Week 35: Milan - Roma (Saturday, May 9 - 20:45 CET)

[ZvonimirBoban]

This is the age when a defeat against Milan is a clear, unacceptable embarrassment.

Shameful.

[ACMILAN1983]

I don't think Destro had a great game (unlike Dev :d)

I think he did well, holding up the ball and pulling defenders out of position. He wanted to get in threatening areas more often, but was often having to sacrifice that to work for the team. He also linked well with Honda and was challenging back to win possession.

Note, he scored the second, but on the first he was the one that won the ball back and passed to Honda to start the move.

He's not been good since joining, but I think that was expected when he signed, knowing the weaknesses of this team.

I don't think we should be disappointed about the youngsters. It wasn't the right game for them. Too much intensity and pressure. I'd rather have them come on in a match where we're in a comfortable lead, or at least against a weaker opponent than Roma.

Anyway, I thought we were good today. It wasn't a brilliant performance, but in terms of attitude I think we looked like Milan, for once. I could tell the team got worried at 2-1, but we never really lost our cool either, and that is probably why we managed to hold on to our lead. Roma didn't have a great game, but we made things difficult for them too. We were compact throughout the game (maybe due to the 4-3-1-2 formation?) and more aggressive in our marking than usual. That, combined with a self-assuredness in attack that I hadn't seen from this Milan side before, did the trick, it seems.

At one point I actually found myself thinking that we play better without Menez, in spite of his skills. He tends to want to do everything himself, but tonight we had to rely on passing and getting into good positions instead, and it worked.

I disagree about the youngsters. The only thing that made this match at all intense was the name of the two teams. Roma were dreadful and did little to nothing to make anything happen. The match was totally meaningless too for Milan, so it's not like anything was at stake.

On top of that, calling up youngsters only to have no faith in their competence is a complete waste of time. There's no point in them just sitting on the bench (something they've all done before) and Inzaghi must be prepared to bring on players with the required skills for the match, regardless of age.