Andrea Pirlo - Form

Originally Posted by Jeff

So should he say, "Yes we still have a chance to win lo Scudetto" when it's clear that it's highly unlikely?



What do we really want?

No need to say that it's just that Milan isn't going to win anything this season although the entire management was "mouths full" of enthusiasm.
It is evident (to me) that someone should pay the price now or at least take responsibility.

I don't like when they make fools of us......Carlo and Co. should say something like this then: "We are satisfied with this kind of performance and Milan isn't a club that should be a title contender"

I mean, come on people

This is something from the past few days:

“I have been very clear on Ancelotti’s future,” explained Vice-President Adriano Galliani ahead of his side’s friendly in Qatar.

“If we finish in third place this season, then Carlo will stay. I keep reading different stories, but I have never wavered from this theory.

“Clearly if Milan do not get third place then something could change, for myself included,” said the Coach.

“But as I am convinced we will finish third, so there will not be any problem.”

not be any problem when we finish third??????
.......this is something a team like Lazio should be saying, NOT Milan

I think he clearly meant 'no problem with the media', not no problem with the team.

Setting a clear and obtainable goal is more likely to spur motivation than setting an unrealistic goal ( in which effort is least likely). If you can't even keep your enthusiasm up despite failure, it's very hard to keep the team going with so many negativity:

1) Fans
2) injury
3) newspaper
4) Transfer

Life is long: let's not lose hope. Let's keep moving for the most proximate and probable goal together.

J

Originally Posted by Jeff

Setting a clear and obtainable goal is more likely to spur motivation than setting an unrealistic goal

Agreed on this one.
But it seems to me they should have known that in the begining of the season when they announced title challenge with too many elderly players.

Just my opinion

Originally Posted by K77SH C

Yet another good game from Pirlo. Alot of fuss about nothing.

Actually the general consensus in the chat was that he was very quiet throughout the whole game. Beckham and Flamini did the majority of the work in midfield. He wasn't bad but wasn't anything special either. Lost possession carelessly a few times but nothing too major.

Originally Posted by Mystik

Actually the general consensus in the chat was that he was very quiet throughout the whole game. Beckham and Flamini did the majority of the work in midfield. He wasn't bad but wasn't anything special either. Lost possession carelessly a few times but nothing too major.

That is correct.

Originally Posted by Mystik

Actually the general consensus in the chat was that he was very quiet throughout the whole game. Beckham and Flamini did the majority of the work in midfield. He wasn't bad but wasn't anything special either. Lost possession carelessly a few times but nothing too major.

There is a danger of expecting too much from Pirlo every game. WHile he made bad passes (which, to be honest, are made by all players), he has some pretty nice passes that, though not deadly, will help the team to channel into the top field (despite being pressed and lack of space).

I feel that to some extent we ar etaking Pirlo for granted for what he could have done for us, and we expected him to do it every game. That's no problem, of course, except that we have to be mindful about his options.

People admire hard workers. Pirlo is the furthest from the hardest worker in Milan. His thrown is right next to Seedorf when it comes to running. He doesn't defend, he doesn't make runs, he doesn't do anything particularly well except for passing. Passing isn't enough anymore in "modern day football" as I believe Mrki says. You can't have a liability on the field especially in a 3 man midfield.

xvr11: At least in the champion league, Pirlo & Gattuso are two players who covered the field most, with over at least 9km. I can't find the stats here to support
my argument, but I think many of us were amazed back then when Pirlo actually ran a lot but didn't seem to be.

Needless to say, Pirlo made the most pass in almost every game.

Your argument seemed to base just on your observation on tv.

He is not expected to make forward-going run every single time when he gets the ball. This is neither his role nor he is being asked to.

If he did that just to impress others and fans, then he may actually risk exposing the defense in real term.

Football is a team game.

***

we all admire hardwork, but hardwork needs to come with effectiveness. Beckham can make up his lack of skills / physical sizes with hard work. Great.

If you watched the friendly last Wed, you'll find that Cardacio worked very hard too.

End result? Poor tackling, yellow card, and not contributing much. It's no surprise he is not playing.

Despite all of his few low performances in the past.. I think he is showing progress now.. His performances were always good in the last few matches.

Pirlo can only shine if he has "bodyguards" who will do the scut work and protect him. Yesterday he had Flamini, Janku, and to some extent even Becks. This is why teams try to man mark him out.

That's true. With Gattuso (and old-time Seedorf who could defend pretty well) Pirlo's job was much easier. I still think Pirlo doesn't play so badly (at least he plays averagely, far away from Seedorf).

What make the two players different (Seedorf and Pirlo) : Pirlo is not a physical player like Seedorf and he can't run (of course he can but he is not a runner). In the other hand, Seedorf is a smart-but-physical player and CAN run BUT he DOOESN'T want to do it. This the big difference and why I rate Seedorf the worst of our players' performance even compare to Kaladze!

Originally Posted by Mystik

Actually the general consensus in the chat was that he was very quiet throughout the whole game. Beckham and Flamini did the majority of the work in midfield. He wasn't bad but wasn't anything special either. Lost possession carelessly a few times but nothing too major.

I disagree, I thought Beckham was poor, always trying to cross to Inzaghi. Pirlo was always ready to receive and distribute.

Watching the last game against Atalanta I noticed a few things about Pirlo's play. Now he didn't have a particular good game, he had a few bad passes, but he was usually very solid, and he made himself available for the defenders and kept play flowing nicely. I thought it was pretty much a typical performance from him this season. Now whats odd is that he doesn't seem to have lost any 'ability' since the great Pirlo, that made him one of my favorite players, he just doesn't seem to produce as much as he used to, even though he is playing solid.

Now I think the reason for this is really more down to the problems we've been having with our team the whole season. The first problem is that our defenders defend to deep, this is probably due to their lack of pace and coordination, since it's always a different defensive pair, so they're not as great at trapping as they should be. The other thing is the lack of pressure from the forwards and trequesta, as mentioned earlier. All this does that Pirlo usually receives the ball around the middle circle on our half, where he's really to far away to be dangerous, and what it usually ends up with is pass along the middle of the pitch to the LCM or RCM or a pass to the trequesta. In that postion he looks more like a libero than a midfielder, so no wonder he doens't create as many assists from there. I really think that he would be more dangerous dictacting play just on the other side of the middle, with our full backs already forward, so he'd have more and better passing options. The only way to achieve this would be to move the defensive line up, and get our forwards to pressure the ball, or he could play a different role, perhaps a role like Xavi in Barcelona.

Add to that the lack of movement in our midfield and forward line. Playmakers like Xavi, Sneijder, Fabregas, Alonso get a lot of movement through the middle and in the wings to direct play towards.

I hope nobody gets me wrong, I don't think Pirlo is a bad player persay. I'm just saying that he's not as effective as he could be since he's stuck in that position. It's a waste of his passing range to have him just connect defense to attack. Flamini can easily do that as shown on Sunday. It's like using a shotgun to kill a mosquito. It'll get the job done, but it's a bit of an overkill and it's better used for more important tasks.

We could probably convert Pirlo into a Riquelme type of AM and have him receive the ball further up the field. There he can use his long range shooting and passing to better effect...in my opinion of course. I realize I'm not even taking the Gourcuff factor into account but for now we don't even know if the kid is coming back.