Paulo Fonseca acknowledges Milan ‘played it safe and didn’t take enough risks’ in the dismal 0-0 draw with Juventus, but still insists they can win the Scudetto. ‘I continue to believe.’
The very loud jeers at the final whistle raining down from the stands at San Siro made clear how unhappy the fans were with the performance even more than the result.
Against a Juve side decimated by injuries and without a single available centre-forward, the Rossoneri struggled to create any real scoring opportunities with a Theo Hernandez header straight at Michele Di Gregorio in stoppages their only shot on target.
“It’s natural when you don’t win that there will be jeers. If I am a fan, I realise it is not good to go to the stadium and see a spectacle like this. I perfectly understand the fans on that,”
Of the two teams, Juventus looked more determined to press high and win the game, even though it was Milan who needed the step forward.
“I think it was a very tactical match from both teams. We showed too much respect for Juventus, and Juve showed too much respect for us, leading to a game with very few risks taken.
“We know Juventus defend very well, so it is not easy to create chances against them. The opportunities we did have to attack quickly, either we didn’t take the risk or made the wrong decisions,” added Fonseca.
“It is not easy against them, but the situations where we could’ve created something, we misplaced the pass or picked the wrong option.
“I thought defensively we did well, let us not forget that Juve scored four goals in this stadium against Inter a few weeks ago.”
Rafael Leao is famous for taking men on, but he seemed to do that very little this evening.
“It felt like the team wanted to play it safe and if we want to score goals, we’ve got to take more risks, take men on and do more to break down a defensive opponent. We usually create numerous chances, we had many opportunities when losing here against Napoli, but here we didn’t take enough risks.”
Albeit with a game in hand, as the trip to Bologna was rescheduled over flood warnings, Milan are sliding further and further away from the group at the top of the table.
Does Fonseca genuinely still believe he can win the Scudetto at Milan this season?
“I know other people think it is unlikely, but I continue to believe. There are so many more games to go, so many points up for grabs, anything can happen.”
