The sight of the packed Napoli away end at San Siro brought a realisation that AC Milan are far from ready to compete for the title, a report claims.
Calciomercato.com write how Milan were left with nothing despite a good performance with plenty of goal-scoring opportunities created. The big match of the 10th round showed us a team that has been sculpted in Antonio Conte’s image, while Paulo Fonseca continues to struggle to mould his.
In sport, as in life, you have to set goals and try to be ambitious. Fonseca has been talking about the Scudetto since day one of his arrival yet as the weeks pass the games show that this team is not ready to aim for the title.
The Rossoneri are fragile in defence, not very clinical in attack and are still far from having a well-defined team identity. The Portuguese coach still has too many internal problems to resolve and cannot count on reserves.
The likes of Filippo Terracciano, Yunus Musah, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Noah Okafor were all deployed last night – admittedly due to the many selection issues – but each continue to show they cannot be relied upon.
Five defeats in the first 12 games of the season is a damning statistic. In fact, the 2019-20 season under Marco Giampaolo was the last time that it happened, with seven losses in the same span of games.
Milan, counting the first nine league games played, have seven points less than last year and six less than 2022-23. The comparison is even more contrasting with the year of the Scudetto: 11 points less.
With this points per game average, the most concrete objective must be qualification for the next Champions League. Milan are now at a crossroads: either they unite and turn things around or they risk having to suffer a lot even to reach the minimum objective.