Serie A Week 7: Atalanta - Milan (04/10/09)

I just came back from the sunday football. Another draw from the league,it seems our doomed beginning season will end up with a new coach.

Originally Posted by honsano

In all fairness it doesn't matter. You think when Inter or Juve play teams don't just sit back and foul their way for a draw? We are lucky now in that teams are at least more willing to go forward with men. I realize in that last 5 minutes they were just punting the ball forward and going for a point but that started at the end of hte game. No matter how you package this, they had 10 men for a half and we drew with a relegation fighting club. I don't mean to be rude, but I'm just pretty bitter right now so apoligize. I just don't understand why we insist on playing wide the entire match. I realize we need to open them up as they play 8 in the box but cross after misplaced cross. It just gets frustrating. When we played the ball up the middle is when we got our chances. When Nesta wasn't at the byline but instead in the middle of the pitch he found Ronnie. When Clarence had his shots they weren't created through crosses. Maybe I just have selective memory.

I try to remain some what positive because we are a bag of old steaming **** that cannot beat bad teams and teams from leaugues that are not fully profesional (although Zurich are a pro side) our players done well when they were younger but should not be playing now regularly.

The fact is we need at minimum 10 new players that will take our MGT 34 years to do. It dosn't look good . We always have soooooooo much possession but do nada with it we have no witdh so why does that man persist in playing with his crazy formations for this team.

Dont worry guys, this is a good result, if you think about near future...Save your sadness for the Real Madrid fixture, we will need it!

I would actually argue we play with too much width. Our movements are all towards the flanks, particularly on the Left flank towards Zambro this game. DId you guys notice that too? The overload on Zambros flank? When Ronnie came in he was put on the Left as well to play a winger role until the 75th or 80th minute when he started venturing more and more towards the middle.

I question Leo in the point of having Abate on the field if we don't utilize his speed and crossing ability. He maybe had the ball at his feet 3 or 4 times and tried to cross the ball. This all happened near the end when Pirlo seemed just tired of it and was flying the ball to him from the Left flank. Instead we just try to exploit the Left flank for pretty much the entire game. Why start the match with 2DMs if you are not going to utilize your defensive liability? Of course I'm assuming we think that Abate is better going forward than defending and with 2DMs we can make up for that weakness. If that were the case, I would have put Oddo on as RB and taken Gattusso or Flamini off for Abate and played one DM instead of two. That way he has some other purpose aside from the occasional bit of defending (which admittedly he is getting better at).

Another problem is that when you push Ronnie out to the flank he has literally lost all confidence in his ability to beat his man 1v1. Normally he tries to do this once or twice before giving up but today I didn't even see him do one step over. When we gave him the ball on the flank he either just crossed it in or gave it up to the overlapping run, Zambro. When he ventured more towards the middle of the pitch away from the flank he was able to combine with Seedorf and eventually got the assist from Nesta. In fact, I would argue Ronnie has only been effective in teh middle of the pitch this season where he can do a one touch pass or find that killer through ball. I dont' think he has beaten a single player on the flank this season.

To me Ronnie is wasted on the flank as is our entire game. We can move the ball around quickly between R80 and Seedorf and leave it Pirlo to open up the flanks or find men in space when opponents start clogging up the middle. For me it is all coming down to playing 2DMs then forcing our team to play wide. With a line up of

Flamini----Pirlo
---Seedorf
R80
Hunter----Pato

I think we could have better luck. We are not scoring but we are getting scored upon. It took us 85 minutes and a loss of a man to finally get a goal but teams are scoring upon us. We need to through caution to the wind. It is not a matter of hunger but attack and strategy. Our players are hungry. You could see it in their frustration at the end. To me it is a tactical issue.

Mystik, Pato played very well for like 20 minutes after he got the player sent off (he also missed a golden chance, one on one with the keeper from about the 6 yard box), but then disappeared and had touched the ball once every 5 min.

Huntelaar scored a goal that was correctly disallowed for offside, he had one chance that he did pretty well with but then tried to dive. Other than these 2 touches - absolutely nothing for about 55 minutes. Pippo came on also and did nothing at all.

Dinho did not play great, but scored a really good goal that our strikers should be scoring. It showed alot of confidence actually, I didnt expect him to control and shoot on the volley like that. It's also the first time I see him breaking the offside trap and being our furthest man up.

Seedorf wasted alot, alot, alot of counter-attacks and build-up plays due to his slowness. Abate was awful today - I couldn't think of one good thing he did..he also nearly cost us a goal due to poor marking. Favalli didn't do bad - I suppose did better than Kaladze. Zambrotta - easily our worst player on the field today. Horrible, atrocious performance by him, and he fouled there player in the 90th minute in our box but luckily the ref waved play on (but it must be noted that in that counter attack, Seedorf took a shot that the defender blocked with his hands wide out - obvious penalty - but he waved it on I guess to make up for the mistake he did 30 seconds earlier).

Pirlo - as bad as every other game. Poor long balls, no effort on goal, offered no threat at all. Flamini and Gattuso didn't have much to do, but Gattuso did better that's why I guess he stayed on longer than Flamini, until Ambrosini came and wasted like 4 build-up plays near their penalty area. Very poor game by Ambrosini too.

Storari hadn't much to do, the defence messed up for the goal. Yes it may seem Nesta lost his man, but the truth of the matter is that Favalli, Zambro and Gattuso lost their man, and Nesta had to go cover up for their mess otherwise he would have scored, and as a consequence he left his man free. Other than that Nesta was brilliant, and had a Pirlo(2006 Pirlo)-like assist for R80.

"extremely contentious dismissal"...that is what eurosport.yahoo.com is labeling the red card for Radovanovic!!!
i personally would like to applaud this referee for being one of very few with enough b**** to give yellow cards for shirt-tugging...Pato is always held like that and referees rarely give a card for it....i hope that German ref who handled our match against Zurich was watching and learning a bit...
we are poor enough on so many levels, at least have mercy on us in officiating :s

Originally Posted by Warro Bantan

What a joke.

i saw that coming Warro, that why i stayed up and watch Formula 1 so i wouldnt wake to watch that crap... you and the others should have painted a wall and watch it dry...

VETTEL!!!!

How many more opportunities is it gonna take to start putting some blame on Pato? The boy who takes more chances to score than Eto'o who people HERE said was the most wasteful striker in the world.

Originally Posted by xvr11

How many more opportunities is it gonna take to start putting some blame on Pato? The boy who takes more chances to score than Eto'o who people HERE said was the most wasteful striker in the world.

Those who say that about Eto'o can shoot themselves and spare us the stupidity that they say on forums. Eto'o is one of the best goal scorers in the world, absolute class and remarkable CF. One of the best CF's in Barca's history FFS!!!

And a question: If so many people in here are so smart and deep in analisis of Pato's misses this year, answer me how many sitters has Pato missed this year untill now? Today he missed one 100% chance, one vs Marseille when he missed the ball...how many chances he actually had as a CF with this invalid squad behind him?? 5?

xvr11.....I totally agree with you.

Pato missed a great chance the previous game as well when he seemed to have done the right thing and chip the keeper.......but then completely missed the goal.

In my mind....I've already put SOME blame on him, but people came back at me and told me that he plays bad because everyone else just brings him down.

I'll go on and say this time......some of us need to take our heads out of our as$es and be fair in our judgement towards everyone.

That means that........Pippo has done a lot for us........BUT there is no excuse for him comming in and staying off-side every time the ball was played towards him.That also means that PIRLO needs to sit on the fukin bench untill he feels like playing again. He has been absolutely terrible. Completely unawayre of what's going on around him. He seemed to pull of these passes simply because of his vision. But now he is starting to take toooooo long on the ball. He is playing very very slow. And I am not talking about his pace but how he handles the ball.

The rest of the midfield is simply unbelieavably bad. Gattuso and Ambrosini offer NOTHING in the offensive end. On top of that they commit the dumbest fouls ever done on a football field. It's funny how after this many years of playing football, both Ambro and Rino have the WORST possible shooting technique I've ever seen. You can go out on the street and you'll see little kids use better technique to strike the ball. It's simply laugable when you watch these two try to do something in the attacking third.
Seedorf...I just won't discuss. I don't understand his deal. One time he plays well and then the next 3 games you feel like slapping him for doing everything wrong......which was the case today.

It's just a sad picture right now. When you have your CB come up and make an assist like that........that's just embarassing for your midfield. They had all the possesion they want, yet they didn't do anything with it and then comes the CB who shows them how it's done! Simply embarassing midfield this year. So slow and predictable with the build up that you can probably just set up rocks at the right places on the field and we still won't score!

Originally Posted by mrki

Those who say that about Eto'o can shoot themselves and spare us the stupidity that they say on forums. Eto'o is one of the best goal scorers in the world, absolute class and remarkable CF. One of the best CF's in Barca's history FFS!!!

And a question: If so many people in here are so smart and deep in analisis of Pato's misses this year, answer me how many sitters has Pato missed this year untill now? Today he missed one 100% chance, one vs Marseille when he missed the ball...how many chances he actually had as a CF with this invalid squad behind him?? 5?

Please, Eto'o has been terribly mediocre this entire calender year, and honostly if you can't see it, then I doubt you have watched Barcelona that much last season. He has his moments of brilliance, no doubt, the CL final or the last goal he scored for Inter for instance, but most of the time his finishing is sub-par. Yes he scored alot of goals in Barcelona, but it's LA LIGA, the top strikers score 30+ goals, Forlan scored 32 goals last season, twice as much as he scored in his entire career in Manchester United. Eto'o's start in Italy hasn't really been all that either, he's scored 3 goals where one is a penalty, and as a matter of fact, that's as many goals from open play as Pato, and unlike Pato he's playing in a team that functions. We'll see how he's done after the whole season, but he still has loads to prove.

Also Ibra is pretty much tearing the league apart at the moment, he's already setting records, has scored in his first five games and on top of that he has craploads of assists. The same with Cristiano Ronaldo, I think it's fair to say that it's pretty easy for top strikers to score in La Liga. Anyone saying that Eto'o has anything on Ibra is out of their mind.

Originally Posted by LebRN

"extremely contentious dismissal"...that is what eurosport.yahoo.com is labeling the red card for Radovanovic!!!
i personally would like to applaud this referee for being one of very few with enough b**** to give yellow cards for shirt-tugging...Pato is always held like that and referees rarely give a card for it....i hope that German ref who handled our match against Zurich was watching and learning a bit...
we are poor enough on so many levels, at least have mercy on us in officiating :s

Was not it a last man tackle, we were on a break, there were two defenders, and pato, the defender pulls pato down, thats a last man tackle and a red card offense...

Again disappointing. How long will Leo last?

Originally Posted by jvig12183

and for all those who say leonardo's not to blame keep in mind we have drawn to a 10 man atalanta side, livorno, bari and lost to zurich. we don't have the players but we have better players than those teams. there is no chemistry on this team. huntelaar never plays more than 60 minutes, every game there is a new lineup. the preseason and training is for figuring out where and who to play, not league games.

but you can't blame Leonardo for the hollywood style pre-season we had

I've been completely out of touch this season so far.. can anyone tell me whether Pirlo is still playing as a defensive playmaker this season? I remember he was impressive as a trequartista for Italy during the qualifiers.. why isn't Leo playing him there? considering R80 or Seedorf haven't set the stage on fire.