Palermo-Milan 30.11.2008

I dont know why we are still talking about Milan...Milan is crap,Inter are the great ones.**** Milan and **** everything that is involved with Milan.They will never understand that they have to work hard.No,give me Internazionale,the team that always tries to score more than one goal,the team with real working abilities.The team that dies for their fans.Milan is crapy Inter will be the champion of 2008/2009 and so on.Look at the goals they are scoring...beatiful.I already made a account at plaza-inter.com...So on sunday i will be laughing with them about Milan when Catania our going to kick Milans asses and Inter break further away.HAAHAHAHAH PATHETIC MILAN

FORZA INTER!

What make me sick (looking for a special player is Seedorf). He saved ON PURPOSE his energy against Portsmouth (very arrogant from Seedorf) and played horribly against Palermo.

Carlo has to be brave, like hitmann said. Why kept playing the same player if the player doesn't give his best? Where is Cardaccio? He never plays a single minute in Serie A! CMIIW.

Originally Posted by Dutchie-Milan

I dont know why we are still talking about Milan...Milan is crap,Inter are the great ones.**** Milan and **** everything that is involved with Milan.They will never understand that they have to work hard.No,give me Internazionale,the team that always tries to score more than one goal,the team with real working abilities.The team that dies for their fans.Milan is crapy Inter will be the champion of 2008/2009 and so on.Look at the goals they are scoring...beatiful.I already made a account at plaza-inter.com...So on sunday i will be laughing with them about Milan when Catania our going to kick Milans asses and Inter break further away.HAAHAHAHAH PATHETIC MILAN

FORZA INTER!

They're putting on a play a few hours away from where I live, and I think you should try out for the role of

http://www.casco.net/~mikesell/motivator_judas.jpg

Originally Posted by nefremo

Seedorf was the man that ticked me off the most however. I just think it is unexplainable how he can give up the ball, turn around and lightly jog back without any effort.

I don't mean to sh!t talk Seedorf as I do think he is an important player for us. But I am just pointing out that I don't think that type of behavior should be tolerated. Carlo should get a little tougher with his players. Drop them on the bench and show them who is the boss.

He's been doing that for the past 2 seasons, it's just people never wanted to admit it because in those days he contributed more to the side (i.e. goals, assists, etc).

It's not just the manager who should get tougher with this kind of attitude, the captain should as well. I'm surprised someone like Gattuso or Ambrosini hasn't fallen out with Seedorf over his work rate, i'm also surprised Maldini hasn't said something before now. On the pitch it's up to the captain to rally the troops and get them working. I don't want to turn this into a Serie A v Premiership argument, but can you see John Terry, Rio Ferdinand or Steven Gerrard/Jamie Carragher accepting a player doing this? Not a chance in hell.

This shouldn't be all against Seedorf, the work rate from most players just isn't good enough anymore and someone should lead by example and in my eyes that should be Gattuso. Make him captain and see what happens. I don't think he'd be frightened of shouting at people if they're not working hard enough.

Alot of people are saying the christmas tree formation doesn't work, well it would if the players in it were playing properly. The obvious use (in a defensive sense at least) for the formation is to pack the midfield with 5 players when we don't have the ball, but when you study the 5 players in this formation you can see why it doesn't work:

Ronaldinho - Slowly finding his pace/fitness, but work rate is still low
Seedorf - We all know his work rate and it's not good
Pirlo - Returning from injury so lacks any real fitness or work rate
Ambrosini - Same as Pirlo
Flamini - Can run all match and probably has to make up for the others

Lets add Pato to the mix who doesn't always do much tracking back and the truth of it is you have formation that has no hope of working. Despite us making fun of him, at least Emerson does some work even if he offers nothing going forward. It's time the starting 11 was based on performance and not reputation.

I think in the matches that Gattuso played in, he always shouted at the players, whenever he feels they're doing something wrong or made mistake... for example, shouting at Dida for more countless times, orginazing the defense/Midfield...

Gattuso-Pirlo-Flamini/Ambrosini is the best midfield for Milan imo, and Seedorf should be dropped and only played as a sub for Kaka, Ronnie or Pirlo or just simply leave.

Pirlo was horrible vs Palermo? give examples... imo he did good considering he didnt play for 2 months, he's the one that gave 2 through balls that one ended up being a penalty and being saved by Amelia, and the other ended up with a foul on the edge of the area, which hit the crossbar. not to mention the 2 great strikes he had on goal, and if it wasnt for Amelia, we wouldnt be talking about how "bad" he was last night..

Originally Posted by _Ace

I think in the matches that Gattuso played in, he always shouted at the players, whenever he feels they're doing something wrong or made mistake... for example, shouting at Dida for more countless times

Pardon my French, but considering his on/off form the past year and a half, it now makes him look like a douche.

For the Pirlo pundits, we're winless in the four matches he's played since he returned. Having he and Pippo on the pitch for a long time during yesterday's match slowed us to a crawl.

Blacktop, Gattuso was awful last season, but this year he's been outstanding, and probably our most consistent and best player.

While Pirlo did have a poor game on the whole against Palermo, Ace has a point that he's not our problem. Yes the results have gotten worse, but it was obvious the way we were going it was going to happen as we've been relying on goals from Ronaldinho of late and as soon as the team lost some shape, we'd be in trouble (which is what happened after the recent returning of a number of players).

Pirlo was poor against Palermo, but he was hardly the only problem in the side. Towards the end when given more freedom he was much, MUCH better and became the key player he is. Unfortunately it was too late by then. Against Torino, he wasn't the problem, and when he went off the midfield opened up completely which allowed Rosina to cause havoc.

We need to regain shape and compactness in the side, then we'll see a marked improvement.

For all those criticizing Pirlo, I would like them to think back to when Seedorf was playing his role a few times these past 2 months, I don't think he was anything brilliant on the whole. Yes, he controlled the midfield and made a few good passes but very few were defense splitting through balls like Pirlo's in the last match. Seedorf was brilliant in a couple of matches but then Kaka and Boriello were also playing better that time.
This is not an attack on Seedorf, far from it actually. Just making a point that one should wait for some more time before judging the maestro that is Pirlo. Any club in the world would kill to have him in their team and get the best out of him (something Ancelotti hasn't done for a long time now). Does anyone remember his performances for Italy this year? Except one game where De Rossi over shadowed him, I can't remember a single crap performance from him.
The question is, why are both Kaka and Pirlo playing well for their national teams but sucking (by their standards) for Milan?

Having thought about our performances of late and our problems, which culminated in the result against Palermo, it's pretty tough to identify precisely where we are going wrong, but more importantly, how to sort it out.

While Pirlo was out, we had a very balanced side that worked well as a tight unit and was able to see out results. It wasn't spectacular, but it was effective. However, we must remember that during this time we didn't have to contend with a rubbish Kaladze, Bonera was playing well and Favalli was effective (and now he's no where to be seen in Serie A). Maldini has been injured for some of this time and prior to injury he never played a match like Palermo.

In midfield we had found a reliable balance, with Rino effectively being the engine of the side, often in Pirlo's CDM role, Seedorf was pushed into midfield to act as a water carrier rather than a creative midfielder and usually one of Flamini and Emerson would be brought in to cover.

The problem now appears to be that in defence Bonera's struggling a little of late (maybe lack of consistency due to being asked to play RB), Maldini's struggling after having just returned from injury, Kaladze's been shocking and Senderos doesn't look like he's ready to play as a starter. In a nutshell, we're not working as well as we were in defence a few weeks ago.

Part of the reason for the issues in defence appear to be our midfield itself has lost the balance it had and so isn't covering well and thus has to start again. To accomodate Pirlo, who I believe we need as we've had to rely too much on individual brilliance rather than having someone manage our game to be more consistent, I would look to change the shape of midfield a little. Pirlo must be given freedom to move forward and around midfield, rather than being constricted to the deep centre of the pitch. The reason is most teams try to mark him out of matches, and if he doesn't move, he's pressed and it's easy to give us problems.

With him I think Gattuso is vital as he'll cover a lot of ground, whilst on the other side of Pirlo I think one of Flamini, Ambro or Seedorf are required. The key for the man here is to move the ball from defence into attack (the water carrier I mentioned). Seedorf is an absoloute master at this and has done it for years, and so he seems the most sensible option. Some might argue this isn't enough to cover for defence, but let's not forget that back in 2002/03 our midfield was Seedorf, Pirlo and Rino behind Rivaldo and Rui Costa. It's worked in the past and the key factor for it to work now is everyone pulls their weight.

This is where the attack comes in. We have Dinho, Kaka and Pato (right now anyway) as our attack, and so we need the two creative forces (Kaka and Dinho) to help when defending. Many lambasted Seedorf's lack of effort in defensive periods against Palermo, and we're aware of the effect it has. As a team it's the responsibility of the team to defend as a unit.

Likewise, when attacking, it's the responsibility of the whole team to attack as a unit. It's no good for the attack and midfield to press forward and the defence to stay deep, because on the counter we're then ready for slaughter. If the whole side presses forward, then not only do we press opponents early on when they get the ball, but also they don't have a free run at our defence in the gap between the defence and midfield.

We need to play to our strengths, which currently we're not doing, but even moreso we must work better as a unit reducing the gaps for opponents to attack.

Edit - Sorry for the long post

lol damn it Dev, you should work for goal.com

good post... again, spot on

First I want to say that you provided us with a smart, well thought look on our game, as always. Well done, nice reading your posts.

There's only one thing I disagree. You mentioned that back in 2002/2003 we had Pirlo, Gattuso, Seedorf midfield. That is true but it was 6 years ago!! You can't expect from them to have that energy they had then.

The Pirlo-Gattuso partnership is key to us and Italy NT. Back in 2006 when they were at their best, they won CL and WC in 2 months. Pirlo was the maestro and Rino was the pittbull, both in NT and Milan. Last season both of them were bad and we ended up in 5. place. This year Pirlo was injured and bad when playing, while Rino is showing his skills once again, hence we are in 2. place. Also, Seedorf's running has decreased dramatically, and his hot-cold form is affecting us.

So, in my opinion, Pirlo's bad form is the reason for the dis balance in our side. If we can't make him play like he did, we should find other solutions.

New CB pair is a must and with a quality pair, it could be possible to change formation in a more attacking 442 or 4231. I am just afraid that neither of this two formations holds place for Pirlo, Seedorf,Kaka,Pato and R80 at the same time. So I say, dump Pirlo and find someone who can pair up with Rino in DM department. Maybe that guy is Flamini, he needs time but so far he wasn't that great.



My perfect team:


---------------Abbiati---------------

Zambro---New CB---New CB---Janku-

-----------Rino-----Flamini----------

--Kaka-----------------------R80----


-----Pato---------New CF( big, strong guy)-

Originally Posted by Dutchie-Milan

I dont know why we are still talking about Milan...Milan is crap,Inter are the great ones.**** Milan and **** everything that is involved with Milan.They will never understand that they have to work hard.No,give me Internazionale,the team that always tries to score more than one goal,the team with real working abilities.The team that dies for their fans.Milan is crapy Inter will be the champion of 2008/2009 and so on.Look at the goals they are scoring...beatiful.I already made a account at plaza-inter.com...So on sunday i will be laughing with them about Milan when Catania our going to kick Milans asses and Inter break further away.HAAHAHAHAH PATHETIC MILAN

FORZA INTER!

Really...how old are you bro? Sorry, but u sound like a 3 year old. Please, change your name to Dutchie-Inter, and completely convert, and then you can write all the nonsense you like.

It shames me to know that a fellow milanista could think, and then write, the stuff you have written, because of a result...

Even if you are being sarcastic, you are doing a disservice to sarcasm.

I have finally recovered... i lost quite a bit of money...but thats ok...i won more than i lost...
My analysis of the HOMICIDE!!!
1...Maldini SUCKS... like a
2...Pirlo should gain fitness with the reserves... he could not protect the ball, could not sprint ten yards...
3...Seedorf thinks he is BIGGER than the game... he should become a philosopher
4...RINO is everything good for milan this year...
5...Kaka is the player our opponents fear
6... we used too much defensive midfielders... team was unbalanced...
7...we lacked YOUTHFUL EXUBERANCE....

Most of the players who are not good enough to play for AC Milan always seem to make a mockery out of us....

Miccoli did what R80 should be doing...
Simplicio played SIMPLE and made Pirlo look like a "no show"
CARLO?????????????
We need to get DIEGO from werder to replace PIRLO and SEEDORF!!!

...but at the end of the day i LOVE AC MILAN!!!! they may have an off day...SO what???
we will recover and and beat the crap out of the next team...BEWARE!!!!

Thanks _Ace and El Fre

El Fre, I think you're right about Seedorf, Rino and Pirlo back in 2003 had more energy than they do now. But the key difference is now we have Ambro, Emerson and Flamini on the bench for rotation, which is quite a lot of quality to have available. Seedorf when playing in midfield this season has been great, and Rino's back to his best, so I think it's possible to get the midfield working as it used to with a little work and rotation.

I agree with Pirlo's return unbalancing our midfield and was part of my point in the last post. I think we can get the best back from him, as towards the end of the Palermo match he really showed his capabilities.

I definitely agree about new CBs.