Devil’s Advocate: Summer dreams, surprise punches and a bumpy road to Fonseca’s ‘new Milan’

There was a lot of anticipation ahead of AC Milan’s first competitive game under Paulo Fonseca against Torino on Saturday, but it would be fair to say that the lightning was bottled and saved for the very end.

Milan had cultivated the ‘American dream’ by beating the Premier League winners Manchester City, the champions of Europe Real Madrid and their El Clasico rivals Barcelona during their preseason tour.

They looked pretty good in those three games despite a number of notable absentees, with some clear signs on display that Fonseca’s philosophy was in the process of being assimilated, especially by some of the younger players.

If the wins in the USA set the table, the 3-1 Silvio Berlusconi Trophy victory against Monza four days before the season opener laid down the cutlery. Things were building to a crescendo, and fans were ready to feast. However, things didn’t quite go to plan.

A punch in the face

John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John all the way back in 1978 sang about ‘summer dreams, ripped at the seams’. It was on a summer night in 2024 that Milan came crashing back down to earth with a bang, as Paolo Vanoli’s Torino landed the first blows to rock the Rossoneri.

After a good start to the game and some half-chances missed, the away side went ahead through rather fortuitous circumstances when a Raoul Bellanova header crashed off the far post and Malick Thiaw somehow controlled the ball over the line with his first touch rather than clearing it.

There was nearly a reprieve for the German defender as goal-line technology didn’t work straight away, but there were zero doubts about the legitimacy of the second goal that the Granata scored on the night when Duvan Zapata crashed in a close range header having been given the freedom of Milano.

All of a sudden, the life had been sucked out of the over 70,000 fans at San Siro, their preseason enthusiasm quickly turning into a quite negative energy that saw stray passes bemoaned and even captain Davide Calabria booed off the field.

Super subs, step forward. Alvaro Morata was a very dynamic presence when he came on – injuring himself in the process as it turns out – and he scored his first goal for Milan with an instinctive redirection of Tijjani Reijnders’ more hopeful low drive. Deficit halved, comeback on.

Then Noah Okafor continued his trend of coming up with clutch goals, lashing in a 95th-minute volley from Yunus Musah’s cross to take his total to six Serie A goals off the bench for Milan (out of seven in total). Theo Hernandez even made a late chance to engineer what would have been a ridiculous ending.

Where did things go wrong, and how was such a big hole dug? We must rewind around three hours from Okafor’s goal just before 23:00 CEST, to when Fonseca named his first starting line-up of the season.

The decision to use Alexis Saelemaekers at left-back was an intriguing one given he had not been used there in preseason and instead it was Filippo Terracciano who had been given minutes suggesting he would be Theo Hernandez’s immediate deputy.

It wasn’t a good night for the Belgian on the defensive end, as he seemed confused and at times naive. He conceded the header to Bellanova for the first goal without much of a fight, and on the second he let Lazaro go too easily, putting both Davide Calabria and Reijnders in difficulty after he’d been moved to the right.

It is almost certain that Fonseca will have proposed the idea to Saelemaekers in the build-up to the game – with Theo not yet close to 100% – and he will have shown a willingness to help the cause, but the habit of putting square pegs in round holes is something that needs to be broken.

The counter-argument is that circumstances dictated the need to experiment, with Alex Jimenez apparently out due to a knock and Terracciano not convincing in preseason. On Saturday Theo should be back, but the Pioli era showed us that certain inventions are best staying in the laboratory.

Moving on to the more debatable selections, Saelemaekers had Thiaw as his ‘partner’ on the left side of the defence, with Fikayo Tomori moving to the right-sided centre-back role in what we presume is a move to precede Strahinja Pavlovic’s inclusion in the team.

Thiaw’s meteoric rise was met with a pretty sharp decline which is something best explored in a separate article, so all we need say here is that he continued his error-prone nature. The German was fully to blame for Torino’s first and at least partially at fault for their second.

Matteo Gabbia – Milan’s most reliable centre-back in 2024 so far – must have been glaring at the back of Fonseca’s head and wondering what he had done wrong to seemingly not even be considered. Whether the Italian comes in or not, and it looks like he will not, it’s time for Thiaw to take a seat and go back to basics.

We will skip past the rest of the defence and the midfield owing to the fact those selections were virtually mandatory for various reasons, but one call that looks like a head-scratcher – with the benefit of hindsight, of course – is the one to start Luka Jovic up front.

Time and time again the Serbian has shown that his two strengths are: 1) playing off someone in a front two as he did at Eintracht Frankfurt and when Olivier Giroud was at Milan, and 2) coming off the bench to impact games when more space is naturally available.

He struggled to get involved, often dropping frustratingly deep, failing to link up well with the Leao-Pulisic-Chukwueze trio behind him and also showing a questionable work rate at times. It must be said, though, that he hardly got an abundance of service as the entire front four failed to click.

To round off the concerns and move on to what will hopefully be a brighter future, the general worries must also be briefly documented, which we went into more detail on during the tactical analysis piece published on Monday.

Milan struggled to generate any real sustained periods of pressure through their possession, the attacking play became very predictable cross-and-hope when a goal behind a la Pioli, the balance in transition still isn’t there and the set-piece defending was very worrying.

If this was the first exam for the Rossoneri under Fonseca, then it feels pretty certain that the new boss will be taking a resit.

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Working towards the ‘new Milan’

Now we can go from glass half empty to glass half full, starting with the positives from Saturday’s game and the caveats that must be mentioned when contextualising the slow start.

Firstly, the statistics show that Milan actually didn’t play a bad game on balance. They had far more shots, shots on target, possession, big chances, corners and even Expected Goals (if you value that particular metric). As many fans said after the game, getting the first goal might have resulted in a very different post-match feeling.

Then there was the obvious plus point which was the fighting spirit shown. Morata came off the bench and injected not only some quality but also belief into the side, drawing a penalty kick that was overturned and scoring an offside goal before eventually halving the deficit with a nice finish

When Okafor rattled in the 2-2 goal and there were three minutes of added time left, there was genuine optimism reverberating around San Siro – both on the field and in the stands – that Milan could somehow emerge winners after being in the deepest of holes.

It is not something that Fonseca will want to make a habit of, yet it is also not a bad thing to have a team that never know when they are beaten, and more importantly can summon big moments when needed no matter how the previous 85 minutes have gone.

The important footnotes pertaining to the Torino game are obvious and perhaps should not be used as excuses given a lot of teams with internationals and new signings are battling the same difficulties, though pointing them out helps calm some panic.

Fonseca has only been working with the squad for five weeks, and when we say ‘the squad’ we mean the players who did not get an international call-up over the summer, which naturally means he didn’t have the key players.

Trying to establish a very different way of playing – albeit with the same system on paper – is hard enough in preseason with a tour of the USA factored in. Doing so without a lot of the players the plans have been built around is even harder, and the gulf was evident.

As a small caveat to the caveat, it must also be highlighted that it was Vanoli’s debut with Torino and the performance from his side was brilliant until they succumbed to the late chaos. Granted there was less pressure on them to come and dominate, yet they had a plan and executed it much better than whatever Milan were trying to do for the bulk of the game.

That brings us nicely onto the actual plan Fonseca has, more specifically the quite vast alterations in mind that will change the face of how the Diavolo look.

A starting premise: six out of the 11 players who started the game against Torino at the weekend are not expected to keep their place once everyone is fully fit and up to speed.

Emerson Royal and Youssouf Fofana should be available from the away match in Parma while the physical conditions of Theo Hernandez, Strahinja Pavlovic and Tijjani Reijnders should all improve after they sat on the bench from minute one on Saturday.

Saturday’s game against Parma could yet arrive a little too early to see all five of the aforementioned players from the first minute, but plenty will change compared to the season debut against the Granata.

Fonseca criticised his team for lack of intensity and pressure when Torino tried to come out from the back, but to ensure that Milan are able to recover the ball quickly they also need the right men to do so.

For example, Jovic is not as suited to frenetic pressing from the front as Morata, while Fofana in midfield has superior lungs and recovery ability compared to Loftus-Cheek and probably Bennacer, just as Emerson and Pavlovic should provide more solidity than that shown by Thiaw and Calabria.

To support Christian Pulisic as an attacking midfielder and the Chukwueze-Leao pair on the wings, everything behind and in front needs to give balance. If that’s not enough, Fonseca can always try to using Saelemaekers as someone more inclined to show sacrifice on the flank.

As well as from a tactical point of view, Fonseca also knows his Milan can and must grow in quality. Starting with the likes of Theo, Reijnders or Morata should help, as the trio did on Saturday by sparking the comeback.

Reijnders – despite the usual question marks in the non-possession phase – is one of the most skilled in the squad with the ball at his feet, so much so that he had a hand in both goals and looked constantly willing to get on the ball. Leao even missed a chance to make it three.

Speaking of Rafa, having Morata and not Jovic as the one leading the line can contribute to the transformation project that Fonseca has in mind for his compatriot. Alvaro is more likely than the Serbian to drop deep to participate in the build-up and free up space for Leao to exploit.

We have mentioned Morata a few times and while it is true that he will miss the next couple of games due to a muscle injury, he will be the starting centre-forward when he returns and Fonseca’s system is built in part around that.

Who he starts in place of the Spaniard on Saturday in Parma may set the tone for some fans, who are looking for reassurances that Fonseca will not fall into the same trap that Pioli did by insisting with the same choices that are not bearing fruit. For example, Okafor over Jovic would send a certain message.

To simplify and summarise, the head coach is almost having to retool his Milan team on the fly after what was a complicated summer, and thus the line-up and the performance we saw on matchday one cannot be considered close to the finished product by any stretch.

The jeopardy of starting slow

So, we have established that Fonseca and Milan deserved the benefit of the doubt after a season debut in which things didn’t follow the fairytale script of the friendlies that came before.

The ex-Lille boss is now preparing for consecutive away games against Parma and Lazio which come before the international break, with a simple mission in mind: to make it seven points from the first nine available.

Starting well helps build momentum and confidence in the team itself but also in the stock market of fan approval, but Fonseca has never been a specialist in getting out of the block at a rapid rate, as history shows.

In France, for example, when he was at Lille (2022-23 and 2023-24) he amassed four points from the first three games in both seasons in Ligue 1. Overall, of course, his work with them over the remaining games would be judged as positive enough to land him this very job.

That is the same points return as in his second year at Roma (2020-21 season), while the season before that in the capital he got five points out of nine. The 51-year-old has only once taken nine points from nine: in Ukraine during his first season with Shakhtar Donetsk.

Perfect or near-perfect beginnings are not the specialty of the new coach, but it is better to forget the debut and think about the game at the Tardini in four days. The fans want the version of Milan seen in the last 10 minutes against Torino: aggressive, flowing, creative, dominant.

ll Giornale produced a rather reactionary piece the day after the game titled ‘Fonseca debuts in Giampaolo style: dubious roles for Loftus and Saelemaekers’, casting doubt on some of his choices for the starting line-up as we have already done.

They spoke about how ‘these are the mistakes made by Fonseca to the point of reliving in the minds of many fans the disturbing debut made by Giampaolo (1-0 defeat in Udine, with a very questionable team selection) at the dawn of the Boban-Maldini management’.

In that particular game, Giampaolo fielded a midfield three of Fabio Borini, Hakan Calhanoglu and Lucas Paqueta, with Suso playing in an unfamiliar playmaker role and Samu Castillejo – normally a winger – joining Krzysztof Piatek up front.

There are huge differences between the two coaches in terms of their tactical approach, their body of work before arriving at Milan, the way that they explain their choices to the media and even in their own publicly-declared ambitions.

There is also a massive gulf between where Milan were at as a club in the summer of 2019 compared to half a decade on. Pioli’s tenure stabilised things and brought a Scudetto, while there was a resurgence in things like the accounts and the Rossoneri’s global standing.

A much better platform is in place for Fonseca to succeed compared to the one that Giampaolo stood upon when he joined. And yet, there is one undeniable similarity: both started on zero points and are expected to rack them up in threes quickly.

Exactly how much good grace exists within the fan base is something that is best not to try and find out by pushing the limits. Ask Giampaolo how far beyond a few games it stretches – the answer for him was just a couple of flips of the calendar.