Milan, the terrible two weeks in the infirmary. But a year ago it was much worse

Journalist

December 22 – 1.39pm – MILANO

The situation has worsened in the last two weeks, after having been comfortably under control since the start of the season. Here, let's say that, amidst so much turbulence, at least Milan didn't have the age-old and poisoning problem of injuries. Fonseca, however, also had to fight against this aspect in December. On the day of Atalanta-Milan (6 December) only long-term patients Bennacer and Florenzi, plus Jovic, were still in the pits. Then the players fell one after another, several of them essential men to this Devil. And so in Milanello we returned to breathing the mephitic smell of already seen. Of the infirmary sold outor almost, as happened a year ago. Indeed, as has happened too many times in recent times.

nightmare

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When Leao sat down at the Bentegodi, and then left the pitch after thirty-two minutes, at that exact moment Fonseca found himself without ten first team players. In alphabetical order: Bennacer, Florenzi, Jovic, Leao, Loftus-Cheek, Morata, Musah, Okafor, Pulisic, Torriani. In short, like the “good times” of last year. A nightmare which, moreover, had influenced a lot – definitely a lot – on the company's overall assessments of Pioli's work. So much so that last summer Ibrahimovic got into a hard tackle on some figures linked to the physiotherapy area: goodbye, or rather goodbye, and (no) thanks.

bitterness

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The first months of the current season went smoothly. And by smooth we mean above all at the level of muscular problems, also because this was the real Achilles' heel of the previous management. Flexors, adductors, soleus: the property's microscope was aimed in particular at this type of problem, also because obviously traumatic injury, flu or back pain can potentially happen anytime and to anyone. This is why these last two weeks have left a bitter aftertaste at Milanello. So, suddenly, Pulisic (soleus injury), Loftus-Cheek (hamstring injury), Musah (muscle problem not officially communicated), Okafor (soleus injury) disappear from the scene. The most recent muscle problems are these. Fonseca specified that Pulisic returned battered from his last away match with the national team, but in the meantime the fact remains and the problem is substantial because Christian is one of the essentials in the squad. In any case, fortunately we need to start removing someone from the list of ten unavailable in the second half in Verona. Pulisic himself should return to the squad for the match against Roma on Sunday 29th, and the same goes for Morata and Torriani, but also for Bennacer (finally in the group) and Jovic. In short, we hope that the “hospital peak” has been overcome.

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comparison

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The seasonal numbers from the infirmary say that up until now the Rossoneri squad has experienced 28 total events (considering the players who have missed at least one match), half of which were of a muscular nature, which involved 17 different players. A year ago, in these times, the situation was decidedly worse: there were 21 muscle problems, for 20 men involved. Now Fonseca is about to embrace several players again, with the hope that the terrible two weeks in December are just an isolated bad parenthesis.