Sergio Conceicao made more interesting declarations after AC Milan’s narrow win over Como last night, a game they had to come from behind in.
Conceicao has already made it perfectly clear during his first two weeks as the coach of Milan that he will not be frightened of speaking his mind, such as when he labelled the first half against Cagliari the worst of his managerial career.
Given that the Rossoneri had to come from a goal down to beat relegation-threatened Como, he cannot be totally satisfied with how the game last night went either. The team showed good spirit again though, scoring through Theo Hernandez and Rafael Leao to eventually win 2-1.
After the game Conceicao spoke to the cameras of Sky and DAZN, and during his interviews he stated that the players are not up to the fitness levels he wants, because of the work done under Paulo Fonseca.
“I can talk for two hours, but if they don’t get it into their heads, then it becomes difficult. We need more pressing, more intensity, a lot of work to be done,” he said (via Football Italia).
“We have clear ideas, but the players were not accustomed to a certain type of work. They think that if they press high, then they end up running more. That is not true, you run less.
“This is my whole philosophy of football. Naturally, we also have a lot of players who do not have these characteristics, so we are trying to change them. We have everything to gain.
“Isma [Bennacer] went off because he was on a yellow card and it was risky in midfield, but it is also true that he and Fofana need to improve the way they occupy the space with and without the ball.
“Morata also had a muscular problem and we preferred not to risk it. We’re checking the work that was done before we got here, we need to improve in our fitness levels too, because we need intensity for my football and at this moment we are missing something.”
