, before hand, a predictably wrong decision.
Besides, why focus on the offense and midfield for Milan’s failure to win the game tonight? The offense scored 3 goals. The midfield had Puli with an assist, Reijnders with an assist, and Fofana with an assist (although the latter did make a mistake too, but it happens). So, they did their part; you are focusing on the wrong departments.
No, this was on the defense, and if we look at who we currently have to play there, it’s hard to blame the coach. We have 6 rather weak players there, 2 decent ones who are injured (Gabbia and Florenzi), and one diva who, this season, appears to only do well when he feels like it (Theo).
I’m not surprised that Calabria, Emerson, Thiaw, Tomori, Pavlovic, and Terracciano often do not perform to good standards.
I’m more puzzled regarding Theo. Maybe Theo is just sick and tired of AC Milan and is very ambivalent about it, and will bolt at the first opportunity, because Theo doesn’t seem to be in his right mind, this season. He goes to the French National Team and puts up decent defensive duties there. At Milan he doesn’t seem to care for being actually a full back, which is his position, and he so often engages in disciplinary problems that earn him yellow and red cards! He is becoming a detrimental player, and management has NEVER provided us with a suitable replacement for LB.
Maybe the one thing that Fonseca can do, is to shape up Theo. But it could be a losing effort. I think that while Rafa did seem to react favorably to what Fonseca tried with him, as shown by his two MOTM-level performances in the last two games, Theo is A LOT more of a temperamental diva, so, I don’t know if Fonseca will have the same success with him.
As for making the other six mediocre players listed above suddenly become competent, that’s a much bigger ask. Maybe in one year he can get the younger ones like Thiaw and Pavlovic to improve in terms of positional awareness, but it won’t be immediate. The older ones like Emerson, Calabria, and Tomori, may be lost causes. And Terracciano although younger may be a lost cause too, because he just doesn’t seem to have what it takes, talent-wise. He should never have been signed.
Then, it’s on the management to replace these players with better ones, rather than on the coach. And given how our management is cheap, that’s not something that is very encouraging, either.
But Giga94, who do we have in defense? We have Florenzi and Gabbia and these are the two best players in that department (even though Florenzi is injury-prone and old, he is still a lot better than Calabria or Emerson) but they are both injured.
So who is left? Thiaw, Tomori, Pavlovic, Emerson, Calabria, and Terracciano. They are ALL SIX rather mediocre, frankly. We have Theo who seems to only want to do well when he’s motivated. The coach can’t pull off any miracle if the management doesn’t give him the tools, that is, some actually competent defenders. Tomori? He had ONE good game lately; since the Scudetto season he’s been more error-prone than anything.
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Chuk had actually been doing well for three games in a row. And Puli while I agree that he is a better RW, has had decent games as CAM; not brilliant, but decent. In the absence of Morata, I don’t fault Fonseca enormously for having tried Puli there.
Maybe indeed he could have brought Musah in sooner. But we weren’t even ahead so Fonseca wasn’t ready to sacrifice offensive players at that point to get Musah to help the defense. He did that once we got ahead. It doesn’t really pay to beef up the defense if we aren’t ahead yet. That is playing for a draw rather than for a win. So it’s paradoxical that Fonseca is being blamed for that.
Camarda being subbed out sooner – well, had Chuk converted Camarda’s excellent pass that should have been an assist for a score, people wouldn’t be saying that. The failure to score there was Chuk’s, not Camarda’s, who set him up perfectly. We had Morata out, and Abraham who hadn’t scored a single goal from open play ever since he was hired. So, today he did, but what was the guarantee that he’d do better than Camarda? There was no certainty to be had. And we have Jovic who isn’t exactly in match form – and wasn’t even on the bench today; still injured – and hasn’t scored since last season. So was Fonseca really wrong for having insisted with Camarda a little longer?
So you are faulting the coach for not starting a player, Jovic, who wasn’t even available due to an injury? Whaaaaat??? Frankly, even if he weren’t injured, I think that Camarda is a better player than Jovic, even though he’s so young.
And what exactly is the reason for your complains regarding the offensive department? We scored 3 goals!!! It should have been enough for a win! And we could have scored more, if the defense hadn’t put the game in jeopardy, so that Fonseca didn’t need to gut the offense to try to beef up the defense.
No, that wasn’t on Fonseca’s offensive solutions. That was on the defense, and we have a bunch of mediocre players there, to be honest.
The coach has to find a way for both offense and defense, you can’t praise him for the offense but say defense is not his fault, it doesn’t work like that. Aside from players there are insructions, teamplay,… and he did nothing between the 2 halves.
Leao—-Camarda/Abraham—Pulisic
Reijnders——-Fofana———–Musah
Theo——-Tomori—-Thiaw——Royal
Same setup as against Madrid but with a single change in the attack, you have Musah to add in the solidity of the defense and he can carry the call upfront. Royal would be more protected, so less crosses from his side, so Theo who absent anyways won’t be exposes for the lazy defender he is. Reijnders would be more free to focus on the offense and be more creative and Pulisic would be on his natural wing. If it went well early on, he could afford to sub Pulisic out ASAP.
Again the Leao/Okafor—Pulisic—Chukwueze displayed to us some of the worst football even seen and we had a hard time winning even against mediocre teams. We had no business trying that again, especially now that Musah showed a decent game.
Btw I do admit that I forgot that Jovic was injured, but the point still remain about Abraham.
I’m thrilled for Musah but his good game against Madrid was kind of his one biggest high point; I called it his best game with the Milan jersey. But if you exclude that, you will hear from most posters here that he is a bust who is only with us because the owner is American. I actually think he is improving, and you and I seem to like him, but he certainly isn’t a consensus.
But yes, I do believe that the one big failure by Fonseca tonight was that most likely, Musah would have done a better job than Chuk and if he repeated his Madrid performance, we’d have had less trouble with Cagliari’s crosses from Emerson’s side.
However, we should also remember that not so long ago, Chuk had actually been playing better than Musah. Then it switched, but it’s very recent.
Sure, you say that it doesn’t work to separate the departments and say that the coach is not at fault for one of the departments’ failures. You’d be right about that but only if the players in all departments were of a comparable level of quality.
Let’s look again at who we have. In offense we have Pulisic, Morata, and Leão. All three are pretty good players; arguably even brilliant.
In midfield we have Fofana and Reijnders. They are also very fine players. We have a resurging Musah who still needs to show consistency and still needs to finish the plays he starts, but see, his improvement is a bit on Fonseca, who clearly declared that he’s been working with Musah to not just run around carrying the ball but then taking too long to pass it, until he loses it. Actually this seems to be working. Musah is getting better, and it could be Fonseca’s merit, because certainly Pioli mismanaged him for the longest time, displacing him to 6 different roles all over the pitch so that he could never learn anything solid (do remember that Musah is still very young and still learning his trade).
And then we have the defense, with players like Emerson, Calabria, Thiaw, Pavlovic, Tomori, and Terracciano.
It is PRETTY CLEAR that these six players are not on the same level of quality of Pulisic, Leão, Morata, Reijnders, Fofana, and even Musah.
Compare these 6 from the middle up, and those other 6 in the back.
Can’t you see a striking difference in quality?
Coaches can’t perform miracles when the players are not good and the departments themselves are so unbalanced in terms of quality. That’s more on the management, the folks who actually scout and hire players, than on the coach.
Haha, I never thought I’d be defending Fonseca so much… I used to be very rabid about bashing him. I was 100% convinced that he should be fired as soon as possible.
But now I’m not so sure.
The season has been all full of ups and downs, and maybe the biggest criticism is that just like we don’t know which Theo will show up, the world-class player or the bored, uninterested liability, we don’t know which Fonseca will show up, the brilliant tactician who outcoached Inzaghi and Ancelotti, or the mediocre one who struggled to beat Monza and couldn’t beat Cagliari.
OK, let’s say this; I’ll compromise: Fonseca does need to be more consistent, and can’t just succeed against the big teams that leave us space. He needs to beat the mid-table and bottom feeders too, or else we’ll miss the next UCL.
Still, I think that Fonseca would be doing a lot better if only management had provided some better defenders to him, who at least approached the level of quality of some of the forwards and midfielders.
Isn’t his job to build a strong defensive unit? Every goal is technically someone’s fault, does that many it’s never the coach’s responsibility? This was an almost exact replica of the Monza game, but they didn’t make the most of their chances. We concede between 5 and 10 shot on goal every game, no matter who the opponent is. Why is he not working more with Theo and the fullback in general to avoid goals like these? Remember the first Torino goal – that was THREE months ago. Any coach instructs his players to send diagonal crosses to our LB zone, because 80% of the time it turns into a dangerous chance.
As for today’s game, maybe the second goal isn’t on Fonseca, but the other three (yes, including the disallowed one) were just another example how we don’t defend as a unit and that’s absolutely 100% of him. Allowing these crosses all the time, having the players not concentrated enough to miss the ball in the air, the lack of synergy between the defenders in general. It’s shocking. Fonseca is failing miserably with his 4-2-3-1/4-2-4, because the team is leaking everywhere. His Madrid strategy was spot on, why was it abandoned, why didn’t Musah play, helping out both Emerson and the midfield? It was even more necessary in the absence of Morata, it was rather obvious that 16-year old Camarda won’t have the same work rate. Did our coach expect Cagliari to be too defensive and hence the need to have four attackers yet again? They got us by the throat from the first minute. Fonseca is horrible at reading games and tonight was another proof of that.
The coach needs to do his job, sure, but to build a strong defensive unit you actually also need strong defensive players. If the coach is actually a manager who calls the shots regarding who to sign like some coaches in some clubs are, then yes, the coach is 100% responsible for it.
But when the coach like in the case of Milan apparently has very little say and the managers are the ones hiring and selling players with little if any consultation with the coach – isn’t why they went for Fonseca as the ultimate yes-man who wouldn’t give them any trouble in terms of investments? – then it’s more on the management than on the coach.
I mean, are we actually surprised that a defense that features Emerson, Calabria, Thiaw, Pavlovic, Tomori, and Terracciano is failing? Not to forget, a Theo Hernandez who seems irritated and unmotivated, which probably has to do with how he was never appropriately compensated for his level of skill.
It’s hard to think that Theo is deserving a lot of money in a splashy renewal right now, the way he’s been playing and behaving, but that didn’t use to be this way. Theo was a very good, very reliable, and very instrumental player for us, and was truly world-class, but never collected from Milan a world-class salary, and never felt that we have an ambitious project, so his being completely turned off and unmotivated to even try to play well, while unprofessional, is somewhat understandable.
The simple fact that Theo plays better for the French National Team than for Milan, is telling. He actually does defend when he plays for Les Bleus.
Remember when Fonseca said that he liked Kalulu? Next, Kalulu was shipped out. And he said he liked Saelemaekers, and he was shipped out too. He said we were all set and Ibra said “the coach coaches but the mercato is only closed when I say so.” When a manager publicly undermines the coach, it’s not good. Clearly, Milan’s managers don’t respect Fonseca a lot and don’t really take into account his player preferences.
So overall I think we are failing more because of the managers than because of Fonseca.
Haha, maybe the ONLY time when they listened to him, was when he manifested an interest for Emerson Royal, and that has backfired, so yes, in that, Fonseca was at fault. But all the other defenders weren’t Fonseca’s hires.
Fonseca’s not at fault for not being able to coach a team to beat a team in 18th place???
Cagliari has more shot on target and you defend fonseca based on offensive formation? We concede 3 and you say is not fonseca fault? I think its cagliari that crying because many shot not become a goal with var, maignan blocked it etc. Its lucky fonseca only conceded 3 not 5
you are very smart bro!💪
So… when are management going to admit that pavlovic was a horrible buy and we just take the L on him financially? Because if he makes us lose on CL again, it will be a lot more costly.
Pavlovic is only 23. He deserves a bit of credit for his young age. He looks so big that people assume he is older, but he’s a kid. Often for players this age, a first season isn’t good. He needs to develop more, and to learn his trade more.
Maybe he could be loaned out, not sold. Remember how Gabbia wasn’t good at first? He was loaned out, and came back much better. I don’t think we need to burn a 23-year-old in his first season.
See, a lot of people complained that we didn’t give to CDK more opportunities and shipped him out after one season. See, CDK had PLENTY of opportunities; he played 42 games that season for Milan, and 9 for his national team. In all 51 games, he produced one miserable assist (the ball actually just bumped on him and went to the scorer; it wasn’t even a real assist) and no goals. Still, people here still today say we couldn’t have given up on him after only one season.
So why should we give up on Pavlovic so early? Actually he has already done more than CDK, given that even though he is a defender, he has scored one goal for Milan, and he has had about 40% of clean sheets in the 8 games he played.
And then, why this comment today? The players most responsible for the goals we conceded today were Theo and Fofana. Should we sell them too?
Well Gabbia is a homegrown, he costed us 0 penny and it lucked out in his case. He was basically on his way out until Pioli had no choice but to use him and he proved himself.
Pavlovic was supposed to be valued at 30M€ and we got him for a BARGAIN. So far it looks like Salzburg actually scammed us and they must be laughing each time they watch him play. He earns 3,2M€ gross per year which is more than double than what Gabbia earns.
We was supposed to be a left-footed CB who will help in the buildup from the left side of the defense, well it turned out that he can’t pass with either foot.
We lost Simic, a promising player, because of him.
Maybe this is a one season thing, maybe he’ll improve but as it stands right now, he’s the closest thing to a disaster and actually give Emerson a run for his money for the title of the worst Milan signee.
Sure, but again, he is only 23. That is not a fully formed player. He was playing in one of the secondary European leagues. He now is in one of the top 5 (actually according to UEFA coefficients, the #2 league), new league, new team, new coach. In these circumstances, I wouldn’t rush into calling him a bust. He actually did well in the first few games he played for us, then seemed to regress. Who knows why? Maybe as a 23-year-old kid, he’s scared and unsure of himself while playing for one of the most prestigious teams in the world, in a city and country where commentators are harsh on players and demand a lot of them, and want them to perform immediately. It’s a lot of pressure, and it can affect young players.
Remember how CDK seemed to be mentally unfit to play for Milan? He went to a smaller city, playing for a friendlier coach, and for a team that although good is not a huge planet-wide club with millions of followers, and suddenly he is doing better.
Maybe we need to learn from that lesson and manage a 23-year-old kid like Pavlovic with a bit more of white gloves.
We did lose Simic and that was wrong. But if you look at the dates, actually it seems like Simic was asking to go away even before Milan got serious about signing Pavlovic. I once looked at those dates, and at when Simic first mentioned his willingness to leave Milan. It was way before we pursued Pavlovic. I don’t remember the dates right now and won’t look it up again (had to do some digging regarding the earliest time the press reported Simic being unhappy at Milan). I don’t feel like we pushed Simic out; it was more like Simic asked to leave. I do feel like we pushed Kalulu out, and that was more wrong, especially given that we sent him to a big rival, and for 13M, and then signed for 15M a player (Emerson) who seems to be worse than him.
Oh, and in my opinion, regarding the raspberry title of worst Milan signee of the present (there were some stinkers in the past) Terracciano is worse than both Emerson and Pavlovic. I think he is completely clueless and has no talent whatsoever. That was a scouting failure. At least Pavlovic made sense: the tall, left-footed young kid with potential; maybe he will be a bust, but maybe not; give him some time. But what exactly has Moncada seen in Terracciano???
23 is really not young…I mean apparently Calabria is close to retirement at 27 so we’re giving players like a 3 year window to reach their ‘ceiling’.
Who knew the Austrian league isn’t very good….
Always Calabria lol
The fact that Calabria is 27, has already hit his ceiling, and is regressing, says that he is pretty bad, something most people see but you don’t. Calabria has had multiple seasons with Milan and is just getting worse. Pavlovic is 23 and is in his first season with Milan so the jury is still out on him, while the jury for Calabria has already reached the verdict: guilty as charged.
There’s a reason why Pavlovic still has a contract while Calabria is not getting his renewed.
Your blindness regarding Calabria is uncanny.
Young, new to Italian league. I wouldn’t judge him harshly. He needs at least a season under his belt. Italian league is tough on defenders, especially when the league is making it that much harder to defend
Theo was a disappointment, playing like an unpaid member of the team. His reaction to most of the crosses was poor. Most of the goals came from his end. These off and on displays from
him are costing the team. Also, he almost got a red card for a needless foul. Fonseca should start thinking about giving the armband to another player; one who can coordinate the team. Pavlovic kept sending the ball back to the goalie, as if he had been warned not to move forward with it. He kept putting pressure on Mike with those back passes. I don’t understand why Fonseca changed the centre-back pairing, after a good game against Madrid. The team needs to press forward, and not wait for our opponents to score before doing that. They have to spend less time passing the ball at the back. Fonseca still has a lot of work to do about the defense.
It was obvious from the first half that we were second to every ball and overrun in midfield – Musah needed to come on at ht and tighten up the MF – Chuck was a nuisance to any cohesion and useless at applying pressure so should have been sacrificed. We were 2-1 up then and could have pushed for 3 – instead the supply of crosses kept coming and Theo had a stinker.
Good defending starts from the front and our delicate defence was constantly exposed.
We escaped with a point tonight and lessons must be learned.
Exactly what I was thinking. We are up 2-1 at half and Cali is having their way with our defense. We needed to sub a midfielder in to tighten up the midfield for better balance, even Ted Lasso could have seen that but Fonseca sat on his hands.
I hear you but while Tomori did well against Madrid (almost everybody did), Tomori hadn’t been doing well almost since the Scudetto season. I don’t see him suddenly as this phenomenal CB who should always be starting.
Yes, Theo was horrible tonight; not sure if this is Fonseca’s fault. Theo is experienced enough. He plays well for the French National Team. It almost seems more like a motivation issue, with Theo. OK, so maybe Fonseca can give to Theo the treatment he gave to Rafa and seems to have worked. But see, Theo is a lot more temperamental, a lot more diva, than Rafa. I think it is not warranted that Theo will react as well to being benched, as Rafa apparently did.
When are we going to realize that the problem is THE COACH. You cannot play one game like we did against Madrid and the next game like this. That is coaching and not adjusting your tactics. Why didn’t he stick with a 4-3-3??? What is Fonseca excuse? Well in Italy you cannot play like in UCL? No fkn $hit buddy – so you know what you as a COACH have to do??? Your JOB is to fix it. You are after a fkn coach IN ITALY. So your job and figure it out. This isn’t your first go around in Italy you’ve coached here before so you should know exactly what to expect. And that is the problem. He cannot adapt. So we are back to square one. We should have fired this guy months ago. With a proper coach we can make top 4 – but with Fonseca? More excuses and lucky if we get a Europa spot. Wake up IBRA you puppet and do something before we lose the season already.
Up up milan
Guess the snowflake Pablo will come from his hole soon. Such fun
On Cagliari’s second goal, I think Maignan should not have rushed out like that. There were defenders tracking back and the Cagliari player was not close to the goal. Just stay back and cover the goal..
A bit like the Real game where he was way out of position and Rudiger scored, but cancelled for off side..
Isak why don’t you mention how Pulisic immediately hustled his ass back and blocked that cross or shot that his errand pass led to. If every player reacted like that after giving up possession the team would be a lot better. Fofana seems to miscommunicate a lot with his passes. Too many players dribble into space when a pass would be much better, reinderrs, pulisic, RLC, chuk, Leao, Theo imo there is definitely too many worried about their stats then rather the better play for the team. Fonseca should of just kept the same 4-3-3 formation, but he had to fit in Chuk since Chuk didn’t play against Real and I think the last game he played he scored or assisted or something, anyway he was in decent form and I think Fonseca felt he owed him. Not sure I think camadra was ready tbh! Yea he had the pass to Chuk, but otherwise he didn’t really do anything, Abraham would of been the wiser choice, but I understand Fonseca wanting to make the locals happy, just think Camadra should of been a sub.
Up to yesterday everybody was saying Abraham can’t score. He actually hasn’t scored from open play since last season. Even tonight, someone said Abraham only scored because he got the ball one yard from the empty goal (and in the game when he injured his shoulder, he even missed from 1 yard). Morata and Jovic were injured. So was it really wrong to start Camarda?
Plus his goal tonight was as easy as it gets. Pulisic did the hard work and he was fortunately in the right place on the rebound. I need to see him score something harder than that before I’d tryst him. Starting Camarda was fine.
I’m referring to linking up with the other attackers not finishing ability. I like Camarda, just think it would have been better to bring him in as a sub. Actually, whether he started or not was not the problem, we scored 3 goals, the attack does not get any blame for this loss, the blame goes to the defense and not all of them, mostly Pav and Theo. When I played I wouldn’t flinch when someone was bout to shoot the ball, in fact I would try to block it with my face if it needed to be and I was playing for free, what annoys me is these guys getting paid millions can’t take a shot to the face. If theo had not flinched and jerked his head back on that last goal then it would’ve hit him directly in the face and we would’ve won the match. I’ve never understood that about pros, take the lick and keep playing, yes it will hurt, but only for about 5 minutes. It’s called “how bad do you want it”
Abraham doesn’t bring much to the table – I thought Camarda deserved his place and had some nice moments – Abe came on a got his tap in finally, but that’s it
Fonseca needs to stay with a back three.
If he can’t figure this out, he’ll be gone by the winter.
Milan can’t stay like this, out of Champions League places.
And yet many people still think that Theo is worth 100 m..
Not a single financially meaningful person thinks that. Otherwise, he would’ve been sold already.
Since the D is so pathetic I would go to a 433 from now on. Leao – Morata – Pulisic
Fofana – Reijnders – Musah
Theo – Gabbia – Thiaw – Emerson
Maignan
That’s really the best team Milan can field. Florenzi over Emerson when he’s back.
True. That would be our best XI, and yes, Florenzi is definitely better than Emerson but after such a serious injury and such a long recovery, I don’t know how good he’ll be once he is back. He is also very injury prone and getting really old, which is a pity because I always liked Florenzi a lot, and always felt that he was better than Calabria.
If the management were willing to acknowledge a mistake – which they definitely aren’t – they should try to sell Emerson in January and sign another right back, a competent one for a change. And they should also try to sign a good left back to lit a fire under Theo’s behind. These two moves actually would very significantly improve Milan, and maybe we’d have a good second half of the season, and would make the top 4.
With the current state of our defense, the Scudetto is definitely way, way gone, but even the top 4 will be very, very hard to get. Something needs to be done in January.
Given that what the owner and managers understand is money, they should realize that missing the next UCL will be a financial disaster, and they should invest accordingly in January to fix these two positions. We are losing mostly because of our two full backs, Emerson and Theo, and the lack of better options to replace them or back them up.
Agreed about Florenzi. Might not be the same after the injury. They should try and get another right back and center back in January. I still won’t count Milan out of the Scudetto race yet. I’m stubborn but if they can get consistent(tall order) they could make a run. If inter and Napoli tie tomorrow then Milan is down 8 with a game in hand so potentially only down. The bigger problem is there are a number of teams above them so top 4 could be a fight. Anyways Milan’s D is the big problem so Fonseca has to figure that out like he seems to have figured out how to motivate Leao.
*potentially only down 5
Theo was poor last season as well, not this bad admittedly, but far below the scudetto winning season. He can go back to Real Madrid.
I’m not sure Fonseca will be coach next season if the inconsistencies continue, but what he is doing is exposing the flaws in the players, and the scouting, in a way Pioli didn’t. Moncada needs to go.
Unless Gabbia is playing Pavlovic shouldn’t be on the team sheet
Pavlovic is fast, but I have better ball control and passing than him and I played in Serie C-1. Strength as well. For a guy his size he’d be more suited to La Liga. This guy can’t play football. Or at least Italian football, he a Premier League kick and run guy.
This talk about it’s the manager is BS. The manager needs to have decent players to work with. The defense is weak. You can put me out their with all the coaching and instruction in the world and it won’t make a difference. As Fabri said, some players aren’t up to snuff.
Guys, look at Conte’s defense and midfield – do they have standout players? We are simply way behind in terms of management and coach, it’s as simple as that. Whenever the players feel the atmosphere of an epic battle, they perform great. The rest of the time it is pretty random Roma-esque mid-table nothingness.
Still only see one note here on fofana…besides playing them through on the 2nd goal. He ran way out of position to defend someone who RLC was marking for no reason on the final goal leaving an extra man for everyone to mark in the box and forcing reijnders to cover the near post instead of the far side. Leaving him on the field would be my biggest complaint coaching-wise. Especially when you have a strong defender who regularly closes out by helping the team maintain possession and can run circles around tired teams. Fofana was very sloppy in his positioning vs Monza as well but Maldini didn’t make him pay.
Milan’s offensive game was quite entertaining last night with nice passes from Reijnders and Fofana for Leao’s goals. But defensively this team is still in shambles. Starting from midfield on.
And again they will look at our defence players and search for scapegoats, instead of the system.
4231 is not optimal with the crop of players at disposal. Period. I also saw they went 3 in the back once Emerson left the field and Tomori came in. And they looked confused and disoriented.
So, get a #6 and start playing these lads where and how they are supposed to.
Which sport is Pavlovic playing? That isn’t football. How did he get over 4.5? Incredibly bad player, told you the first day…Thiaw actually looks good but you can’t play with a guy that isn’t in the same sport as you.
This site should rename to SempreTheo. Absolutely abysmal match from him and he has a 5. It was performance worth of 4 max (I would have put a 3). LOL @ this site