Juventus vs Milan 10/1, week 19

Agree with mrki.
Diego is a classic No. 10. While Melo is somewhere between Pirlo and Gattuso.
From last night game or this season sofar, I think it is safe to say that Juve really miss Moggi.

I mean, matching fixing...aside, this man knows talent and also know how to sell crap as gold-just ask Inter about that.

Dev, i'm feeling the same way. I don't know if I want to force Pirlo back as part of the 2 anymore. I'd rather have him share that midfield role with Seedorf, maybe alternate one game for each, but that's asking too much. They might coexist at home against a Siena, but not against better teams. I like the balance of the past few games. I'm not sure if its all because of Ambro/Gattuso, or because Pirlo drops back a lot, or even because of Beckham... Maybe it's all three, but i'd rather not mess with it now.

For me the real stars were Nesta and Silva. Both of them didnt even put a foot wrong. Neither teams played the way they are known to play. Silva s been immaculate and he s just the perfect replacement for our Capitano. Both sides were scared to attack and the team which eventually held their nerves won it. I cant imagine what it would be like if one of em were injured. Need to reinforce our CB department more than anything else.

Originally Posted by tim_milan

For me the real stars were Nesta and Silva.

yeap, these guys + Ronaldinho made the difference.
we seriously need a backup central defender.

Bonera's no good?

players' efforts in the game versus Juventus
http://www.voteplayers.com/Matches/J...2010-6131.aspx

great result, 3 points... however let's not kid ourselves because our performance was far from great...all 3 goals were bad mistakes by their defenders, remember that. if milan play like that against any other big european team we will get thrashed...

here's my notes:
- thiago silva, that game is the game where we see him turn from a very good defender into a great one..his confidence was high and i believe it's only going to improve from now on.
- gattuso, how can people say he was so good? he gave away like 11 balls away recklessly...however he did improve in the few minutes he played in the second half.....still, flamini must start ahead of him.
- abate, his first good performance as a defender..he defended very well but wasnt great going up front...however let's not be as stupid as our management and believe that he is good enough to start now that he had one good performance....
- pirlo, a much better game by his standards, but tactically poor in my opinion...yes he didnt give the ball away, yes he stopped a couple of their attacks, but in this formation, pirlo is supposed to be the link between midfield and attack....the reason we sucked yesterday was because we had no one to connect from midfield to attack.... IMO, Pirlo did not interpret Seedorf's role well enough tactically
- leonardo must learn to use his other players in the squad...boriello can not do it all the time...yes boriello played well, but he was supposed to sub on pippo or huntelaar around the 70-75th minute and not the 85th....he must start giving chances to other players. proper chances.
- beckham, did not play so well but his corners and freekicks were very good...he had 3 assists I believe!

I think we're harsh on Borriello, me included. There's a little a striker can do when tightly man-marked, especially when he's marked by classy defender like Cannavaro. I remember Eto'o in last year's CL semi-finals, he's obviously one of the best strikers of his generation, and he hardly connected with the ball with Alex marking him. And Alex, though great defender, surely isn't among world elite, which Cannavaro surely is, though he's not the player he once was. Then, this year, Gamberini completely erased Fernando Torres from the pitch on his own.

Considering he was tightly marked by Cannavaro, with Chiellini helping him, he did a good job, he was dangerous in few situations, for example Beckham's chance, when the ball was crossed to Borriello, with both Canna and Chiellini on him, failing to clear the ball, then Manninger's mistake when he didn't scored only because bad decision making, when he decided to shade the ball instead of shooting immediately with his right.

Borriello isn't a poacher like Hunter, not to mention Inzaghi, but he's very talented striker and we shouldn't write him off until he gets a proper chance to prove himself. He'll have a chance in February against Manchester.

Originally Posted by hitmannq8

- pirlo, a much better game by his standards, but tactically poor in my opinion...yes he didnt give the ball away, yes he stopped a couple of their attacks, but in this formation, pirlo is supposed to be the link between midfield and attack....the reason we sucked yesterday was because we had no one to connect from midfield to attack.... IMO, Pirlo did not interpret Seedorf's role well enough tactically
- leonardo must learn to use his other players in the squad...boriello can not do it all the time...yes boriello played well, but he was supposed to sub on pippo or huntelaar around the 70-75th minute and not the 85th....he must start giving chances to other players. proper chances.
- beckham, did not play so well but his corners and freekicks were very good...he had 3 assists I believe!

the 1st 2 goals were corners from Pirlo (although we really have to credit Melo with the 1st assist ) the 3rd was from Beckham.
So i guess Pirlo did contribute offensively if u consider his 2 assists, but i agree with u, he did not interpret Seedorf's role offensively but that was because he always had to go back to receive the ball from the defenders especially in the 1st half because that was necessary given the pressure put on Gattuso and Ambrosini and so it was better to have the ball with Pirlo.

As for giving the chance to Huntelaar in the 75th minute, the reason we make substitutions is to improve the team to perform the way we need: we did not need to score and we needed to prevent Juve from having chances and we already were doing that. don't get me wrong, i would love to see Huntelaar given a decent chance, but we were 2-0 up, and the team had excellent balance and were in total control so, for me, there is no need to change anything at that point and there won't be any good out of it because Huntelaar would get nothing out of running around for 10 mins against Juve.
Remember the night before when Malesani took out Reginaldo so Mourinho had Samuel go up to play as a striker???

Originally Posted by hitmannq8

- pirlo, a much better game by his standards, but tactically poor in my opinion...yes he didnt give the ball away, yes he stopped a couple of their attacks, but in this formation, pirlo is supposed to be the link between midfield and attack....the reason we sucked yesterday was because we had no one to connect from midfield to attack.... IMO, Pirlo did not interpret Seedorf's role well enough tactically
- leonardo must learn to use his other players in the squad...boriello can not do it all the time...yes boriello played well, but he was supposed to sub on pippo or huntelaar around the 70-75th minute and not the 85th....he must start giving chances to other players. proper chances.
- beckham, did not play so well but his corners and freekicks were very good...he had 3 assists I believe!

Agree with u on that. I know its not fair to sub ur in-form striker(boriello for Huntlaar). Well Huntlaar is class and i believe he needs more playing time. Guess he needs to be a little patient. Unlucky for him, Boriello s doing well.

Well IMO we need both Pirlo and Seedorf to bridge our defence with the attack. Thats one reason why we didnt score those goals that we should have been scoring against Juve.

Any news on Pato?? How long is he going to be out?? Just cant wait to see play.

Originally Posted by brk

Bonera's no good?

Well he s good. But the question is : Is he as good as Nesta and Silva??

About this debate on Pirlo bridging between midfield and attack, I agree and disagree with this argument. Pirlo imo can and probably should push up more when playing in this role, as it will give further options to our attack and make him a greater threat.

However, with him staying deep he managed to add stability in our midfield in a match where he and our side was pressed a lot by Juve.

Against Genoa, it was different, as we were afforded space which Ambrosini and Pirlo regularly exploited by pushing forward at different moments. I think if Pirlo plays Seedorf's role, we need to make sure we'll frequently have a midfielder from deep ready to push forward, as Pirlo tends to drift a lot more.

That said, Pato's return will be important too, as Borriello drops deep a lot and with Beckham we have few players willing to get into the box. When Pato returns he should be much more likely to cut into the box when Borri drops deep.

What surprises me at the moment is this mad panic Juve have gotten into following this latest setback. Ancelotti described it well when he said Leo's got an experienced management behind him and Ferrara's not. This is showing now as when we were really poor, Leo was well supported within the club and despite the results at the time, I doubt his job was seriously under threat. Meanwhile at Juve they've started having press silences, the manager is saying he's uncertain as to what will happen now and no one seems to be taking charge to control the situation.

Even with their problems, Juve must acknowledge they're 3rd in the league and have the ability to play good football (this was seen at the start of the season). Ferrara needs support from the management and players and he now needs to play his team to it's strengths, just as Leo did to turn things around. For them this latest loss must be taken in perspective, as they were facing the most in form team in Serie A.

Instead, Juve are reacting terribly to this whole situation and are looking like they will seriously struggle until Ferrara is out. Unfortunately, it's a lack of experience that's costing them rather than ability. When Ranieri was in charge, they may not have had a top class coach, but he is well experienced and added stability. Now they may well have a coach who is potentially better (given Ferrara to Juve was a lot like Baresi for us in playing days), but they cannot react correctly to events.

About Pirlo vs Clarence:

The difference and the reason of this cohesion in the midfield in last 2 games is in Pirlo's movement. Pirlo does play in front of DM's but he plays seriousely and moves like he should. Moves back, left, right and vertical when needed.

In my oppinion, Seedorf is moving below any needed level and his walking (!!) is not acceptable and is causing problems as we play with 2 man midfield in which one of those 2 is Pirlo.

We do have more up front, but that is becouse Seedorf simply stays in front of the back 4 and 2 in mid and plays with Dinho, PAto and CF like he is an AM.

But, maybe we are actually more dangerous as a well balanced team that is able to defend high up the field, press and control possesion without suffering so much in the middle and allowing opponents to shoot 10 times per game withn 25m from goal coz of unbalanced midfield.

I would rather see Beckham infront of Pirlo-DM, then Seedorf. Most of all I'd like to see Pirlo in front of Ambrosini and one modern player that can actually pass, but we lack that one ( J.Zannetti ). Or Pirlo as a deep midfielder with DM, plus one in front who can move. SEedorf cant move anymore and that is, in my wiew, unnaceptable.

I honostly was expecting Diego to do alot better at Juventus, but I think he still has the potential to become a great player and they should hang on to him. What I don't get is Melo, they didn't need him at all, and I never understood why they bought him. They had Sissoko, Poulsen, Marchisio who are all excellent DM's, who can also all play some good football. I know everybody in Italy likes to take slaps at Poulsen, but don't let that fool you, he's the most hated player in the country, but he's not a bad player, not at all.

What I don't get is why can they even consider playing Poulsen, Melo and Marchisio??? It seems to me like they bought Melo to playmake, which he really isn't that good at, instead they should've bought someone who can actually play ball in my opinion. Also Melo had been a bit of a one season wonder in my opinion, and was at the time being overhyped because of his excellent Confederations Cup.

I am very happy after yesterday,i missed the first half because i was learning for my exams,i didnt knew the standing of the first half,so i checked and saw that Nesta scored and we were 0-1 up at HT.I was so happy,even though i could have expected that i still was suprised!

I went home and watched the second half.Well it was a game with many foules(especially from JuBe side)and mistakes.But what do you guys expected?This games are always a war,you cant string 3 passes together because there is constant pressure and fouls.Did someone watched the Juve-Inter game earlier this season,it was a total chaos...

Still i am happy with the outcome,sure we didnt play well,but please people let us not get carried away here,we did what we had to do: Trash Jube in their own stadium.And they couldnt put us under pressure except for the first minutes.

We played well,we did what we had to do,and now we are the only rival for Printer for the Scudetto.