In his first summer as AC Milan’s head coach, Paulo Fonseca is planning to overhaul the Rossoneri’s midfield, and a report has claimed there are only three players who will be certain to stay at the club in the mercato.
Reports throughout the past week have signified that Fonseca’s first mission is to bring balance to the midfield, at least whilst the other areas are providing difficulties. Of course, in an ideal world, a striker would be the first player brought in, but pursuing other areas allows time for further evaluation and more importantly, negotiation.
Last season, there were several games where Milan lacked stability in the middle of the pitch, either due to the composition of their midfield or the lack of viable replacements on the bench. Either way, both resulted in the same thing – poor results.
This morning, it was suggested that the Diavolo see Youssouf Fofana as their primary midfield target, his arrival could trigger the departures of Ismael Bennacer and Yacine Adli, and a report from Tuttosport (via Milan News) suggests similar.
The duo could be joined at the departure gate by Tommaso Pobega, who has been a topic of interest from Fiorentina. Only three players are seen as certainties: Tijjani Reijnders, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Yunus Musah.
It remains to be seen if the others will stay, but Milan and Fonseca’s preferences are clear.
In other news, how about those great Italian players that Milan refuses to sign. 😂
They said we need more Italian players.
In 2024 El Shaarawy starts for Italy. A player that had 3 good months back in 2012 starts for Italy in 2024.😂. That’s how good the pool of Italian players is.
Got absolutely dominated by a team of Bologna and Torino players.
Congrats to our own Noah Okafor and especially Ricardo Rodriguez, who played great.
Italy built on Inter’s Italian core. 🤣🤣🤣.
Italian players tend to be slow and lack creativity and dribbling skills, far below today’s standards. Only a tiny number are top quality on their positions (Dollarumma, Barella, Bastoni, Dimarco, maybe Udogie too). Maybe Calafiori will get there as well.
Barella was one of the worst Italian players this euro, probably only ahead of Di Lorenzo. Doesn’t look so good without Hakan and Mikhitaryan. Di Marco was also bad.
Gigio, Calafiori and to a certain extent Bastoni are the only Italian players that weren’t awful.
Calafiori made gaffes vs Spain (own goal) and vs Albania (Manaj’s chance). Apart from Dollarumma, the rest of Italy was crap. Even the group stage was advanced through referee’s help (8 mins extra time vs Croatia). That was a group issue, you can’t blame Barella or Dimarco. Though I have long noted that Barella, Dimarco and Bastoni start making gaffes if put on pressure by fast playing teams (e.g. vs Atletico).
I’m not blaming any of them I’m just saying they were bad.
Calafiori own goal vs Spain wasn’t a gaffe. Gigio redirect the ball in his path. What di marco and Bastoni did vs Albania was a gaffe.
This is a bad generation of Italian players. That’s a fact. Don’t know why all these people get their knickers in a twist. They have been at a World Cup since 2014 for a reason.
Even Juventus, a team that has always been the cornerstone of the national team is going away from signing Italian players, unless Douglas Luiz, Thuram or Koopmeiners are Italians.
@Z Yes, but the defender is supposed to know that the GK might redirect the ball – it is his job to clear that ball out of the danger area. In any case, I think Calafiori has lots of potential, and I would like to see him at Inter playing alongside Bastoni and Pavard.
Part of the blame goes to Italian coaches. The tactics they follow make young players no favour. One to be fast, creative and dribbling needs to grow up in a team where those skills are cultivated. On the contrary, the football Italian coaches teach youngsters is a boring, slow and overly defensive one. And the result is this kind of Italy.
Another factor is psychology. “Pundits” like Buffon are putting too much pressure on Italy’s players by repeating bombastic claims like “Italy can win the Euros” or “We need Chiesa” or “Scamacca is great” or “Bastoni is amazing”. They are demanding too much from the guys, and putting too much pressure. They need to leave the players and the coach alone to sort things out.
“@Z Yes, but the defender is supposed to know that the GK might redirect the ball ”
Wow. I knew you were an idiot by the name alone but blaming Calafiori for the goal is insane. 😀
@BB haha you are so funny. I guess you get quite furious when you see my nickname. That is quite entertaining. Keep talking, say something.
Italy just doesn’t have any quality outside of Donnarumma and maybe Calafiori in this tournament. Chiesa was the only Italian taking players on and dribbling. Everyone else just passing backwards.
Strikers are flat AF. Wingers flat AF. SeS and Zacagni are a joke.
No decent 10. Di Lorenzo is a sub at best.
Midfield disjointed with absolute waste of space in christante. Barella up and down. Jorginho past it. Frattesi doesn’t work in this system.
Defense…. Ehhhhh. DiLorenzo a joke. Bastion and Cala pretty solid. Darimian and DiMarco only work at Inter…
This team lacks quality and speed. And Spaletti didn’t get anything out of them.
Then fans complain that we don’t go for Italians. This is the best 26 Italy could produce. And its tragic AF.
(Sorry for the rant)
Yeah… the Italian squad is flat.
Another captivating stats: In seria this season, there was no Italian top 5 goal scorers or goal assists. The foriegn players are the ones running the show.
More than half of the Italian squad were defenders and defensive minded midfielders…
It’s mind boggling someone like El Sharaawy, who had a good season over a decade ago even starts.
Ciro Immobile isn’t even a top performing player anymore.
It’s just sad. The whole state of the national team.
Your Italian players overperformed last season. Watch and see when you end up like Napoli the next.
And Italy just get crushed by Swiss.
Maybe we are watching different match . Even after match barella are the worst italy player last night in term of rating & statistic. But of course not only him, whole italy starting are flop too, not fair blaming one player for losing. Swiss midfield dominating in mid . Many mediocre player are called to squad like sharawy,cristante,darmian etc
Yeah and USA has been amazing against Panama with Musah the magnificent warming the bench. Can I ask you why you support an Italian team?
Bravo
This Yankee Doodle is penetrant
First, the red card on Juve’s Weah was a major factor in the game, and you are being at best disingenuous to not mention it. Second, who says to sign players from the US? Just asking to sign the best available from wherever. Plus, you do know that Musah was born in New York, but lived all his childhood and learned the game in Italy right?
I for one support Milan and Italy, and don’t give a damn if any Italian players are on Milan, they are two separate teams. I want them both to succeed, and right now Milan looks much more likely to do so since Italy has so little available talent.
I said Musah because this article speaks about the certainties in the midfield and he’s seemingly one of them. Adli, Loftus-Cheek or Pobega don’t even play for their national team. Reijnders is not shining at the Euro either. Truth is that our midfield is average and any Italian midfielder at the Euro would be a starter for us.
As for Musah, he played two years in Italy when he was 8 years old, then his family moved to London (I checked on Wikipedia haha) so I’m not sure we can say he’s a product of Italian football. As for the red card, there are countless examples of top teams winning against lower teams despite receiving a red card. Panama…
And I’m French so I was raised to hate the Italian national team, I don’t care that they’re good or bad but Milan is a top Italian team and its identity always has been to field top Italian players. We had one of them, in an area where we are currently weak, we sold him.
Barthol: I like France
More Germany, France and Italy and less USA in Euope!😌😎
I
When he asked to leave and Newcastle was willing to grossly overpay. Best move Milan has made in years.
He moved to London when he was offered a spot in Arsenal’s academy. You don’t turn that down. It can change your family’s life.
The player you are referring to had a very rough first season with the club at the same age as Musah. You could argue he was worse at every part of the game…I understand he is Italian in that he did his training there and musah didn’t, but it seems a good sign for the future..
“Truth is that our midfield is average and any Italian midfielder at the Euro would be a starter for us.”
Imagine saying that the trash in the midfield that Italy put on display at the Euro’s, like Fagioli, Cristante, Frattesi, Pellegrini, Jorginho, Barella can start for Milan.
Pobega, who is a bench player at Milan is better than half of those players in the Italian midfield.
Imagine hating your own team players so much, to even hype other teams trash just because the club owners fired your surrogate father and you are still mad about it.
Keep crying 😢.
Wtf are you saying! All Italian midfielders are currently shit even Barella played like shit. I wouldn’t take any of those to Milan. By the way Reijnders and Bennacer are better than most people think. Reijnders started as box to box at Milan and the first few game he did great until Pioli switched the formation. Bennacer was injured most of the time and when he came back he was expected to run the whole game like a kessie. Since our other midfielders are all more attacking minded, Adli Reijnders and RLC none of those are best at defending so you can’t let Bennacer do everything in a double pivot!
B, USA played with a man down most of the match. 11v11 they beat Panama. It’s not really a fair assessment. But that’s altogether irrelevant in this discussion.
Don’t ask them, they don’t know Ac Milan history, they just begin to Follow that club since American owner era.
Musah isn’t a basis for our team, genius. I dunno ask Timothy Weah who blew the game. You really are nuts. And the US doing badly in that game wasn’t Pulisic or Musahs fault. Smh
Okafor didnt even played 1minute, but that just show that you are here to hate and nothing else. This Italians won the previous Euro, and the Italy u17 just won their Euro cup, last year Italy u20 played in the world cup final. Yea i would rather take Italians than americans who hasnt won anything ever.
Unfortunately, I think USA could probably play to a draw or beat the Italian national team😂 and that’s with soccer being the 5th most popular sport in the USA. Soccer is all Italy has😂
I like Rossi
And U 19 Champion
Okafor is not good enough like chukwueze
In the good old times of Milan This Kind of Players were 1000 Kilometer away from the Team!
1994: love it or you Are no Fan
First of all, once more and I’ll say it again, club form and country form are two different things. I’d take Barella anyday over any of our current mids. Also, clearly u didn’t watch the game because Okafor didn’t play LMAO 😂
Also, it’s not like our players are shining on their own teams bar Pulisic. RLC couldn’t even make his team, Musah doesn’t start, Reinjders is as average for us as he is for Holland but yet u criticize Italy’s team for having Inte players? A bit of pot calling kettle here
PS not saying Italy team is good either. They’re farrr from it
Musah has the record for the most games started for the US before the age of 21. Breaking Pulisic’s record.
Euros and Copa I’m referring to..Musah hasn’t started yet.
A lot of the Italian players are bang average like you say but I put this Italian footballing masterclass down to Spalletti more than anything. The Napoli scudetto was one of the those “it’s written in the stars” moments – a bit like Ranieri’s Leicester. The true Spalletti is this Italy side and his teams of the past – like Roma getting flattened 7-0 or whatever it was by Manchester United.
Napoli is much bigger than leichester
Where Are you from ?
He used it as an example, read to understand instead of reading to compare, you just in a hurry to achieve nothing, it means spalletti’s was fortunate just like Ranieri was with Leicester
Who’s this “Roccy” – firehosing the comments section – that’s what I want to know 😂
That’s because all the small club in Italy sell their players higher than Italian top club able to afford so they ended up in PL with 100% flop certainty.
There are pool of players with better quality outside Italy that are more affordable. To some extend Milan made the right decision.
This all came back to the rigidness if Italian bureaucracy that not allowed big club to build their own stadiums, the small clubs relied too much on their players sales for incomes so they sell their players to the highest bidder.
The team like Milan, with big reputation but no money has to penny pinch to stay relevant, can’t afford the expensive local market and has to go outside to get cheap quality players.
Italian bureaucracy and policy is putting nails in Italian NT’s coffin
That means we need more midfielders that means we’re more likely to sign fofana and rabiot not just one
and maybe chukuweima but he’s not that good so he doesn’t matter
Thank God we have a B team now, hopefully even Italy can benefit from it. The NT enters year 0 yet again…the current players have no quality whatsoever, Milan has to think outside the box and grow those youngster properly.
Bad choise from Splaetti. Still couldnt figure out which formation he wants to play lol. And he had better players on the bench but o well he chose who he chose.
They already rebuilt it last summer and it was a flop. Waste more money on average midfielders and hope some of them, foreign ofc, makes a running start and does something…
Might as well sell all of them and bring 3 quality, real quality, players in. The other 3 take from primavera or should I say u23 now
If these are the certainties we’re in big trouble
LRC is at best bench warmer/backup material. Musah too though he is young and can mature.
Bang average midfield.
Really ??? So u wanna build the team around Musa 😂? Lets be real here .. the only reason why Musa is in Milan is because he is American. Like Pulisic they hope he would sell them some shirts and merchandise in the US of A.
A really average player who only brings energy. He is and always will be a sub
What is the Need of foreign owners if They buy average Qualität!?
Pulisic average? What are you even smoking son?
Is there a Problem we habe to solve? Pulli is nothing against the big names from Former times! Chuk and so on are not good enough for lazio! They have nothing to do in Milan!
Another person with no clue.
Speak about US Sport
Why? I’m from Spain lol
Read what i wrote … im talking about Musah and not pulisic – im saying they are hoping he could sell the brand in the US like Pulisic is doing “son”. U need glasses
if followers on social media is the metric for the brand popularity…Then Pulisic represents 97% of the Brand compared to Musah’s 3%. He is not selling anything to anyone
He just had a strong relationship with Gattuso so when they reached out to discuss him…he likely said exactly what he has said publicly about him…and he has coached both him and kessie and knows a few things about playing in the midfield…
Musah isn’t a central part of Milan’s team, and he still has a lot of potential. He was a starter for a relatively good team in Spain. I’m not saying he’s going to be a world beater, but it’s not fair to blame him for all of the US MNT’s problems.
Like it isn’t fair to blame Dollarrumma (in this tournament) for all the problems Italy had in midfield and attack. Credit to him he did his best under the circumstances.
Spaletti is stuck in the past. He uses outdated tactics meant for a club team. He’s the Italian version of Mourinho. Italy’s brutal lack of quality was even more evident. A shame Poland didn’t put the team out of its misery earlier.
Correction: Croatia, not Poland.
Where Are you from? Croatia better than Italy?
Croatia was the better team in that draw. Are you okay? Italy was barely good enough against Albania.
Italy has created more chances than Croatia!
Oh created more chances. That’s the story of the Italian national team these days. That doesn’t matter.
Mou is bigger than every Coach of your Country!
I highly doubt that. What’s my country, troll? Hint: Spain.
Mourinho has been average for years.
You Are no Spaniard! Spaniards are polite and correct and the Culture is very similar to Italy.
Lmao I’m definitely a Spaniard. But you sound like an American. Very rude and condescending simply because you didn’t like my opinion.
Your opinion is your opinion! The Problem ist your hate against Italians! This ist unknown by Spaniards which are Cousins of Italians! Why Are you Milanfan? Real is the biggest Name in Teamsport worldwide! I Like Real too!
What hate? I don’t think Italians like their own national team right now and have many questions how such bad players like Stephan El Sharaawy and Zaccagni could even be playing.
I actually relate to the anger of Azzurri fans. Spaletti made some weird choices and kept tinkering with the team. There was no identity!
You are trying to make this into something it’s not. AC Milan is one of my favorite teams. When things are going wrong I ask questions… maybe you should too.
Lol I don’t hate Italians. I dislike people who make weird decisions with a national team and incorporate players like El Sharaawy who has no business playing in the national team because he had a good season over a decade ago.
Italians are mad and I understand. Spaletti failed. And he failed badly.
Barely beating Albania, drawing against Croatia, being completely outplayed by both Spain and Switzerland. You need to ask questions and demand reform!
Real and Barca do Not need foreign owners! This is a good Modell!
Have Italian billionaires done a good job? Berlusconi sold this team off to a shady person and didn’t even do a proper background check. I’m not attacking Italians, I just think we need good ownership. That’s all.
RLC – an average sub for Chelsea almost his entire career. Comes to Milan, plays as an AM. Let me put it into perspective lads … thats Kakas role 😂
He has no technique – 80% wrong decisions on the final ball and he is really only a physical player who can score a goal or two.
Musah – dont get me started on this one – a waste of money and only a sub
Reijnder – good but requires time and space to grow.
In a nutshell its like taking Santiago Solari (who was an amazing sub), Seido Keita and Flamini and saying we will build a team around those players 😂 what a joke
What did Yunus Musah do exactly that neither Bennacer nor Adli could do that makes him a certainty while these later 2 can leave ?
This midfield started 3 cl games together. Draw vs. Dortmund, Win vs. PSG, Win vs. Newcastle.
Yeah, they are good enough to beat PSG and Newcastle while drawing vs the UCL finalist but according to some biased haters in here they are not good. Bums like Cristante or Fagioli according to some can start over them at Milan.
Bennacer is literally our best midfielder next to Reijnders now. Why would we sell him and not start Fofana next to one of them. Rlc is a bench player at best, pobega simply isn’t up to quality to be playing ucl level, and musah is still far too raw and inexperienced to be a starter. Fofana and bennacer would play next to eachother from deep and reijnders ahead of them in the 10 role. We dont need another midfield rebuild that fails miserably like these clowns did last year. Get Fofana, get Dovbyk, and get Buongiorno/Califiori. Just do it already instead of accomplishing nothing until the last 3 weeks again.
They won’t get rid of Pobega, he occupy the exclusive club-homegrown slot.
I generally like Germany so take my statement a bit lightly but today im a bit cranky so up yours 😛 well deserved win though to our german brotherland 😀
Martin, was thinking about what you’d think about that ‘offisde’ goal yesterday in the game vs Germany. Man that was a bit ridiculous but I understand the whole letter of the law thing. You guys could have made it through but to be fair Germany had more pace and more quality all round.
Well law is law even if I think its a c0nt hair decision. Germany was the best and whent through well deserved. Never seen the danish international coach that angry though 😀