A lot was written about AC Milan’s attacking options after the winter transfer window, and yet instead the attack seems to have somewhat jammed.
La Gazzetta dello Sport journalist Luca Bianchin has published a piece with the title: ‘Four stars, only one goal in 168 minutes: why Milan’s Fab Four does not work’. Of course, he is referring to Christian Pulisic, Joao Felix, Rafael Leao and Santiago Gimenez.
Sergio Conceiçao went all in in the Champions League: he sent them onto the field from the start against Feyenoord in both the first and second legs, only managing to get a goal from Gimenez at the start of the second leg.
It was not exactly from a combination of the four either. Instead, the goal came from a corner kick and more specifically a knock-down from Malick Thiaw. The calculator, adding the first half of Torino-Milan, says that the four stars, together, scored one goal in 168 minutes.
Conceiçao cancelled the experiment at half-time in Turin, then proposed a version B of the four-man attack with Gimenez-Abraham as the striker pairing, with Pulisic on the right and Joao Felix on the left.
In the Champions League he replaced Pulisic twice around the hour mark, once for his physical problem, the other for the expulsion of Theo Hernandez. Milan had a few scoring opportunities (Leao’s counter in Rotterdam, Gimenez’s header against the Granata) but were never devastating.
What are the reasons? The four forwards are struggling due to individual and departmental issues. Pulisic is not at his best physically, Leao switches on and off with Conceiçao limiting his minutes, Joao Felix is not very clinical and Gimenez needs service.
Milan, on the other hand, historically struggles against low blocks and those four have been together for 20 days, moreover with a coach like Conceiçao who does not have the attacking phase as a priority. Therefore, time is needed.
For the great paradox, however, you have to look at the Serie A standings. Not the points column but a little further on, the goals scored. Milan have the seventh-best attack in the league with 37 goals. Inter and Atalanta are on another planet, at 59.
Above them are also Lazio, Fiorentina, Bologna, and a team much more attentive to balance like Napoli. Among the many oddities of Milan 2024-25, this is among the first.
Pulisic, Joao Felix, Leao, Gimenez, Chukwueze, Abraham, Sottil and Jovic earn a figure not far from €30m in net salary. How they can score so little remains a mystery to be solved.
Remove Felix and replace him with Tijani and all our problems are solved.
It’s simple THEY ARE NOT FANTASTIC IF THEY WERE THEY WOULDN’T BE AT MILAN 😧
would be better off playing camarda in felix’s place.
Stop call these average players “Fantastic Four”
Fantastic four? With leao? You kidding..right?
Serie A mvp 😱. Maybe focus on Felix
Disjointed altogether…
1. Santi is new.. Needs time and service.
2. Felix so far is good at nothing and is completely out of synch with the rest of the players. The freedom allowed to him hinders other players around him because he often finds himself in their spaces.
3. The best players so far have been Puli and Reijnders. Reinforce them, build around them, put them in positions to score:
***If Puli wants to start on the Left, let him – Lord knows Leao isn’t doing anything there to write home about.
***Always start with Reijnders at the 10 and play two DMs behind him. Give him the freedom afforded to Felix.
Feels like a broken record player.
Get rid of Felix, put Tiji behind the striker, get rid of Theo and replace him with Bartesaghi, and bring back Tonali.
ST – Gimenez
LM – Leao
CAM – Reijnders
RM – Pulisic
LCM – Tonali (Box-to-Box)
RCM – Fofana (Defend)
LB – Bartesaghi (Better defensively than Theo)
LCB – Pavlovic
RCB – Thiaw
RB – Walker
GK – Maignan
Problem solved. A much more balanced side.
There is more lack of enough from the so-called big boys (Theo, Leao) which is hindering the team. All this is because the attention and spot light has moved from them and they are not too happy which has hindered the progress of the team ever since the scudetto victory. The team chemistry suffers because of dependence of these two and they are not helping to bring newer players in. Also, Felix is not trying to play with his team mates but playing with a point to prove all affect team efforts and the results are poor.