Reggina - Milan this sunday...25^ Giornata

Inzaghi hatrick!
Fulltime: Reggina 1- AC Milan 4.

Not a bad display by Milan today, first half we had some difficulties to get things togheter thats why Reggina got the lead. Second half a totally different display by Milan very good passing and a lot of movment in the game. I have to say that Kaka played very well today, with a lot of running. Billy did very well in the defence despite his age Hope to continue like this.

sorry for the double post - I just have great difficulties accessing the site before the afternoon hours.

Yeah, you are right - Seedof subed Gila, Pippo is still playing. Also Nesta has come in for Billy - saw it on Gazzetta, missed it on PPLive .
Simic came off early in the first half for tactical reasons, I think, as it was Sergio who came in Simic's place thus giving us more mobility on the left side and better crosses too. Actually, it was after a Sergio cross that we scored the second goal through Gila.


Pippo just scored his third for the game 4-1 Milan - great low cross by Seedorf from the left, and Pippo just had to tap it into an empty goal, with the keeper stranded.
Congrats for the hattrick to Pippo and the whole Milan team.

BTW, Livorno beat La Viola by 2-0, so we are 4 points clear from Fiorentina.

good game today, and a good 3 points.. all we can do now is hope juve trip..

here's the pro's and con's in my view:

CONS:
- Simic was probably playing the worst game in his life, thats why he was subbed 30 mins into the 1st half.. Rui did not play that well either
- Gila still needs to find better movement and coordination with the team..he doesnt involved much in the build up play.. even pippo did some wonderful work today!
- Ancelotti bringing on Seedorf for Gila was maybe a right move, but it certainly ruined up all our play, as after that we failed to get possession of the ball, and Reggina kept pouring forward. It was a very bad substitution in my opinion, our team was very disorganised..
- Pirlo wasnt good today either, i know how important he is to us, but maybe, just maybe, Vogel can be more useful than Pirlo in the next few games till he finds his form..
- Carlo is not giving Amoroso any minutes :/

PROS:
- Im happy that our players are finding form, you all should have seen how great kaka played today and the last game..makes me reallly happy.. pippo had a great game too.. looks like we will be seeing a sheva-pippo partnership for the bayern game.. pippo seems to return to form everytime he knows he's playing against Khan :P
- Serginho played well, he assisted 2 goals, and so did Kaka..
- Something very very very rare happened today that is VERY good..Ancelotti showed alot of bravery and he subbed Simic out after doing numerous mistakes..i really liked that alot..
- Played one of our best games defensively today.. altho we dint get a clean sheet, we played very very well at the back..


You guys should check out the 3rd goal and look at the teamwork between Kaka and Pippo, it was a nice goal Other than the Milan game, Roma get their 10th win, and u all should check out De Rossi's goal, what a beauty from 30 metres..and Mancini scored again, and again a chip!! im all for getting this player instead of Cris.. Cris's price is 15m or so, im pretty sure Mancini is much cheaper than that..

Well... SOLID WIN. Looking at the table... and starting from the Treviso game, if we get 5 straight wins all the through to the Juve game and beat them also, we have a good chance (considering some outside factors) of being in the fight again. We already went 2 for 2. The hardest game heading to our Juve match would be us versus Palermo.
vs Treviso 3pts... done
vs Reggina 3pts... done
vs Cagliari 3pts
vs Palermo 3pts (tough one. away)
vs Empoli 3pts
vs Juventus 3pts (tough one. away)

That is a total of 18 pts! A big feat indeed but not really impossible.
The factors I have of course yet to mention is our ability to do this while also keeping competitive in the Champions League campaign.

This was a great win for us, I think the whole team, with few exceptions, played very well. And Ancelotti also coached with more courage than he usually does.
However, I still think that Vogel, Janu, or Amoroso should have gotten some minutes. Does Janu have an injury that I'm not aware of? And what was the pint of bringing in Amoroso? Has he played at all since we brought him in?

But anyways, great win. Congrats to Pippo on his best performance in a while. Kaka also played great today.

BTW great post hitmannq8, I tend to agree with everything you said.

Originally Posted by zlatanov

After carefully re-viewing the Reggina goal, I believe it was offside but the stuation was very close, so I wouldn't blame the ref.

Clearly NOT offside. It was a perfectly valid goal. Unlike the first goal scored by Inzaghi that he handballed before he put it in, but since none protested I am sure the only one seeing it was the camera man for replay No#3.

Originally Posted by zlatanov

It's a 4-4-2 when defending and this becomes a 4-3-1-2 in

I would say we played a 4-2-2-2. Rui and Kaka both as playmakers and neither of them sticking to a side.

We began the game in a really bad note, bad long balls from defense which hardly helped when they could press us hard. But their type of hardworking game will end up in a second half like we saw, simply they where exhausted and could no longer press us anymore. Some great goals, two assist by Kaka and two by Serginho. If anything this should prove to Ancelotti the value of having at least one attacking fullback on the field considering their offensive contribution. Good performance troughout the second half, except some minutes after Seedorf came on and they could almost muster some chances.

Finally we have seen a great exibition by Milan after some really unimpressive or even frightening displays (I'm not counting the home win against Treviso, 'cause trouncing such a poor side is nothing less than an obligation for a club like ours!)

Well, for my money we have today four great heros: Kaká, Inzaghi, Serginho and, BIG surprise, mr. Carlo Ancelotti! As hitmann has already pointed out, Carlo showed great courage and inteligence to sub an ineffetive Simic for a particularly lethal Serginho already in the first half.

Kaká played an excellent match, with his trademark combination pace, skill and vision of the game, providing our attack with fantastic assists; that applies also to Serginho, which fully deserves to be a starter on Brazil national side, 'cause he's a lot better than the awful Roberto Carlos. For his turn, Inzaghi demonstrated once more that he still has a great killer instinct, it's really a pitty that he's injury prone and quite old.

On the negative side we have to mention Dida, that made another flop, and Simic, with a very bad performance.

what did Dida do?

I'll comment later on, I dont have much time right now. Just need to say one thing - SPLENDID KAKA' !!!!!!!! BRAVO!!!

Was Dida's mistake a howler

Originally Posted by Jeff

what did Dida do?

Not exactly a howler but I think he has to take half of the responsibility for the first goal. I do believe that technically it was an offside, though kris has a dif opinion, but it took me 3 replays to see it - the situation was really, really close - and this is a luxury the ref obviously doesn't have, so we shouldn't be too unhappy about it.
The regina forward jumped out behind the defenders and reached out to head the ball over Dida, who had come off his goal - he was well beyond the small PA line. It should have become obvious to Dida that he couldn't reach the ball before the Regina player, instead he tried to do exactly that and all he could do was helplessly follow the flight of the ball into the net. But to be fair with Dida, it was an akward play altogether as the Regina player hardly intended to score the goal that way - he more of reached out just to get to the ball but it ended up bouncing over Dida and into the net. Still, the Brazilian should have done better.
Apart from that, he was solid during the rest of the game, at least I don't remember seeing any other heart-stopping plays by him.

it was not exactly a blunder.. just like what zlat said.. it can be seen as his fault and it can be seen the other way..

i really think he should have gone out to close the distance between him and the striker to give the striker less room to finish.. it would be very wrong for him to just stay back and give room for the striker to control and finish.. but, the striker luckily just wanted to touch the ball.. so he put his head onto it with his back towards the goal, and it went over dida who could do absolutely nothing about it.. thats why i find this goal a bit wierd..

I would put it like this. It was not his fault but it was hardly the actions of a goalkeeper playing for a world class side.

It was the equivalent of a striker missing a good chance, rather than fluffing an open goal.