While many AC Milan players returned for the start of pre-season training this week, Paulo Fonseca remains without a number of key individuals.
Given the busy international schedule this summer with both EURO 2024 and the Copa America, the Rossoneri have had several participants across the respective tournaments.
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In turn, that has delayed their presence at Milanello for pre-season, and so particularly with a new coach in charge looking to get his ideas across to his players and implementing his own style and philosophy, it’s not ideal to be without some influential figures in these early stages.
Nevertheless, that’s the situation that Fonseca finds himself in, and according to MilanNews, he’ll hope to have everyone at his disposal by the end of this month.
It’s reported that Luka Jovic will join up with the squad on July 23, and particularly with our lack of senior options up front, he’ll likely get significant playing time over pre-season to stake his claim for a bigger role in the upcoming campaign.
Meanwhile, both Christian Pulisic and Yunus Musah will join the rest of the group when we get to the USA for our pre-season tour, while Rafael Leao and Noah Okafor will look to return around the same time.
Having reached the semi-finals of the European Championships, Tijjani Reijnders will get an extended break, but the Dutchman has impressed in Germany this summer, and so it’s hoped that he can build on that form and his first year in Italy to improve further.
The same goes for Mike Maignan and Theo Hernandez, as they look to help book France’s spot in the final this weekend, and that trio will be the last to return, but hopefully not too far behind the others.
Milan get the new Serie A season underway on August 17 when Torino visit San Siro, but we’ll face Manchester City, Real Madrid and Barcelona before then as part of our pre-season preparations over in the US.
As noted above, that will be a crucial period for Fonseca and the squad to adapt to each other and build synergy to ensure we are ready for the new year both physically and from a tactical perspective, and so it’s hoped we’ll get the entire group back together healthy in the coming weeks and start the new season in positive fashion.