Fonseca attributes Milan’s struggles to subpar pre-season: “They arrived 8 days before” | OneFootball

During his press conference earlier today, on the eve of the clash against Genoa, Milan manager Paulo Fonseca shared his thoughts on why the season has been filled with ups and downs. Above all, he attributed this to the pre-season.

It’s not exactly a secret that Fonseca was given a major task when he arrived at the start of July, ordered to more or less completely change Milan’s way of playing. However, due to the Euros, he had to embark on this journey without many of the stars.

During the press conference earlier today, Fonseca was asked about the ups and downs this season and if he believes there has been any progress. He provided a very in-depth response to the matter, mainly attributing the struggles to the pre-season.

“We have already done this exercise here, but we can do it again. I came here and they brought me here to change the way we play. I came here with 15 players, we went to the US with 15 players and a lot of youngsters: a lot of the important players weren’t there due to international duty.

“We trained, we did things well, things went well. But not with the players who were in the national team. They arrived 8 days before the first league game. We can’t change everything in 8 days, or even a lot.

“After that, it was difficult to train, we played every three days. The steps I want to take need more time. But for me, we have already changed things that are important to me and we have played good games.

“In Italy, we didn’t get the results we wanted, but we have played good games. And if we analyse a lot of tactical things there has been progress. The problem for me is mental, I feel like it’s like a roller coaster. Games like against Empoli, against Sassuolo…

“We did good things in Bergamo too: they created more against Real than against us. The problem was the second half, where we didn’t attack. Then the Champions League arrived and we didn’t have the mental ambition to continue growing. It seems to me that when the team thinks it has an easy life in matches, like against Red Star, it has this presumption. And that’s the problem,” he stated.

Tomorrow, the manager is expected to make some bold choices with both Alex Jimenez and Mattia Liberali set to start. Seeing as some of the usual starters have struggled, it’s absolutely the right decision to give the promising youngsters a chance.