GdS: ‘Morata as a 9’ – Fonseca’s plan to get his main striker scoring again | OneFootball

AC Milan head coach Paulo Fonseca will lean on Alvaro Morata in Saturday’s game against Juventus, and it is a fixture he knows well.

This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport recall that Morata has played seven times against the Rossoneri for Juve, scoring three goals. Fonseca also knows the importance of Morata, considered one of the leaders of the team, because of his commitment and his attitude.

However, he was also brought in to score goals and so far Morata is stuck on two in the league, scored at the end of August and in mid-September.

The goal at the Bernabeu in the Champions League was the spark of a magical night, the same one that will be needed on Saturday to reignite the Scudetto race.

A different Morata

Morata returns to the Milan-Juventus fixture as a different kind of player; more mature and perhaps less of a goalscorer. He is more aware of his role as leader of the group, maybe more dedicated to the cause, attentive to his younger teammates and putting the good of the team first.

This is also why he has been less present in the penalty area so far: at Juventus he scored 59 goals in 185 games overall, an average of one in three. At Milan he has three in 12 appearances, that is, one goal in four.

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To stimulate the instinct of the striker, Fonseca has a plan: make Morata the sole point of reference for the Rossoneri’s attack.

In the past, for example in the derby, Alvaro had played as a trequartista, leaving Abraham to be the man closest to the opposing goalkeeper, with Christian Pulisic making runs.

Saturday’s tactical plan calls for Morata to lead with Rafael Leao and Pulisic to support him. Milan have not used their ‘typical’ attack for a long time: in three of the last four games Leao was not present in the XI and in Cagliari the Spaniard was missing due to a clash of heads.

In Sardinia, Fonseca launched Francesco Camarda as a starter, with Abraham on the bench. Tammy, who came on in the second half, immediately scored the goal to put his team 3-2 up in an eventual 3-3 draw. He and Camarda are competing for the role of Morata’s deputy, with Luka Jovic struggling.

Milan-Juve will be a battle of atypical strikers in many ways because on the other side Dusan Vlahovic is injured, meaning that Timothy Weah is expected to play as a ‘false nine’ in Thiago Motta’s plans.

Milan’s Chiellini

Alvaro Morata has remained close to Giorgio Chiellini, the paper adds. They connect with each other regularly and have done so in recent days.

Today Morata is Milan’s Chiellini: the man of experience, the captain of the national team that won the European Championship (like Giorgio in blue in 2021) and the senator who takes care of the young players, like Camarda and the other guys who train with the first team.

He is in the front row of the dressing room and makes his voice heard. At the table he sits next to Theo Hernandez, Davide Calabria and Matteo Gabbia to eat. He is an organiser of team dinners and there have already been two since the beginning of the season.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic did everything to bring Alvaro to Milan and in many ways the Swede is someone that the 32-year-old looks up to. Now, he has the chance to make him smile in the stands with a goal against his old club in a big game.