Matchday 27: Milan vs. Chievo Verona (Saturday, March 4, 2017 20:45 CET)
It's interesting how we can play a flowing football in attack when the confidence is up and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. That was the case at times in the second half after we went up 2-1 and especially at 3-1.

I thought De Sciglio proved to be a much better RB than a LB tonight. He just offers more options along that sideline when he is on the right.

Vangioni is doing better, but in all honesty, he is still a little too over the place at times.

It was a good move from Montella to throw in Lapadula alongside Bacca. He took off the most defensive midfielder of the 3, so it was a very understandable decision.

Deulofeu is an exciting player! There is this aura around him when he has the ball and starts running with it. We haven't had that type of a player in a long time. It's too bad that often his last decision/touch let's him down. But I think it's something that will become better with time. Maybe not this season for example, but the guy sure does have quality and is very difficult to deal with for the opposition markers.

Love the 3 points. It was very important to keep up with the top group especially because we play against Juventus away next weekend.


A last note....the referee was just absolute terror for both teams. I hate to say this, but I feel like I make a similar comment every week. The level of refereeing in Serie A is atrocious....and even though mistakes are made everywhere, some of the ones that we have seen lately are just laughable. The refs need to be helped and all, but it's hard to help them when they decide to give a penalty like the one against De Sciglio today. If you as a ref can not judge when a player is literary flopping on the ground, than you have no business being on the field with a whistle. Even the second penalty for us wasn't a penalty. Ocampos simply hit the Chievo player with the swing of his leg. The last decision to not award a free kick to Deulofeu when he was clearly obstructed was just as bad as anything I've seen. These are just terrible decisions that can often define the game.
Today they didn't because simply the better team won and would have won anyway even without the PK, but it's still unacceptable to see these types of errors.
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Pretty much agree nefremo on everything you said. The one point I slightly disagree on is Vangioni, as defensively he's just terrible and honestly I think Cacciatore had the beating of him on a few occasions and proved to be quite a threat. Chievo also played 4-3-1-2, meaning they didn't have traditional wingers, although Birsa and Gapke weren't hesitating to move into wide areas. However, without any direct wingers to face, I still found it surprising that Vangioni never looked comfortable defensively.

The biggest take for me from this match was seeing what options we have in midfield. I think Locatelli was actually pretty disappointing yesterday while on. He wasn't terrible, but didn't do much either. However, we've seen enough of him this season to know what he does offer. The positive for me was Sosa though, I think he looked better at Locatelli's side than he does in the middle. The main reason is he's got more freedom to play as he wants to and even if he makes mistakes, which he will and did make many yesterday, it's less likely to result in us being completely vulnerable. I think right now, our best midfield is probably Locatelli with Kucka and Sosa either side of him. Sosa was terrible earlier in the season when used this way, but with a little more consistency in performance of late and seemingly looking more settled, I think it's maybe the best way to get the right balance.

I would be interested in knowing how our penalty stats stack up this year. I suspect in Serie A, we have the best failed conversion rate against us and the worst successful conversion rate for us.
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Deulofeu is all over the pitch, I'm starting to like this player. He could become a really good player, he just needs to stop trying to be so perfect in his finishing and just put the ball in the net with the goalie to follow Big Grin He does some things where I'm on the edge of my seat, he gets so close to completing these phenomenal solo runs or great goals but gets so unlucky with an off-touch or whatnot.

I think Vangioni is pretty good. He's good going forward and when it comes to defending he's often making mistakes because he's caught out of position, but when he's faced with one on ones he's rarely beaten IMO. He's quick enough and aggressive enough to win the ball. He's missing the instinct of a true defender in his positioning and work off the ball..

De Sciglio played really well against Chievo. If he keeps up that way he'll be fulfilling his potential.
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