MILANO – Paulo Fonseca he will be in Milan in a few days. The Portuguese coach is expected – unless he arrives early – between Friday and Saturday; while on Monday he will be presented at Milanello during the first team meeting (Milan Futuro will also be there, that is, Daniele Bonera’s Under23 who will instead meet the press tomorrow). The former coach of Rome, Shakthar and Lille will be able to count on a fair number of players, even if he obviously won’t have the internationals busy or returning from the European Championships and Copa America. And, if there are no accelerations this week, he won’t have any new signings either. But there’s time, July has just begun and Fonseca will still be able to work on various aspects. However, he will be able to focus on one, that is, the defensive phase and the movements of the back line, in particular the central defenders. In fact, on Monday, the four defenders who, at the moment, will compete for the two starting places net of any future sales and arrivals (we are also thinking about a left-footed central defender) will be present at Milanello. So the various people will answer Fonseca’s question Tomori, Thiaw, Cage e Rabbit. And if he is not released for market reasons, the Argentine Pellegrino, returning from a light-dark loan to Salernitana, should also join them.
Objective
Fonseca’s goal, not even too hidden, will be to bring three of the aforementioned players back to high performance, namely Tomori, Thiaw and Kalulu. The first two, in Newcastle’s sights (today especially the German, valued by Milan at no less than 30-35 million), are the starters on paper, but are coming off a disappointing ’23-24: Tomori was inconsistent, Thiaw made many errors, especially in marking. Kalulu, also due to a year conditioned by various physical problems, has never returned to the levels of the second half of the ’21-22 season, when he became a starter and protagonist in the championship ride. The only one to be saved was Gabbiawho returned in January after six months on loan at Villarreal, an experience that helped him mature, as Ibrahimovic also acknowledged during the conference on 13 June: «In my opinion Gabbia should have been called up to the Italian national team because he has grown a lot, especially since he returned he is a totally different player».
Stefano Pioli’s last Milan was deficient in its non-possession phase. The Rossoneri in fact suffered the beauty of 69 goals in 52 games. A very high number, to be decreased if Milan wants to return to fighting concretely for the Scudetto and to make progress in Europe. Fonseca had similar problems at Roma, but in the last season at Lille he worked a lot on his defensive phase, obtaining excellent results. The hope is that he will be able to repeat himself, but above all regenerate players who in the past years had been able to have a very different performance. Furthermore, Fonseca, waiting for Theo Hernandez, will also have at its disposal Calabria, Florence (with whom he will have to clarify after the Roman disagreements) and Terracciano: the latter will have to be evaluated to understand whether he will be able to remain as deputy to Theo Hernandez or whether he will be loaned (or sold?).
Subscriptions, ok trend
The skepticism that accompanied Milan’s choice of Fonseca and an incoming market that in June did not see any arrivals did not go hand in hand with the season ticket campaign. Evidently stadium fans move on different tracks than social ones and so in twenty days (the opening was on June 12) over 35 thousand cards were reconfirmed, with an increase of 5% compared to last season. The sold-out is therefore close (41,500 is the quota reserved by the company for season tickets).
