A lot has been written and said about Paulo Fonseca’s handling of Theo Hernandez, but some encouraging news has emerged.
Fonseca made the tough but (in his eyes) necessary choice to give Theo a game on the bench against Genoa on Sunday. Alex Jimenez was playing well admittedly, but despite the score remaining 0-0 the coach didn’t make the call to bring the Frenchman on.
It is what he did to try and stimulate Rafael Leao, and in that case it worked, but every player has a different character – especially the star men – and in the case of Hernandez there are other factors such as his renewal to consider.
According to Peppe Di Stefano who spoke live on Sky (via MilanNews), Theo has provided ‘a great reaction in training’ after his exclusion on Sunday, resulting in him being ‘much more active and present’ than usual.
It is a clear and sudden change in attitude that could convince Fonseca to field him as a starter against Verona on Friday at the Stadio MarcAntonio Bentegodi. As a reminder, the media this morning stated that Jimenez would get the nod again.
The other bit of news is that the Portuguese coach tried Alvaro Morata behind Tammy Abraham just like in the derby. There is still tomorrow’s training session for the final indications, but this could be a concrete possibility for the game in two days.
Yes Jimenez played well, but if we look at him and his game critically, you will notice having him as a left back will not work, if we play a very good team with a very mobile winger, and an aggressive right back, he will be turn apart, because he is right footed, he cannot do certain tackles, and him using his right foot to attack the ball could be very risky, he could commit unnecessary fouls which could result in cards.
Secondly for all his speed and technical quality, he does not have the physical aspect that a defender needs, he could be easily be pushed aside, he was lucky against Genoa that the right side was not attacked regularly.
Honestly the best position for him is as a right sided midfielder, he would do a better job than Chukweze, he is more mobile. Intelligent and direct.
The best person to be Theo’s replacement should be Barthaseghi, he has a good left foot, the build and the defensive quality to do a good job.
But Theo can still regain his former self, the coach just needs to talk to him.
I agree he is gonna be miles more effective than chukwueze and musah on the right and will be good for balancing Leao’s low def work rate
Agree about everything here. Replace either Emerson or Chuk with Jimenez and see the right side starting to perform better.
Id prefer to put Jimenez at RB if Fonseca is gonna refuse to play Davide or Terra. Anyone is better then Emerson
Neither Calabria nor Terraciano are better than Emerson. That is why Emerson is playing.
LMAO 🤣🤣🤣🤣
They all three suck equally bad.
No they don’t and at least with Calabria we can avoid giving the armband to Theo or Leao.
Calabria is the best out of the three. Nothing special but compared to Emerson miles better. I’ve never seen such a bad footballer ever.
Emerson makes Kevin Constant look like Cafu.
Yes that’s very true
Thanks for the laughs!!! 😀 😀 😀 😀
Theo is needs to play if he wants to get value for his services in the January mercato. If he is being benched, his value will drop (if you check the transfer market this is already happening). And you can be sure that he checks his market value frequently and has noticed.
What a joke. Milan can call it addition by subtraction. Ciao Theo!
I think the message needs to be “shape up or ship out” regardless of seniority, tenure, or skill level. We need players to leave everything they have on the pitch and not be so mentally frail.
I feel for Fonseca trying to unshovel so much of Pioli out of this team. Baldy did create a team, but he also closed his eyes on many of their shortcomings, allowing them to play game in and game out regardless of their form.
Of course they all liked Pioli, because he never really challenged them to be a better version of themselves.
That sums it up pretty well.
Jimenez as RB can be good idea if Puli in RW, the problem if he has chuck in front of him, it’ll be hard time for Jim to cover chuck mistakes cz he lose the ball easily & can’t defend (so slow in read the game/ off-ball movement)
I agree with this
Jimenez as RB and pulisic as RW
Or Calabria as rb and Jimenez as rw