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Now that the 2012/13 season is officially over, I thought it would be good to have a season review. I will post my thoughts later when I have more time, but I did think of a few things we could judge on:

- Player of the season
- Young/breakthrough player of the season
- Goalkeeper of the season
- Defender of the season
- Midfielder of the season
- Attacker of the season
- Flop of the season
- Best purchase for/during 2012/13
- Coach's performance for 2012/13
- Overall Team Performance for 2012/13
- Score for this season (from 0-10)

Any additional thoughts/comments people have are welcomed.

EDIT - Sorry Aficio for adding it a little too late, but I've also added Flop of the season
Thank you. This suits a lazy person like me Big Grin

- Player of the season: Montolivo

- Young/breakthrough player of the season: De Sciglio (El was inconsistent in second half of the season)

- Goalkeeper of the season: Abbiati

- Defender of the season: I can't choose a better one out of Abate, De Sciglio, Constant, Mexes and Zapata. Each contributed a lot and made mistakes.

- Midfielder of the season: Montolivo, the only midfielder who know to pass and pass exceptionally well.

- Attacker of the season: Balotelli, the only world class attacker we have.

- Best purchase for/during 2012/13: Balotelli.

- Coach's performance for 2012/13: If we look at Inter and Roma who are the teams with many problems and died because of them, then Allegri did a very good work.

- Overall Team Performance for 2012/13: Frankly, I didn't enjoy Milan this season, so the "performers" can not take the credit. And citing the phrase "given conditions" again is painful and boring. One thing I'm happy about is we are getting better from match to match (roughly speaking).

- Score for this season (from 0-10): 10 for a dominating season like Grande Milan era. 9 for a season with CL or Scudetto. 8 for minor trophy or none but truly competing for major trophies (like in 04/05 05/06). So I give this season a 7.
My thoughts:

Player of the season

El Shaarawy: He's broken through this year, carrying the side on his back in the period when we were most fragile. His ability to take on responsibility and act maturely should be recognised as much as his ability.

It's not just his goals which help the team though, as his workrate and movement are often key to making the team work from defence to attack.

While his performance at the turn of the year dropped, he was still valuable in giving us an option on the left and has room to grow for the next season.

Other mentions: Balotelli and Montolivo

Young/breakthrough player of the season

El Shaarawy and De Sciglio: It's impossible for me to think of which has been the better breakthrough between these two, as both have shown maturity and growth at unexpected levels. While El Shaarawy's had a season where he's exploded as a star, De Sciglio's had a much more steady growing process, becoming one of our most consistent performers in defence. Both have lots of room to improve, so it's an exciting prospect to see.

Other mentions: Balotelli and Niang.

Goalkeeper of the season

Abbiati: There's only one winner for me here, Abbiati's had his ups and downs, but is often involved in key moments of the season, with this being no different. There were moments his shot stopping and saves kept the season alive, with the most recent example being Torino.

Other Mentions: NA

Defender of the season

Mexes: It's quite difficult to decide this one, as it was extremely close between Mexes, De Sciglio and Zapata for me. Mexes has often been an inconsistent performer and one who I've never been fond of. However, he has been vital this year in adding leadership, personality and technical quality after the loss of Nesta and Silva. While it's clear he's not of the quality of those we've lost, I do shudder to think what our defence would have been like without him this year.

Other Mentions: De Sciglio and Zapata.

Midfielder of the season

Montolivo: I can't imagine many will argue with this. Montolivo has been of world class quality for us this season, carrying a huge number of responsibilities on his back in midfield. His defensive work and ability to dictate play have been invaluable, especially being noticed when he's been absent.

Other Mentions: Flamini and Muntari.

Attacker of the season

El Shaarawy: It was a decision between him and Balotelli, but ultimately El Shaarawy gets my vote, mostly as he took responsibility in our most vulnerable period, while Balotelli's had a stable side to work with. In addition to this, El Shaarawy's overall contribution this season reflects why he's so popular, as he very much embodies the qualities (such as temperament and workrate) we need in our players while building this new side.

Other Mentions: Balotelli and Pazzini

Best purchase for/during 2012/13

Montolivo: Balotelli again just missed out for me here, as Montolivo's had a full season and came for free. Montolivo's quality in midfield is undoubted, but he's also shown great leadership in the group, which is astounding during his first season.

Other Mentions: Balotelli and Zapata

Flop of the year
Robinho: If there was one player left in our attack from last year to act as a leader, it was Robinho. Instead, he's looked disinterested and lazy during the year, rarely scoring and rarely providing much to please. Not going back to Brazil in January was the final straw, as when the move to Santos fell through, he's done pretty much nothing to change opinions that he even cares anymore.

Other mentions: Acerbi and Urby

Coach's performance for 2012/13

Allegri has had a tough year. He saw his squad completely revamped last summer and had lost huge quality and personality from the squad. Add to this the fact that the start of the season was a disaster and it's unbelievable that he's managed to turn things around to get third. His job has never been secure and I can't imagine the pressure he's been under this year, despite having support from Galliani and the players.

That said, he must be judged on his failures as well as successes. In this respect, we must understand why we had so many problems at the start and no identity or direction, things he's in charge of. Yes, he's turned it around, but ultimately there are still questions about him. We've often also seen the team suffer when we've had results in hand (Barca, Fiorentina and even Siena yesterday) and he must take some responsibility.

Overall though, I think he's done a very commendable job and hopefully we'll have time over the summer to prevent the problems from re-occurring (if he stays).

Overall Team Performance for 2012/13

The team's performance has been mixed this season. We were awful at the start of the season, looking like a team without identity, hope or even motivation.

We did get our spark though and managed to turn the season around, meeting our minimum targets (3rd place and progress out of the group in CL).

What was clear is we can be optimistic about our youth movement, with the young players being often the most influencial this season, characterising our game and bringing quality, albeit without experience into what was a stagnant group.

This isn't to say we don't need work. It's clear that we have some foundations to build on, but there are clear needs for improvement, notably in central defence, midfield and potentially attack (a partner for El Shaarawy and Balotelli).

The team isn't great yet and this was clear in the times we faultered this season, but we have lots to look forward to.

Score for this season (from 0-10)

7 out of 10: the fact we managed to turn around the season and reach our goals means this hasn't been a failure of a season. However, there's plenty to improve if we're to win major honours again.
- Player of the season - Montolivo
- Young/breakthrough player of the season - El Shaarawy
- Goalkeeper of the season - Abbiati
- Defender of the season - Mexes
- Midfielder of the season - Montolivo
- Attacker of the season - El Shaarawy
- Flop of the season - Nocerino
- Best purchase for/during 2012/13 - Montolivo
- Coach's performance for 2012/13 - 7 out of 10
- Overall Team Performance for 2012/13 - 7 out of 10
- Score for this season (from 0-10) - 7

Some of them were close as you said.
- I think De Sciglio can easily be considered as a breakthrough player of the year.
- El Shaarawy has had a rough couple of months but never stopped working and the talent is there for him to be a star. Yesterday he came in and found himself in 3-4 very dangerous situations already and did a lot of work. People are forgetting that when it was the toughest he scored goals and got us points. He did a lot as a 20yr old in a struggling giant like Milan.
- Balotelli can obviously be considered as a player of the year or attacker of the year.....but again, even though he helped us finish the season, he wasn't here through the roughest patch. I appreciate all he's done though and without him we probably wouldn't have finished 3rd...although you can never know that.
- The defender of the year was close for me too as Zapata really picked himself up too. So for me it was between him and Mexes. I think that Mexes was slightly better throughout the year though.
- Flop of the season definitely has to be Nocerino. After a season like last year, he has completely failed this time around. Although others like Bonera, Traore, Antonini, Acerbi were good contestants for this as well......the only diference being is that not MUCH was expected of them.
- Best purchase has to be Montolivo because we got him for free. Without him, the midfield is not the same and he's really stepped it up this year.

By the way....am I the only one that think that Constant was great a LB this year. He grew into the position very well and I was very satisfied with him.

The overall performance is better then average, but I think we missed out on a few opportunities to do something better. We got so close to Napoli and then dipped in form. We were inconsistent throughout the year.....however finishing 3rd after so many changes and so many new faces in the team is still very good. We have to build on this and hopefully we make the right moves this summer.
You wouldn't believe it, but I totally forgot about Nocerino when thinking of flops. He's definitely up there, as he's been nothing short of atrocious.

I agree about Constant. I think on the whole he had an excellent season and with De Sciglio and Abate, they form very solid options for our fullback positions.
- Player of the season: El shaarawy hands down. With out him who knows where we would be. Second half of the season he slowed down a lot as far as scoring but he still created many chances and worked very hard for the team. Regardless, his overall performance for the team even in the 2nd half of the season was stellar.

- Young/breakthrough player of the season: If this is just young breakthrough players, then I would have to say ELS in first place with out a doubt, De Sciglio as well and Niang made big steps as well for a player of his very very young age. Apart from them three, I'd mention Constant. I wouldn't say he could be classified as a young prospect, nor really a huge break through.. But he was a very pleasant surprise IMO, very skillful and classy and presses up the wing really well.

- Goalkeeper of the season: Abbiati, no doubt and shouldn't have to go in detail about it.

- Defender of the season: Can I mention ELS as our best defender hahaBig Grin just kidding.. If we're talking CB's, I'd say Mexes/Zapata were on about the same level. They did their job to clean up our horrible defense. Actually, I don't think our backline was bad in the beginning of the season to begin with, the problem is we didn't have a consistent CB pairing until midway through the season. Acerbi/Yepes/Bonera kept coming into the picture and would usually spell mistakes(I don't mean to diss Yepes either because for a player his age he's done well for us). However, once Allegri stuck with Zapata/Mexes pairing our defense was pretty good for the remainder of the season. As far as fullbacks, they were all really good and had their ups and down. For example, Abate began playing very well for the last couple months.

- Midfielder of the season: Montolivo 100%. Honourable mention goes out to Flamini and Muntari who did well for us late in the season.

- Attacker of the season: BALOTELLIIIIII, and obviously el shaarawy. I'd say, attacker of the season in 1st half:ELS, MVP of 2nd half:Balotelli.

- Flop of the season: Nocerino for sure. But also Traore/Acerbi/Robinho didn't do much.

- Best purchase for/during 2012/13: BALOTELLI :d

- Coach's performance for 2012/13: 7/10..

- Overall Team Performance for 2012/13: 8/10, we battled from a seemingly impossible position to grab hold of 3rd place.. so a lot of respect to this team.

- Score for this season (from 0-10): I'd like to break this up in two parts: 1st half of season: 3/10 - 2nd half of season: 9/10. I'd round it out to about 7/10, well fought come back season.