Paolo Maldini is proud of the "world's best left-back" Theo Hernandez

Ahead of

’s Friday friendly game against Liverpool, the club’s director discussed turning around their Serie A season, as Serie A fixtures kick off again, from January 4 while they also have to face Inter in the Italian Super Cup and Tottenham in the Champions League Round of 16.

“The team is training well and we’ll have many games, so the objective is to be ready for January 4. The warm weather also helps those who are injured to recover quicker and it’s the ideal conditions for double training sessions,”

Maldini told

.

“We can and must be protagonists in all four tournaments, because these are going to be six very intense months. We must face these competitions in the Milan style and that means we always want to win.

“It’s no secret the Champions League is our most important target, but also the most difficult to achieve, but for now we’ll take it one step at a time. In February the matches with Tottenham will tell us a great deal on what our journey in the Champions League could be.

“Our three-year project started in 2019 aiming to become competitive again and it culminated in the Scudetto. Naturally, we are talking about Milan, so we cannot simply rest on our laurels after one Scudetto, we need to be more ambitious.”

On Milan’s

World Cup

stars, Hernandez, Giroud, and Leao,

added:

“I haven’t heard from them, I only spoke to Rafael Leao.

“On international duty you never know what the schedule is, so I prefer to let them enjoy this incredible moment in their careers like participating in a World Cup, a truly fantastic even for a player. We’ll meet up when it’s the right time.”

“[Theo Hernandez] deserves so much of the credit himself. He had an extraordinary start to his career, then lost his way a little bit. He decided to come to Milan, giving up a lot of money from his previous contract, challenged himself and rediscovered that spark a player of his quality needs.

“In my view, he can and must still improve a great deal. In his own way, he is a unique player.”

“Rafa still played his part, as two goals in the World Cup are not to be sniffed at. It’s unfortunate he didn’t play very much, but I still think it was a great experience for him at the top level.

“Olivier and Theo were protagonists with France from the start and really proved themselves. We are very proud to see them about to start a World Cup Final.”

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