AC Milan have full faith in Paulo Fonseca after appointing him in the summer and seeing positive preseason signs, but the management expect to see a turnaround in results soon.
As Calciomercato.com report this morning, the press conference to present Tammy Abraham inevitably turned into a grilling of CEO Giorgio Furlani, who had to answer various questions about the poor start to the season, the unwillingness to spend over €20m and the Theo-Leao incident.
Fonseca was also a topic discussed, and the line was clear: the club has chosen to trust the Portuguese coach, trying to take the pressure off him and his staff and giving him a break to breathe and to work only and exclusively on the pitch.
Asked directly about trust in the coach, Furlani tried to act like a fireman, putting an end to the controversy: “We would have liked to get 9 points, obviously, but there’s no panic. I wouldn’t talk about important matches or other things like that. We’re satisfied with the work the coach has done in preparation, we’re with him and so is the team.”
The facts cannot be sugar-coated: Milan have already dropped seven points this season and thus find themselves five points behind Inter and Juventus. Two draws against Torino and Lazio either side of a defeat to Parma – all with two goals conceded – have made it a worrying start to the new era.
Furlani might have tried to downplay the importance of the Venezia, Liverpool and Inter games after the break, but everyone can see how the calendar that awaits Milan can at least be taken into strong consideration for the future of the coach.
If the match at San Siro against Milan could serve to ease tensions after the break, the next five will inevitably be the ones to focus most of the attention on. Liverpool, the derby, Bayer Leverkusen, Lecce and Fiorentina is an early-season watershed.
Real Madrid are also inside the opening four UCL fixtures, meaning these will be the most important of all the matches for the club’s European journey. Trust and hard work is the message preached to try and keep everything under control, now it will be the pitch that will give answers.
