Bayman's Analysis

I am afraid we forget sometimes to be football fans and enjoy a good game while rooting for your team. Too much analysis, too many transfer rumors and too many tacticians out there. Also, too many predictions. May I recommend to go back to to the pleasure and excitement of going to the stadium (or watching on TV) with friends, enjoy the goals, the defensive moves, the passes and forget about being a coach, a newspaper analyst or a transfer guru: those jobs are taken already.

To the point: Milan's midfied section is excellent and except for the fact they are not in shape (yet), Gattuso, Pirlo, Seedorf, Rui Costa, Kaka, Ambrosini, Dhorasso, Serginho, Brocchi etc. will run circles against the opposition - as they have made us proud before. Their early season preparation this year might be lacking. I know many have said it is better to "peak" not too early, I still can see they run out of breath on the playing field.

Sure, there are other good midfield players with other teams at this time, but I am not sure I would want to trade one of our guys for them : the fish on the other side always looks bigger - remember that.

If we stop being tacticians and play "paper football" we may all enjoy the game better.

The aim of this game as I know it for many years is to score goals and avoid giving away too many. When the players will get into shape (hopefully next week), they will do great if Ancelotti goes for an attacking and open type of play. In two months you may all forget about Livorno, the same way we all forgot about the "bad spell" Seedorf had last year (for a month or so).

Except for Milan of course, I am interested in Barcelona this year . They have a battery of Deco, Guily, Ronaldinho, Larsson and Eto'o capable of outscoring anyone. If their coach does not "micro-manage" these players and lets them improvise on the field, they will be one of the three or four best teams in the world (after Milan).

So - more offense and goals, less gossip about possible transfers, and a little patience. Things will be OK.

I agree with one thing Bayman, there is not enough movement in the midfield to make yourself available for passes.

I strongly disagree with the notion that you have to have a DM in the centre of you midfield. There are no formula answers in football. Gattuso somewhat to the right and the left-back more defensive oriented than the RB has worked well for us. Milan is not playing a 4-3-1-2 or a dimond 4-4-2 as many seem to believe. It is much more asymmetric than that.

I know from XT than you are not a big fan of Pirlo, but he has in my mind contributed a lot over the last 2 seasons.

I refuse to draw a far-reaching conclusions as you do after so few games of the season.

Everyone who saw Real-Roma match got a lesson of typical average Italian midfield "quality".
Only long passes, huge gap between strikers and midfield (=no support), lack of physical presence, pace (athelticism) and tackling in midfield.
That is how I don't want Milan to be. Real played spectacular and overpowered them with ease. With Ambrosini kind of midfielders we'll get a similar treatment at the Camp Nou, unless Carlo chnges his lineup.

Too much analysis, too many transfer rumors and too many tacticians out there. Also, too many predictions. May I recommend to go back to to the pleasure and excitement of going to the stadium (or watching on TV) with friends, enjoy the goals, the defensive moves, the passes and forget about being a coach, a newspaper analyst or a transfer guru: those jobs are taken already.

True, Josh. Well said.

A lot of homespun coaches

Originally Posted by Bayman

Everyone who saw Real-Roma match got a lesson of typical average Italian midfield "quality".
Only long passes, huge gap between strikers and midfield (=no support), lack of physical presence, pace (athelticism) and tackling in midfield.
That is how I don't want Milan to be. Real played spectacular and overpowered them with ease. With Ambrosini kind of midfielders we'll get a similar treatment at the Camp Nou, unless Carlo chnges his lineup.

WITH EASE!!! WOW!!!

Originally Posted by Bayman

Everyone who saw Real-Roma match got a lesson of typical average Italian midfield "quality".
Only long passes, huge gap between strikers and midfield (=no support), lack of physical presence, pace (athelticism) and tackling in midfield.
That is how I don't want Milan to be. Real played spectacular and overpowered them with ease. With Ambrosini kind of midfielders we'll get a similar treatment at the Camp Nou, unless Carlo chnges his lineup.

Don't forget that Roma is a team with lots of ? marks in its present. I would really wanna see Juve, still a typical italian midfield, be overpowered by this Real

On the Real vs Milan issue: let's all remember that Milan has won the Champions League more times than Real Madrid after the invention of the Television

Originally Posted by Bayman

Everyone who saw Real-Roma match got a lesson of typical average Italian midfield "quality".
Only long passes, huge gap between strikers and midfield (=no support), lack of physical presence, pace (athelticism) and tackling in midfield.
That is how I don't want Milan to be. Real played spectacular and overpowered them with ease. With Ambrosini kind of midfielders we'll get a similar treatment at the Camp Nou, unless Carlo chnges his lineup.

oh really, we will get whack by real. don't make me laugh. we beat them fair and square enroute to our CL win. and at that time, we are not among the top teams in europe and they are one of the best.

well, roma did have a 2-0 lead against real and could have easily make it 3-0 and 4-0. but instead of putting more pressure, they retreat. there is nothing wrong with their midfield when the game start, but after they withdraw back to their half, they find that they could move out fast enough, most of the time only leaving cassano to deal with 4-5 real players. their failure is defending too much without applying pressure on real and not because their midfield cannot play well.

your thinking is just too extreme. u can analyse but u like to make a mountain out of a molehill. and i do not like the way u think the team should play. i still remember your comments about having german coach who can instill more workman like quality into our players. what u like is not what others like. i love the way ac milan is playing now. we just need pirlo to get back to form and we will knock juve and barca off our top spots.

I can't say much about this because I have seen only 3 or 4 Milan games (in 2 years). But I say that for me our midfield is great. I haven't seen it much, but I can tell it works by the results we have got. It's your opinion to have much moving midfield.

Heh, I'm also pretty sure we have really great individuals. Every team has individuals, like kris said. But who passes to Inzaghi or Shevchenko so they could make the goal. Team consists from individuals. Juventus, Liverpool, every team. Nedved, Davids, Emerson, all great individuals. Every player is individual and they play for themselves. But no man can alone win a game, not even Nedved.

Our midfield is great. Seedorf, intelligent player with great shots. Pirlo with his technique and long passes. Gattuso, really hardworking man. And Kaká, crown of our midfield.

Pirlo IS playmaker (and Kaká also). He does the game with long passes, because he is good at it. Maybe not the best defensive player but there is still Gattuso and Seedorf. Pirlo is creative player(i have heard and read) and very important in Milan midfield. As for more off-the-ball running Bayman means that we should change our tactic so we would play with wingers. We already have "wingers". Cafu and who ever plays as left-back are the "wingers".


In the end it's all about tactic. Milan plays with rising right- and left-backs. It's wrong to say only Cafú made us Serie A winners. Yes, he was one of the main reasons to that, but so was Pancaro (and Kaká and Pirlo and Seedorf and Shevchenko and every player who played). If you liked Cafú more, OK. And maybe our midfielders are told not to get the ball jammed in the midfield but play it to the attackers.

But still I would love to see even only in one game Milan playing with different tactic. My dream is like: Dida; Maldini, Nesta, Coloccini, Cafú; Pirlo, Gattuso; Seedorf, Kaka, Rui Costa; Shevchenko.

This is my first post. Thread was so good so I registered yesterday only to tell what i think with my small mind.

Originally Posted by flakdaw

I can't say much about this because I have seen only 3 or 4 Milan games (in 2 years). But I say that for me our midfield is great. I haven't seen it much, but I can tell it works by the results we have got. It's your opinion to have much moving midfield.

Heh, I'm also pretty sure we have really great individuals. Every team has individuals, like kris said. But who passes to Inzaghi or Shevchenko so they could make the goal. Team consists from individuals. Juventus, Liverpool, every team. Nedved, Davids, Emerson, all great individuals. Every player is individual and they play for themselves. But no man can alone win a game, not even Nedved.

Our midfield is great. Seedorf, intelligent player with great shots. Pirlo with his technique and long passes. Gattuso, really hardworking man. And Kaká, crown of our midfield.

Pirlo IS playmaker (and Kaká also). He does the game with long passes, because he is good at it. Maybe not the best defensive player but there is still Gattuso and Seedorf. Pirlo is creative player(i have heard and read) and very important in Milan midfield. As for more off-the-ball running Bayman means that we should change our tactic so we would play with wingers. We already have "wingers". Cafu and who ever plays as left-back are the "wingers".


In the end it's all about tactic. Milan plays with rising right- and left-backs. It's wrong to say only Cafú made us Serie A winners. Yes, he was one of the main reasons to that, but so was Pancaro (and Kaká and Pirlo and Seedorf and Shevchenko and every player who played). If you liked Cafú more, OK. And maybe our midfielders are told not to get the ball jammed in the midfield but play it to the attackers.

But still I would love to see even only in one game Milan playing with different tactic. My dream is like: Dida; Maldini, Nesta, Coloccini, Cafú; Pirlo, Gattuso; Seedorf, Kaka, Rui Costa; Shevchenko.

This is my first post. Thread was so good so I registered yesterday only to tell what i think with my small mind.

Nice post. Welcome to MM.

i'm just wondering, when Milan is getting the result, I think the most probable argument put afront is that "We now all depends so much on Kaka` and Sheva". As everyone knows, this will be a over-generalized statement.

Welcome flakdaw! I agree with most of your post