Milan director Geoffrey Moncada insists they ‘did badly and must do better’ against Torino and Bologna after Champions League elimination. ‘We simply have to get into the top four.’
The Rossoneri’s campaign suffered a devastating blow midweek with Champions League play-off elimination to Feyenoord, a game dominated by the Theo Hernandez red card.
It had been suggested he would be dropped for this match as punishment, but as Kyle Walker, Emerson Royal and Alessandro Florenzi are all injured, Alex Jimenez is needed at right-back.
“After a game like that, it is very difficult to get back on track, but we returned to the training ground, spoke to the players and coach as a group and individually. We are with them and spoke again in the hotel today,” Moncada told DAZN.
“We did badly and must do better, both today and on Thursday.”
Milan will face Bologna at the Stadio Dall’Ara on Thursday evening in the rescheduled Serie A match that was called off in October 2024 due to flood warnings.
The experiment of using the Fab Four together of Santiago Gimenez, Joao Felix, Rafael Leao and Christian Pulisic has largely failed so far, but Sergio Conceicao tries again this evening.
Youssouf Fofana is also on the bench for the second consecutive game, despite having been practically ever-present until this week. How much was Conceicao involved in picking the January arrivals?
“We work to find solutions, but we have to do it with the coach and his staff. We watched a lot of videos, we had confrontations, discussed what he wanted, just like we did with Paulo Fonseca before. We do it all together.”
Zlatan Ibrahimovic suggested that the current Milan squad is twice as strong as the one that won the Scudetto, so does Moncada agree?
“I don’t know if it’s twice as strong, but we have changed a lot. I do think we have more options off the bench, it is an interesting squad. We started working on the Scudetto team a year or two earlier, so these things do take time, though hopefully not that long.”
If Milan miss out on the top four and therefore fail to qualify for the Champions League, will there be a radically different transfer strategy for next season?
“We are not thinking about that, we simply have to get into the top four. We dropped points against Bologna before and we have a chance on Thursday, we are motivated and want to get right back on track,” concluded Moncada.
