CM: ‘Abandoned’ Fonseca turns to youth but fate ‘seems largely written’ | OneFootball

Paulo Fonseca might well be trying to hide it, but he has his back to the wall as AC Milan’s coach and seems to be constantly fighting battles.

According to Calciomercato.com, tonight’s match against Hellas Verona could really represent ‘the last stop’ on Fonseca’s journey at Milan. While the management have defended him, the Champions League places are slipping away and a negative result could be the final straw.

The press conference on the eve of the game at the Stadio Bentegodi included many quotes that could be seen as a clear declaration of the great difficulties that the coach found himself facing in an experience that started off uphill from the very beginning.

He arrived amid the skepticism of the fans and when the first few league results (plus two defeats in the Champions League) kicked off competitive action, things like the differences with Rafael Leao and Theo Hernandez plus further stumbles only fuelled these doubts.

Yesterday, the Portuguese coach tried to defend his work, stating: “The team has already improved in many things, it is true that the results sometimes do not show it. But what is the game in which we had big problems or in which the other team has been much better so far?

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“I honestly don’t remember. Maybe only Liverpool, in one half. But for the others, none were better than ours , they had other things that made them win even over our mistakes.”

They are not quite as dramatic as what he said just over one week ago following the win over Red Star. In a moment of maximum difficulty, he made it clear that he ‘felt abandoned by everyone around him’.

Supposed leaders within the squad were ‘the first to delegitimise’ his authority, ‘taking advantage of the power vacuum’ created by a distant management. The sequence of injuries in recent weeks has further complicated Fonseca’s work who, on the brink of the abyss, is forced to rely on youth.

The decision to put faith in the likes of Alex Jimenez, Mattia Liberali, Francesco Camarda and maybe others is a roll of the dice to try and overturn a destiny that seems largely written.