Head coach Paulo Fonseca spoke to DAZN after the Fiorentina – Milan match.
Here are his statements following the defeat at the Artemio Franchi stadium:
“I don’t want to say anything.”
What do you think about the missed penalties?
“As someone who loves football, I don’t want to contribute to this circus. Everything is a penalty nowadays, and I’m not talking about for or against us, but football isn’t like that. I don’t want to talk about the refereeing.”
Should the lineup have been changed today?
“I think we’ve done well with this setup so far. It’s not like Fiorentina created too many chances. What was missing was aggressiveness in the first half; their first goal was way too easy. It was clearly an issue of aggression, of winning duels—I’ve told the players this. When you miss two penalties and concede a goal like the second one, it’s hard to win, even if you create plenty of chances.”
Any idea how it’s possible to concede goals from a throw-in and a goalkeeper’s clearance?
“Hard to explain. For me, it’s a lack of aggressiveness. I don’t think it’s a structural issue. The players up front weren’t closing down the spaces strictly enough, and if we’re not aggressive, the team gets stretched out and we lose the second balls…”
When you put the ball into the box, there aren’t many players there to score, Fonseca commented:
“I think we usually have 3-4 players in the box. I need to watch the game again, but it seems to me the crosses weren’t done with quality. But I feel like we had men in the box.”
Why did you take off Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leao?
“As for Leao, that was my decision. With Okafor, I wanted more depth. With Pulisic, I was worried—he had a flexor issue earlier in the week. Chukwueze came on well and created chances.”
On Theo Hernandez’ late frustration and red card:
“I don’t know what happened.”
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