AC Milan needed the contribution of their stars to win against Inter last night, and Theo Hernandez stepped up in a big way.
To tell the story of the match played by Theo Hernandez yesterday in Riyadh in the derby against Inter that gave the eighth Italian Super Cup in history to Milan, La Gazzetta dello Sport (via MilanNews) decided to start from the end.
After Sergio Conceicao finished his dance with the cigar in his mouth, the Portuguese coach turns and the first one he hugged was Theo, also unleashed to the rhythm of the music and with a smile that had not been seen on his face for months.
The expedition to Saudi Arabia – in addition to the Supercoppa Italiana brought back to the Rossoneri’s trophy cabinet after eight years – also brings back a Theo who is shaking off the negative residue of an unrecognisable first part of the season.
After the Juventus game we had seen something: the game had not been great for the Frenchman but in the huddle at the end Conceicao put his arm around him. Yesterday, however, the full-back was back to his devastating best.
The Frenchman is the emblem of the work on the minds of the players that Conceicao seems to have managed to do in so few days. With a goal from a free-kick and an assist for the equaliser, Hernandez showed the attitude of a leader and even admitted his own shortcomings after the game.
Theo had a game with both a goal and an assist for the first time in 1200 days and Conceicao’s work could impact the future, from a psychological standpoint. His deal expires in 2026, so the ideal would be to find an agreement by the summer, and the suggestions are positive based on his agent’s words.
The right coach makes a huge difference in players’ response as was evident in the last two games. Hopefully the Theo we know came back to stay. But regardless, players have to be held accountable for their form.
“But regardless, players have to be held accountable for their form.”
⬆️This⬆️.
Everyone gets patches of bad form. And then you see patches of people like you calling to sell one of the best LBs on the planet, if not the best. Great idea boys!
Wow, so you mean he got the coach that he didn’t like sacked, while sabotaging the first half of our season in the process, and now he’s going to go back to trying again…
That’s not the kind of player I want on my team. I lost all respect for Theo.
I get your point, players shouldn’t have more power than coach. But when you see a response from every single player towards the new coach, it’s not just Theo’s whim. It’s a palpable attitude and contribution shift.
It’s not every player. Pulisic has been busting his a$$ all season. Reijnders, Fofana. Even Leao after the original benching by Fonseca. You play for the club and for your teammates, not for the coach. It’s unacceptable what Theo did.
How do you know Theo sabotaged Fonzy? Maybe Fonzy sabotaged himself. We had Giampaolo who was endorsed by many experts (Sacchi among them) but had to be replaced by Pioli, someone who never won anything before. Some coaches click, some don’t. It’s like that.
He is not out of the waters yet though. Yes, yesterday offensively he was terrific and made the difference between the loss and the title but that’s one (1) good game and something like 20 bad ones, not good enough for a player of his caliber. One of the reasons why we’re 8th having lost points to the likes of Parma and Cagliari was him not doing his job.
Yesterday the motivation was easy to find, it was a derby, against a man whom he hates and made a mockery out of him (Dumfries) and the win means immediately going to the podium and lift a trophy, not to take of course anything from the mental strength required to believe in the win even after being down 2-0 till the 52 minute.
In order to be out of the water, Theo needs to lead by example and pull the team ahead, not be the one needing to be pulled. He needs to show consistency and display good behaviour and performances in back to back games even against low level teams. The skills are there but his mindset doesn’t always follow through.
Let’s hope that Conceição succeeds where his predecessor failed.
Don’t forget the Fiorentina game where he gave away a penalty, then disobeyed the coaches orders and took our penalty away from Pulisic who is the team’s designated penalty taker and missed the penalty. And as captain set a terrible example which was quickly followed by Tomori and Abraham. That is another 3 points lost that is solely on him. Not to mention getting suspended for 2 games for arguing with the refs after the match.
Theo is the biggest reason Milan are sitting in 8th but so many want to try and shift the blame elsewhere.
Nice try to deflect the responsibility from the management and Fonseca and put everything on a single player but that won’t work.
It’s the management who brought below average players like Pavlovic and Emerson and chose an average coach like Fonseca to coach them. Not only that but they gifted some our players like Adli, Kalulu and Pobega to teams which are right now on top of us. If the team is so unbalanced, with no one to replace a mediocre Theo, no creative midfielder besides Reijnders and no one to replace him or Fofana it’s on the management. Renew to Jovic but then get Abraham and never use Jovic again, talk about proper management.
And as far as Fonseca is concerned, didn’t Musah and Leao confess that they have a hard time understanding his tactics, even after 3 months ? Were they sabotagin him too ? He had the best version of Pulisic in years but then decided to use him as an AM because he doesn’t want to play anything but a 4-2-3-1. Used Saelemakers as a left back against Torino even though he never used them in that position in the friendlies. Should Theo also take the blame for the Torino draw ? Or the draws vs Lazio and Genoa ? Against Fiorentina Tomori couldn’t properly jump and Adli’s goal came from the right side, that’s La Viola’s 2 goals, should Theo also be blamed for them ?
I’m not defending Theo this season and I acknowledge he has been our worst player (although RLC could give him a run for that one) and displayed horrendous behaviours. I sided with Fonseca when he benched him and our ranking is partially his mistake.
But you seem to shift the blame to anyone but the management, you try to make it look that all the management did was good and that the ungrateful players are the only ones to blame. Unfortunately for you, we all have eyes, we watched the games and follow the news.
Dude is the deflector in chief 😂😂😂
And blamer-of-Theo in Chief. What do you expect when dude blamed Theo for Red Star Belgrade’s shot off the post (PS, he was no near that play and failed to admit Fofana and Thiaw completely fumbled their clearances …but yet somehow Theo at fault LMAO, it’s incredible 😂). It’s was he does on this site, deflects and blames specific players esp Theo regardless of anything else, never admits or come to a middle ground. It’s habitual and that’s what he is. You can’t change that.
HAha. This guys lamenting over Pobega. Whata huge loss that was. Don’t forget Daniel Maldini and his 1 goal and zero assists in 17 matches for Monza. Remember that huge mistake we made when he scored his 1 goal. And I like Adli but he was not good enough either. If that’s what your coming with you better reload buddy, you’re out of bullets.
Kalulu is mistake as they should have kept him and started him at RB. I thought he should be our starting RB the last 2 years over Calabria.
Everyone makes mistakes, are you going to make me list all of Maldini’s again? Please don’t.
Pavlovic may end up being a great defender yet. He’s had some very good games and some bad ones. He’s young and it takes time. Look at Thiaw. I had all but given up on him but you could argue that he has been our best defender this year. He used to make the silly mistakes that Pavlovic has made, but now he’s not making them any more.
It’s always Emmerson, Emmerson Emmerson because it’s getting harder to pick on the other siginings. Pulisic has been brilliant. Reijnders has been great. Fofana was an excellent signing. Tammy has contributed. Even Musah who everyone was quick to jump on has played much better of late and contributed to some big wins.
Like I said before everyone hits and misses with signings, but they have had more hits than misses.
And if you would like to compare their last 2 mercatos to the previous 2 under Maldini , I don’t think you really want to do that.
If you want to excuse a professional millionaire player deliberately hurting the team and not giving an effort because he doesn’t like the coach, that’s on you. Keep making excuses for him. There is no excuse for that in my book.
Oh and don’t forget the Atalanta game where CDK made Theo his little b!tch.
No one brought up Maldini whom by the way must be having a great time living rent-free in your head.
It’s you who always bring up Maldini when you ran out of excuses for the current management. When I or someone else points out a mistake this management did, your knee-jerk reaction is “but Maldini did this and this…”. You’re simply incapable of defending the current management without resorting to Maldini, because many of their current decisions are simply undefensible (like the decision to go for Lopetegui or Fonseca).
But here’s a thing for you, I don’t care about Maldini and I’ve criticized most of his decisions, so try harder next time.
“If you want to excuse a professional millionaire player deliberately hurting the team and not giving an effort because he doesn’t like the coach, that’s on you. Keep making excuses for him.”
The fact that you say this even after I said that I’m not defending Theo and said he was our worst player either shows that you’re not reading the arguments you pretend to retort to or simply lack reading comprehension. Or maybe both. Take your pick.
You say you are not defending him and then proceed to make excuses by blaming the coach.
I like Musah a ton but his football IQ is not the best. I don’t necessarily blame that on the coach.
Theo’s performance had nothing to do with tactics and everything to do with effort and attitude.
I bring up Maldini to point out the complete hypocrisy of most of the people on here. Any mistake made by this management and their idiots and clowns and they should be fired, Maldini was never treated this way and as I pointed out, he made many mistakes as well.
Somehow according to the haters on here the owner doesn’t care about winning and he’s cheap yet he’s willing to spend more money than the previous ownership. So how does that work?
My point is that everyone makes mistakes, everyone makes signings that don’t work out. And coming in here constantly after a win or loss and just spewing toxic negative garbage because you don’t like the owner is useless. Supporting them and supporting the coach even if it wasn’t your choice would be the better option.
All this kerfuffle around Theo and having one decent performance is a row.
Let’s actually talk Leao for a moment.
Luigi made some really great observations in the comments of the player rating article but I don’t think he took it nearly far enough.
I was down on Rafa the first 8 or so games of the season and glad to see him benched.
He cam back from said benching with a new game. He played inside, his work rate had increased. The efficacy of his work rate increased.
Yesterday he comes back from injury in the second half. All those things are true and evident. Dude was – at times – a 10 and at least twice had dropped all the way to the back line to be available for th ball _centrally_ (i.e. not on the touch line). He had at least two blocks in defense etc etc etc.
The diff b/t Rafa and Theo is this:
Rafa did the work for the team. Maybe he didn’t like it, but he did it.
Theo chose not to answer for the team ans worked against the teams interests in doing so. Theo is (was?) vice captain. Cooling Gate, Penalty Gate, a history of discipline issues on the field making him unavailable.
I personally need a helluva lot more than I e great game from this guy. I need a pattern of behavior showing he is evolving in his maturity as a human and understands where is pay check and fame come from.
I hope to get it. I am even somewhat positive in this. But his BS this season puts him in a deep dark hole.
Read The No A$$hole Rule by Stanford psych PHD Robert Sutton if you want the background on my nonemotional (mostly) take.
You and the yellow K guy are right about Theo.
But Theo couldn’t have unlearned to play football at his prime age, so it was obviously a mental block and a lack of motivation to play for a coach he clearly hated; which doesn’t excuse Theo’s lack of professionalism but sort of explains it (again, that’s not a justification; it’s just a way to figure out what happened).
Still, even though Theo’s temperament and selfishness can and do hurt the team, the Theo we saw yesterday obviously can help the team.
Therefore we fans need to root for Theo to recover his form and to drop the BS, now that he will be playing under strongman Conceição.
If (and I do mean if) the latter can get Theo to perform like Theo can do, it is for us a much better alternative than selling Theo.
So my hope is that Conceiçao will fix Theo and what we saw yesterday was the beginning of Theo’s recovery which hopefully will continue to happen.
If it doesn’t happen consistently though, I can see strongman Conceicao who is a no-BS guy saying to him “get the hell out of my team if you can’t put the team ahead of your ego.” Hopefully that won’t happen and Theo will evolve into a team player rather than a selfish prima donna. If anybody can do it, it’s Conceicao.
Forza Theo, Forza Conceição, Forza Milan!
PS.: You are also right that Rafa reacted to the situation more maturely and more professionally than Theo, who now needs to look at his teammate and friend’s example to also shape up.
Have you checked Leao’s stats before Fonzy benched him? There was no laziness in those numbers.
Fact remains, Fonzy never took off with this team, not just Leao and Theo. There were evident problems and lack of respect from the likes of Tomori and Abraham. He isolated players like RLC and captain Calabria with no special reason at all. Jovic who was extended as well. He punished players cause of his own incompetence.
But I couldn’t give a damn about those opinions, because the same folk who bash Leao and Theo and want them gone, were screaming the same last season about Big Mike and are screaming for two seasons now about Bennacer. That says it all for me.
Maybe we should sell Theo because a few clowns think that he deliberately didn’t play good? Like players can’t be out of form for no reason, or have some personal issues and have a bad few months. What a bunch of clowns you are, this is not a video game, but real life.