Gennaro Gattuso was officially presented as Milan Coach, in a Press conference alongside CEO Marco Fassone and sporting director Massimiliano Mirabelli.
Gennaro Gattuso was officially presented as Milan Coach, in a Press conference alongside CEO Marco Fassone and sporting director Massimiliano Mirabelli.
You can read the full translation of his words here and here, with Fassone’s remarks here and Mirabelli’s here.
In addition, Football Italia has put together the key points of today’s Press conference, and what we learned.
Milan won’t be buying in January
A €200m summer transfer campaign was embarked upon with the aim of qualifying for the Champions League.
The Rossoneri are currently 11 points away from that target, but they won’t be returning to the market in January.
“We don’t have the intention to go into the transfer market in January,” Fassone said. “We’re convinced that this squad can achieve important results.”
Mirabelli reiterated that when he spoke.
“We haven’t seen the true value of our squad because we know we have a fairly competitive squad.
“It’s too early to assess the transfer campaign, we wanted to invest in good, young players who would be able to form a valid group and represent a good cycle in Milan’s history.”
Milan will play 3-4-3
This morning’s Gazzetta dello Sport predicted that Gattuso would opt for a 3-4-3, and the former midfielder appeared to confirm as much.
“We’ll play a three-man defence. I have a great relationship with Montella, although some of our concepts are different.
“He likes the ball, and I like it too, but we have to be more direct.
“The three man defence and four in midfield are locked in, we’ll see about the attack.”
The variation in attack could be playing with two strikers, as Gattuso discussed with former President Silvio Berlusconi, perhaps with Suso in behind them.
“They say he can only play in one role [on the wing], I want to see if that’s true,” the new Coach said of the Spaniard.
That could therefore see more of a 3-4-1-2 shape from the Diavolo in the coming weeks.
Cutrone has impressed Gattuso
Gattuso was asked about his strikers, and singled out youngster Patrick Cutrone for praise after saying André Silva had to do more for the team.
“I very much looking at how players train, and Patrick has started on par with the other strikers.
“He’s one who never gives up and has great passion, and we need more people with that mentality.”
Nikola Kalinic wasn’t specifically mentioned by the former Italian international, so we could see André Silva and Cutrone paired up-front against Benevento.
Fassone denied a rift with Mirabelli
Fassone made comments last night which led to rumours of a rift with Mirabelli, something he sought to deny as he introduced the Press conference.
“He has my confidence, he was my first choice and he has the total confidence of myself and the ownership,” the CEO insisted.
Montella’s sacking had been considered for some time
In an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport this morning, Montella stated that he hadn’t seen his sacking coming, but it appears the axe had been threatening to fall for some time.
“I’ve hard talk of a bolt from the blue, but the sky wasn’t so clear. The season hasn’t gone well so far,” Fassone pointed out.
Mirabelli spoke of his great relationship with l’Aeroplanino, but confessed “It’s not like we got uneasy against Torino and that was it. We were making assessments between the league and the Europa League and we thought it was right to do what we did on Sunday. It wasn’t just the Torino game.”