Coach Paulo Fonseca spoke to DAZN at the end of Milan - Lecce 3-0.
Here are his statements:
Is it still the long wave of the derby? Was it the spark that reignited ambition and spirit?
"The derby brought confidence to all of us, to the fans, and to the players. Today, I think it was very important to win after the derby. We know that after that match there's a state of euphoria; the players played a serious game. Obviously, not everything was perfect, but we still had good offensive situations, and we didn't concede a goal, which is always important."
Lecce made you play in the final 30 meters; were you missing some solutions there? What would you have liked to see? Fonseca answered:
"I agree. This team needs to learn how to play this type of match. Here, our positional play needs to be different. During the break, we talked about many details to do better. We need to be patient in the right spaces, to understand if it’s inside or outside. This team is not used to playing like this; I knew before the match that it would be difficult against a team that plays with a low block. But the team must learn to play these matches without spaces, and we are working on it. In the second half, in my opinion, we did better in this positional play."
From a defensive standpoint, did you change something? The full-backs are closer to the center-backs to work more as a unit:
"Yes, that’s true. In the first few games, we had a very large gap between our defenders. Now we've changed, with the defensive midfielder coming in to help, and the full-back moves out afterwards. One thing is when we defend far from the area, but when we are close to the area, we can't leave too much time to the winger. We need to be more aggressive, with the full-back attacking the winger."
Rafael Leao stays wide, while Christian Pulisic plays more inside the field. How far can the number 11 go? Fonseca said:
"Pulisic has a more effective involvement. It's not that he just stays inside; at different moments, he can play more wide. For me, it's better this way as he's closer to the area, at the moment of the assist or the shot. He knows how to play between the lines, which is important for me. He scored again because he's close to the goal."
