Week 35: Roma - Milan (April 25, 2014 - 20:45 CET)

[honsano]

We did play better with Balo off. You can't defend/press unless everyone tries. Thanks for proving that Mario. The team looked better with Honda and Taraabt tucked in more and the backs over lapping. You can tell Seedorf is really hurt by having to use Bonera and Constant.

I'd really wonder how different a side we'd be if we played without Kaka and Balo. Maybe trying Honda at least in a more natural position.

[Milanista87]

Milan didnt play better without Balotelli, in that time, The was already over and Roma won the game. They just gave the ball to Milan and rested aftet it.

You can see the quality difference between sides in midfield. Roma dominated the midfield.

---

Milan needs 2 quality wing back, everyone talks about De Sciglio yet he didnt show anything special since now. Milan needs a fast, ball playing, Leader Cb. 2 Way midfielder.

Roma was without their 2 top players in midfield and defence but still manages to win over Milan easily. Too much quality difference between sides.

Milan wont be in top 3 next season if they dont invest properly. Roma and Napoli are too strong for this Milan side.

[goose]

Like I have said before end the 4-2-3-1, this is not the players for it

Exactly.

You can't force champagne football with this mishmash group. Gotta be practical instead of experimental. We need points, not dazzling performances and moral victories.

Drop Kaka and Balotelli, field DeS, and put Honda in the middle.

[RIO]

This was only the second Milan Serie A match this season I have been able to see in its entirety (the other was the first against Hellas Verona), and geez is there a lot of work to be done to reach average. This Milan should probably be glad UEFA did away with the Intertoto Cup, because with this current lineup they are gonna have trouble against the type of teams that would be their competition in the Europa league, which would be embarrassing to all concerned.

[sylrus]

what is dota?

Nothing, just a made up excuse to get away from this match? Just kidding... I don't know either.

a computer game moba style
and a good excuse to get away from the game

[ACMILAN1983]

Apparently Berlusconi was angry after we lost yesterday as the performance wasn't particularly great. Quite frankly you put nothing into the club and expect what exactly? It's not just about money, Berlusconi gives the club no time, no management, nothing, so how can he expect more? If the story is true, which I wouldn't be surprised to hear it is, then the guy's a deluded fool (but that's nothing new).

Anyway, on the performance, there were periods of acceptable play, but ultimately the feeling I got was we still lack the mental strength/capacity and overall quality to cope with teams who are superior technically to us. While Roma have some individuals who are able to offer a winning mentality in tough times, like Totti and De Rossi (a guy who imo has never even reached his potential), we don't have anyone. I don't think Roma are particularly exceptional in this respect (unlike Buffon and Pirlo for Juve for example), just they have some winners in their group. Kaka tries to be this for us, but he's never been a leader in this way, at most he was technical leader on the pitch. At his peak, it was Gattuso, Pirlo, Maldini, Nesta and Seedorf etc offering the right mental strength and leadership on the pitch.

As for our performance, our tight 4-4-2 shape in the first half was actually pretty good. We lacked the quality, movement and vision to do much to hurt Roma when in possession, but off the ball in our defensive shape Seedorf's improved the side a great deal. This is most notable in the fact that prior to Pjanic's, Abbiati had nothing to do in the match.

The second half was more stretched, as we opened up due to tiredness and our attempts to get back into the match, while Roma's possession told as they looked sharper and quicker than us for much of the half. That said, going forward we showed less restraint and particularly Taarabt looked at times that he might be able to give that little extra jump in quality to make more in the final third. Ultimately, though, Roma's quick breaks on the counter was telling and Gervinho got gifted a goal.

I've already spoken about our lack of mentality, but it must be said the technical quality of our players is not coming through. In the back four, we had no one who's particularly good at playing the ball out and Mexes in this respect was particularly slow to get our attacks going. In midfield, only Montolivo is really a passer of the ball, but like Mexes was struggling to find passes. The attacking midfield three showed very little, despite all of them being talented, other than Taarabt towards the end, while the less said about Balotelli the better (again a player of immense technical quality that just doesn't show). Ultimately, we're very slow in moving the ball and part of it is that when we're so focused on trying to hold our shape, we lack any dynamism going forward. It was only when Taarabt looked to play with a little more freedom that we really found any attacking impetus. Ultimately, our game isn't correctly balanced for these levels of matches and therefore while we look difficult to breakdown, we don't actually threaten opponents.

Part of the problem is these players are thinking too much during the game about their positions. It's not automatic to them what they need to do, so they have to take milliseconds to think about the position they need to take up, meaning while we hold our shape, any opponent who can play a quick passing at a high tempo will automatically run rings around us. This was clear in the second half, we're for periods we were chasing shadows.

In terms of individuals, very few players in the lineup yesterday were of the highest levels. In defence, none are of top level quality with Rami being the closest. In midfield, Montolivo's capable at the highest level, but he's never going to be the protagonist of any top side (contrary to what I hoped last year), but just a quality player in a good side. It's like for Italy, Pirlo's the heartbeat of that midfield, Montolivo's part of the makeup. In the line of three, I'm still not sold on if Taarabt has the ability to be a key player in the biggest matches, Honda's just not showing the personality of playing at that level and Kaka is quite frankly a sad finished player. Balotelli, as I've mentioned in the past has again shown he's just not able to produce in these matches.

As reza said, these players aren't naturally suited to 4-2-3-1, so everything they do, from showing their qualities on the ball to the sacrifices they have to make for the good of the team is made more difficult. That said, I sympathise with Seedorf, as what he's doing is trying to get these players to play the game in a modern way, which we need to do whatever the case. It doesn't always work, but I think he's on the right path in this respect. The management have to support his approach by giving him what he needs. The problem to me isn't Seedorf's not getting the most out of these players, but rather we've got such a poorly built squad that it's hard to get much out of them whatever you try. These players don't work together, yet individually aren't good enough to compensate the lack of cohesion. Mentally you're talking about a group from totally different walks of life, so it's hard to get a single collective mindset in the group. Imo, Seedorf's trying, but we're so disjointed in the makeup of the squad that it's extremely difficult to get any sort of collective game.

I've got to give props to Rudi Garcia for his Roma side, which are a good footballing side and with some areas of improvements can be really great. Pjanic and De Rossi were outstanding vs us and they won the game for Roma. Pjanic's moment of magic for the first goal really showed the value of the odd individual who can turn a game.

Players:

Abbiati - Imo should have done better on both goals.
Bonera - At times was caught out at the back and offered nothing going forward.
Rami - Probably our best defender, but did struggle with Gervinho's pace.
Mexes - Struggled on the whole to really be a great influence. Was beaten too easily on the first goal.
Constant - Like Bonera, was caught out at times and generally struggled.
Montolivo - Probably the best midfielder, but took a while to make his passes. Like Mexes, could have done better on the first goal.
Muntari - Wasn't great, but solid during the first half. His lack of discipline didn't help.
Honda - Didn't really do much on the ball at all. He works hard, but it's not enough.
Taarabt - His quality towards the end showed, but definitely one who struggled to find the right balance.
Kaka - One of those who seemed mentally able to cope in the top matches. However, that's the only positive. His influence is not existent and he really looks finished. I swear he also stole the freekick from Honda at the end, as Honda clearly refused to give him the ball when we won the freekick and spent a lot of time preparing. I'm sure we hadn't planned for Kaka to take it and if I'm right and he stole it, then that's out of order.
Balotelli - I can't deal with him anymore. Every week I seem to fluctuate on his performances. This one was nothing new, he doesn't take responsibility and he doesn't learn what his role entails. There's talk we might sell SES or DS this summer for funds in the market, but I'd sell Mario without doubt.
Robinho - Should have been sent off. No defence of him.
Essien - We totally lost control in midfield after he came on, was awful.
Pazzini - He has half the talent of Balo, but his teamwork and movement to open spaces was much more beneficial to our attacking game.

[nefremo]

What was the point of Essien coming on? I never understood that.

Our movement off the ball is terrible. We are slow and predictable, and some of te technical mistakes that are made are simply childish.

We don't press at all. It's like our "most payed players" in Italy don't have the legs to press. It's sad.

Kaka is finished. I've always said that....just beause he had a couple of decent performances against the likes of Catania, Livorno, etc...doesn't mean anything to me.

Balotelli should leave this team. Enough is enough. This is a shame for the colors he wears. Walking on the field. No off-ball movement whatsoever. I said this multiple time before....if he scores a goal or the team is winning, he starts fuking around and looking careless. If he doesn't score and the team is losing, he starts arguing with everyone and stops playing. It's a no win situation with this clown. Just get the fuk out of my club.
He was told off by Montolivo in the first half when he decided to go back all the way back to Monto to argue with the ref while the game is going on on. You can clearly see Monto screaming at him to go back to his position. Then in the second half he decides to scream at Taarabt because HE himself gave him a terrible pass (if we can even call it that as he only back healed te ball cuz he had nowhere to go anymore).
Then he decides to go on TV and talk shit to others because of his shit preformance.

These are 3 events that MAYBE, JUST MAYBE happen to other players once per season. This fuking clown decides that it'll happen to him once in almost every game. I've had it with him. Lets see what excuse the Mario lovers will come up with this time.

We bought ourselves a problem. He is a problem on the field and a problem in the locker room. Believe me that te players have had it with him too...you can just the irritation. This can cause some huge problems....especially if Seedorf continues to play him non-stop. The others will lose respect for what's going on.

We need to get rid of this virus quick!

[ACMILAN1983]

I think Essien was on due to Muntari being on yellow and making some stupid challenges. I personally would have put in Poli, but I don't think Seedorf trusts him in front of defence.

I was going to go into more detail about Balotelli before, but partly I just can't be bothered to waste energy on him now and secondly I just didn't have the time (as noticeable in the number of grammatical errors in that post). I will post this link with the video of his post match argument with the Sky Italia pundits:

http://www.football-italia.net/48357/mil...-balotelli

It's interesting, as I don't know Italian, but it looks like Boban and Panucci are trying to reason with him and explain that his attitude is wrong, but he's acting like a petulant child and doesn't want to listen. Fact is, he can say Marocchi doesn't know football or whatever, but the fact is all three of these guys have won more in the career than I think Balotelli can probably dream of at this point. He's got a long way to go to even be considered at the level these guys reached in the careers.

[Mystik]

I watched the interview and based on body language alone I don't think it was as bad as people say. Balo was simply defending his performance like anybody else would. He didn't appear to raise his voice at all although he did speak out of turn a couple times. If this were anyone else it would not be such a big deal. However, in Italy everything gets blown out of proportion regarding mario so we now have this situation. Some of his comments were out of line but I can understand his frustration when it seems that everything is always his fault. I don't see any other players getting directly criticized as much as he does. Near the end he says as much: "Whenever Milan wins it's bravo Mario but whenever Milan loses it's Mario's fault"

[ACMILAN1983]

I disagree there Mystik, because his immediate response when the initial question about his movement came was saying the guy knows nothing about football. That response alone is likely to spark an argument and Mario still acts like a child in the way he deals with the media...or teammates or coaches or the ref or anyone with the misfortune with having to deal with him. Truth is, there are a thousand ways to respond to such a question without coming off as an idiot, yet he lands himself in hot water every time by acting out. The question itself was totally legitimate and phrased in a relatively inoffensive way. Maybe Balotelli heard criticism levelled at him before the interview began, but part of being a responsible professional is to not to let this stuff get to you and to respond in a manner that is likely to stir up least controversy.

Truth is, and I've said this lots of times, he brings the criticism on himself with his attitude and inability to control himself under pressure (match situation or not). Even when he's not under discussion, he does, says or tweets something moronic which makes headlines. You say that in Italy everything is always blown out of proportion, but this is the same BS that he apparently left England for. In England, he said the media was always on his back and in Italy they don't do that. Now, apparently Italy is the same. He's a high profile name who has made a living surrounding himself in controversy, whether it was at Inter, Man City or Milan and he's never taken responsibility for anything he does. He can blame everyone he wants, but the problem isn't everyone else, it's him and his damn moronic behaviour and irresponsibility, otherwise we'd see so many other players in the media for this sort of BS.