Capello slams Milan summer signings: ‘Fonseca wasn’t listened to’

Fabio Capello believes many of Milan’s current problems originated from a wrong summer transfer strategy, as he wondered whether the club really listened to coach Paulo Fonseca before deciding which signings they would need to make.

Capello critical of Milan’s summer transfer strategy

While the former Juventus and Milan manager acknowledged that Yousouff Fofana was an ‘excellent’ addition and that he wouldn’t blame the management for picking Alvaro Morata and Tammy Abraham as attacking options to replace Olivier Giroud, he raised doubts over how deals concerning other areas of the pitch were handled.

Notably, Capello was very critical about the signing of Emerson Royal, whom he does not consider as ‘Milan material’.

In a written comment for La Gazzetta dello Sport, the 78-year-old remarked that the former Tottenham right-back didn’t bring improvements in a sector where the Rossoneri already had Davide Calabria, youngster Alex Jimenez and even Pierre Kalulu, who was eventually sold to Juventus.

As for the latter, he wondered why the 24-year-old, who ‘could have been useful as a centre-back too’, wasn’t kept at the San Siro instead of signing Strahinja Pavlović for nearly €20m, only to see the Serbian defender struggle to make an impact with only seven Serie A starts from 15 outings.

Capello: Fonseca ‘wasn’t listened to’ over summer signings

But according to Capello, Milan’s chaotic transfer strategy is also highlighted by the fact that, despite Fonseca’s clear indication that he would prefer to field Christian Pulisic as a trequartista, they did not sign any ‘high-quality attacking winger capable of making a difference’ since Samuel Chukwueze has ‘never hit his stride’.

The ex-coach insisted that this is yet another sign that the Portuguese manager ‘wasn’t listened to’, as he was eventually to adapt Yonus Musah to that position on some occasions. In contrast, right wing Alexis Saelemaekers was sold to Roma despite Fonseca claiming he wanted to retain the player.