De Jong: “I do not wish to talk about my future”, Montolivo: “Milan still searching for consistency”

Nigel De Jong wants to start tomorrow but won’t talk about his future while Riccardo Montolivo says Berlusconi wants to see more short passes.

Tomorrow, for the first time in a while, the two Milan midfielders playing in front of the defense will be De Jong and Montolivo; and together they will try to control the match at San Siro as the Rossoneri welcome 20th-placed Hellas Verona (15:00 CET kickoff).

“I am always ready. I would like to play from the start, but it’s down to the coach,” De Jong said in today’s press conference. “We have changed our formation but playing with 2 in front of the defense or alone changes little in terms of my mentality and I will continue to give my all. It’s vital that we collect all three points tomorrow.”

De Jong has spent the majority of the 1st half of the season on the bench or in the sidelines and has reportedly been approached by EPL clubs. “My future? I do not wish to talk about my future,” he stated. “I recently signed a three year contract with Milan. We are there to talk about the game.”

Montolivo added: “We’re still searching for consistency, and for this reason we are still behind in the league table, but we have every intention of turning it around. Carpi made a brighter start than us last week, they looked for their two forwards and played well.

“It took us by surprise but we then took control of the match. Against Sampdoria we managed to break the deadlock while at Carpi we were unable to find an opener. Overall, we played well last week versus Carpi, but we didn’t interpret the match in the right way. From our post-match video analysis, we saw that in lots of situations we could have done better and tomorrow we have to win versus Hellas.

“Criticism? It’s only right if you are in a big team and struggle to get results, but a lot of lies have been written and that’s something I cannot accept. I take criticism but have my opinion.

“Our aim this season is to qualify for Europe. The President has told us he wants to see the ball played on the deck and short passes between the team. He was a bit disappointed and analyzed the latest matches.”