Week 30: Milan - Lazio (Sunday, March 20 - 20:45 CET)

[nefremo]

Galliani before the game tonight......“Up until March 1 we were scoring plenty of goals and doing very well. Riccardo Montolivo’s absence was a heavy blow, as HE IS OUR ONLY PLAYMAKER. He’s back tonight and I think things will go better.”

And whose fault is that?????

[reza]

Galliani lol, I am willing to be Milan's director of sport for minimum wage

[devoted_dm]

As usual the problem is the team's mentality. I usually think Boban is way too negative about this team, but his comments regarding Montolivo's statement that the team played with the right intensity tonight were spot on (basically he said it was an unbelievable thing to say).

I mean, these players have the right skills, but they don't seem to have the right attitude. Abate and Abbiati already talked about it last week. It's as if they don't know which club they are representing. Menez apparently didn't even want to warm up. We can't have players who behave like that. We're MILAN, FFS!

[ACM1899]

I have a feeling balo and menez get playing time because of Berlusconi request.

[am I Milan enough?]

Miha should instruct Balo and Menez to train and play with primavera to show they are not good enough for first team.

[nefremo]

As usual the problem is the team's mentality. I usually think Boban is way too negative about this team, but his comments regarding Montolivo's statement that the team played with the right intensity tonight were spot on (basically he said it was an unbelievable thing to say).

I mean, these players have the right skills, but they don't seem to have the right attitude. Abate and Abbiati already talked about it last week. It's as if they don't know which club they are representing. Menez apparently didn't even want to warm up. We can't have players who behave like that. We're MILAN, FFS!

We see this word way too often this season. I'm not sure what it means anymore or who is even responsible for this wrong mentality. I'm not disagreeing with you by the way. There is certainly some aspects of our mentality that need to be revamped.

By the way, Mihajlovic took a few shots at Galliani after the game today (at least that's what it seems like to me) by saying that we have no options on the bench and there is no quality. He also criticized Menez and Balotelli (not the first time) which actually makes me think that this is another shot at Berlusconi (keeping in mind that the old man has made multiple comments about his appreciation of the these two players and it's not far fetched to think that he is demanding that they are played).

I think it's safe to say that Mihajlovic will be gone at the end of the year.

Oh, and by the way....according to Sky and Mediaset, Menez did not want to warm up during the game and only did it upon a talk from Sakic. What a piece of shit this guy is!

[WCmilan]

This team has no quality, Mihajlovic is absolutely right. Other than Donnarumma, Bonaventura, Romagnoli, Abate and Bacca, nobody deserves to stay. Bertolacci is such a weak, mediocre player. He gets pushed off the ball like a feather, and loses it far too much + does not create nor score nearly enough considering his attacking freedom. I hope we can cut our losses short and sell him for 10-15m this summer to like Empoli or Fiorentina or something.

Galliani is the problem, he isn't buying the right players and making the right moves on the market. It honestly makes me wonder how he ever got players like Kaka and Sheva.. Not even old age is an excuse for the horrible job he's doing, it's so bad it seems someone hired him to ruin Milan. Berlusconi's been put in question for not investing, but the guy gave baldy 100m to play with this summer.. not one creative midfielder lol

[somedevil]

Forget the creativity of the midfield which has been a perennial issue, their decision making is poor as well. I am not sure wether they feel under too much pressure or are just plain dumb, but too many decisions these players make are stupid.

Secondly, why is the first touch of so many of our players so bad. I don't expect them to have Baggio's silly touch, but C'mon so many overhit passes, not able to control passes. What the hell is going on there?

thirdly, Bertolacci is still not working. I paid extra attention to him yesterday and the guy is always so nervous. One time he made a quick pass to Jack and was pissed that Jack wasn't in the right place but way ahead. At other times he was too frustrated by his inability to make a difference.

The positioning and movement has again gone for a toss. Looking at player movements one never gets a sense of surity or any thought behind it. It was dade glaringly obvious with how well Candreva was doing it and running around our players. I'd love it if we buy him, I have wanted him since forever in our team.

[millinarios]

I watched Mihajlovic Milan the first time yesterday. Sorry, but this is still a shitfest. I'll try again in a year or so....

[ACMILAN1983]

It's the same frustrations everytime with this group, they talk big, they might even work hard, but then push come to shove, they're often clueless on the pitch.

Yesterday two of the biggest irritations I saw was that the players don't communicate with each other, with a number of balls lost because a player was unaware someone was tackling from behind. The second is the players don't work with each other in terms of positions they take up.

I looked at what players did on the pitch and there's often little to no correlation to what teammates are doing. Bertolacci has been one of the worst in this regard, he just doesn't seem to understand where he's supposed to be taking up positions. I've been one of his bigger supporters, but I will rapidly lose patience if he can't grow in his understanding of the system.

It's not just him though, all the players will collect the ball and then need seemingly 20 touches to try and understand where to play the ball. nefremo asked why every player needs 4-5 touches everytime they get the ball, this is exactly why, teamwork is still lacking in this side and as soon as they come across a team that can defend deep and organise themselves, there's no ideas on what to do on the ball. Even basic concepts, like pass and move isn't being applied.

It was actually sad and hilarious that at the end when the team needed to chase the result, they were unable to push through the gears, because there's too little structure, they can't up the pace and it's still very dependent on individual moments from Bonaventura and Honda, set pieces or counters.

I don't think the players lacked the attitude in terms of trying, but they can't play with intensity if there's not a clear structure. This might fall on Miha too, he needs to prepare the side for these games, but we've seen glimpses of it this year so I don't think he's not trying.

What concerns me is according to Miha apparently Bona and Honda are exhausted and we have no depth to replace them. That's fine and true, but what I don't get is they play one game a week this season, that shouldn't be such a major issue. What would happen if we had 3 games a week.

I don't specifically blame Miha for this, I still think he's done really well this year, but something, both by coaching and playing staff, must be done to start developing a game that's more about the collective work going forward.