AC Milan have made a poor start to the 2024-25 season and there is a collective responsibility to be shared, a journalist has written today.
It would be fair to say that things have not gone to plan for Milan since they had a brilliant preseason in the United States, beating Manchester City, Real Madrid and Barcelona as part of the Soccer Champions Tour.
The Rossoneri had to battle from two goals down against Torino on the opening day to rescue a late draw, and then on Saturday they were beaten by Parma 2-1 at the Stadio Tardini to make it just one point from two games.
Milan have registered their worst start to the season since the 2011-12 campaign, when they also claimed just one point from the first two games. While that season ended up being quite good after all, there isn’t a lot of optimism around this one.
Antonio Vitiello has published his usual weekly column for MilanNews and he pulled no punches regarding the decisions that have been made in the build-up to the season start.
“We suffer upstream, from Ibrahimovic’s choice to focus on Fonseca as coach in the summer when many other coaches were free. From Conte to De Zerbi and Thiago Motta, passing through other well-known faces, the idea was to trust Fonseca for the post-Pioli, also for a question of salary. And already here the choice was quite questionable,” he said.
“But after having made this type of preference, it was necessary to carry out a rapid mercato, to make players available to the new coach immediately ready, to give him the necessary time to work on his tactical ideas.
“Instead, the reinforcements arrived in mid-August, with the season practically underway. The strategy was to wait until the end of the market to have lower transfer fee costs, but by doing so the technical aspect was underestimated, and in the first two days we saw a lot of improvisation. Milan are not ready yet.
“Furthermore, the squad still seems incomplete, because Morata-Jovic is not that different from Giroud-Jovic, just a little better but no big leap in quality. Probably with the Spanish striker it would have been advisable to take another striker.
“There are 4 days left until the end of the market, we will see what happens. A lot also depends on Bennacer’s farewell, in that case something else can be done.
“The responsibility also lies with a coach who has not yet been able to convey his ideas after a month and a half of work, and already seems to be in difficulty. So much tactical confusion, the players on the pitch do not know what to do (by their own admission).
“The very high defence leaves the opponents the opportunity to propose themselves on the counterattack, taking on water from all sides. Here we are talking about a ‘defensive phase’, which starts from the attackers and then moves on to the midfielders and defenders. Bad feelings have arrived from Parma.
“Let’s move on to the players. If someone no longer wants to be at Milan, or prefers to start an adventure elsewhere, whether for economic or environmental reasons, let them say so. Milan needs people who play 100%, without walking around on the pitch.
“We need to talk to the players and understand their intentions. But who should do it at Milanello? Ibrahimovic and Fonseca are the only ones suited to this job. We need to get the players’ availability for a certain type of work, for sacrifice, as soon as possible, otherwise the season will go really badly.”
