Fonseca blames poor start on yet another loss to a top six side


Paulo Fonseca pointed to his side’s horrific start as one of the reasons why they lost 2-1 to Milan this evening.

The loss was a massive blow for the Giallorossi in their hunt for the top four. Meanwhile, it’s yet another defeat added to Fonseca’s record against Serie A’s top six sides.


“We started poorly. The situations that Milan created were all born from turnovers that we made with the ball,” Fonseca lamented to Sky Sport.

“We were too passive tonight. But again, we were non-existent in the first 20 minutes. We lost the ball far too much and did a poor job in the first phase of our build-up play.

When asked about the display of referee Marco Guida, Fonseca chose not to elaborate.

Guida found himself under discussion at full-time following two controversial decisions. In the first half, he awarded the Rossoneri a very controversial penalty after he consulted with VAR.

In the second half, though, Roma’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan was brought down in Milan’s penalty area and Guida chose to waive it off – without taking a second look with VAR.

“I don’t want to make excuses, but obviously there were some things I didn’t like,” he quipped.

As for his horrific win-loss record against the likes of Juve, Milan, Inter, Lazio, Atalanta, and Napoli – the Portuguese tactician was out of answers.

“It’s difficult to understand, we always seem to lack certain details against the big sides,” he admitted.

“We can’t run from this. This all comes down to details, in my opinion.”