Fonseca outlines Milan changes and wants ‘courage’ in Leverkusen | OneFootball

Paulo Fonseca confirms how Milan are replacing Alvaro Morata against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, insisting they must ‘see this as an opportunity and play with courage.’

It kicks off at the BayArena at 20.00 UK time (19.00 GMT).

You can follow all the build-up and action as it happens from that game and Inter-Crvena Zvezda on the Liveblog.

There was applause heard from within the Rossoneri locker room just before they emerged for the warm-up, so what did the coach say to get them fired up?

“I just had words of motivation for the squad to play quality football. We must see this match as an opportunity and play it with courage,” Fonseca told Sky Sport Italia.

Fonseca explains Milan adjustment without Morata

The only change from the starting XI that beat Inter 2-1 and also won at the weekend in Serie A is Ruben Loftus-Cheek stepping in for not fully fit Alvaro Morata. Does that mean the Milan side switches to 4-3-3?

“No, we maintain the same structure of the team, only one player changes. It is too risky to start Morata today and we have Tijji in this position he has already held. There is one other thing we must do differently, which is the form of defending, but these are small details, not the whole structure.”

This fits in with Ruben Loftus-Cheek saying that he would not be in such an advanced role this time, so Tijjani Reijnders seems more likely to be the trequartista in a 4-2-3-1.

Will Milan continue with this system that effectively has four forwards or can Fonseca adapt to different approaches to maintain a balance?

“A lot depends on how we want to defend. We will certainly change against a different type of opponent, but we now have some stability defending like this. For me it is clear that against different types of teams, we cannot have this structure and defend like this.”

The pressure is already on to survive in Europe after a 3-1 home defeat to Liverpool, so the worst possible fixture to follow that up is the trip to reigning Bundesliga holders Bayer Leverkusen.

Xabi Alonso’s side lost only one game throughout all of last season, the Europa League Final to Atalanta, and started this competition with a 4-0 victory away to Feyenoord.