Banter 2009/2010

Originally Posted by GeoTav

Even when pressed, when he crosses, it's often good if not great crosses.

Having Tremoulinas here could be a solution: Antonini as first choice (that would be fair, because with what he has showed, he deserves to have the starting spot for the next season), Tremoulinas as second choice, and as Antonini is often injured, Tremoulinas would then have several chances to take that first spot ... and that would also allow Leo to do some rotation.

If you sais so, I think the chance is small. Bordeaux will not sell their important player for less than 10M.

Originally Posted by Revolver

... I can say two that come close: Cordoba and Alex. And though Cordoba was world-class but he isn't anymore, ..

Cordoba -> Ivan Cordoba? Im sorry but I disagree that he is world class even though Im a bit confused here what we refer to WC player

Pretty good game by Gourcuff today Geo...scored a nice free kick and almost scored a similar but even more beautiful free kick. His all-round play has matured a lot under Blanc as well and he's just generally a joy to watch, especially in the CL. You think there's any chance of him leaving Bordeaux anytime soon? Has the French media ever asked him about a return to Milan?

Originally Posted by Mystik

Pretty good game by Gourcuff today Geo...scored a nice free kick and almost scored a similar but even more beautiful free kick. His all-round play has matured a lot under Blanc as well and he's just generally a joy to watch, especially in the CL. You think there's any chance of him leaving Bordeaux anytime soon? Has the French media ever asked him about a return to Milan?

Well, there was actually rumor a while ago that he would follow Blanc to Inter.

After watching recent matches, I come up with another conclusion about what postion that need upgrade the most.

IMO, not CB, FB or CF, the position we need WC player the most is AMC, the player to replace Seedorf.

The base of my theory is: we attack the most efficently when all three directions left – right – center are the real threat to opponent. The trident is not Dinho – Borri – Pato, but Dinho – Seedorf – Pato. The three can shot and dribble through defense. In addition, Dinho has the creativity, Seedorf could hold the ball and Pato has the speed. Against them, defenders are diverted, CF will have more space and time.

Beck does not have the speed or break through skills (he’s never had), Pirlo with other DMs make the midfield flat, Abate has different task and Mancini is an unknown value (mostly bad).

However, when Seedorf plays, we need the help of Borri as Seedorf is slow and lazy.

We still played well with only Dinho and Pato against small, midtable teams, but inform Seedorf provided more for the attack.

In both return match with Inter and MU, we lost both Nesta and Pato, but in reality, the missing of Seedorf was important, too. I though, against Inter, Nesta means 1 goal less and Pato means 1 goal more, but Seedorf means about 0,5 goal more, so we really has the chance to win.

If Seedorf is absent, we still have two wings: Dinho and Pato. There was no problem against small teams. But the backline of four was born to deal with wing attack, big team has good enough FBs to take care of our wingers. Evra & Da Silva + Rio did well to prevent Pato & Dinho. We were unlucky, but they made enough pressure to our forward. Watched Dinho full power shoot be stopped by Val der Sar, I knew we lacked the real effective weapon.

In matches like this, we need the attack at center. This not only give more options, but also divert the concentration of opponens, wingers has more chance to show their strength. It is ironical that recent years we were prominent at center with Kaka, Seedorf but had almost no wing. Today, the wings are main treat but no real central power.

Wingers mean the players can dribble pass defender, not only cross at long range like Beck and Dinho when he faces good RB. Long range cross is slow & easy to predict, with this time, good CB can mark our CF well, and the world class one can eat our CF alive. If the crosser make CB harder to reach the ball, our forward find more difficult to score, too. They really had only half-chance. Borri against Inter, Hunter & Pipo against MU. We can have more examples in Adebayor (MU-Arsenal-CL), Eto (Barca-Chelsea) and most recent Drogba (Inter). With all the respect to Dzeko, I do not think he is better than Ade, Eto & Drog. Even we had him instead, we still lost as he himself could not score with only half chance, if he could, Wolfsburg has the place of CSKA and Bosnia would take part in WC2010. I repeat, no underestimating here, but no CF, being marked tightly by CB, could score as the only hope of attacking.

So I think Pippo is not finished, Hunter is not bad. They were just helpless against well prepared CBs.

Of course, with Pato we play better, but big team has good FBs and they do have good wingers, too. So the difference is the center.

However, Seedorf is inconsistent, slow, lazy, which means CF must have the addition task to help him because the distance between them is long if the CF waits at the highest position. Of course, if Seedorf plays with 100%, it is different story. There was no problem if the CF is Sheva, but noway Gilardino could provide the same as him. Borri is good at helping but he is not a clinical finisher. So Dinho – Seedorf – Pato – Borri is still not a receipt to success.

CF with passing skill like Ibra, Dzeko will surely help. Howerver, 1) The task of real CF is scoring, 2) He is still stucked between CBs if the wings are locked and no help through the center or center is locked and the wings has no power (no team could keep good defense at both wings and center all the time). We already have good wings with Dinho and Pato, now we need the true attacker at the centre.

With the supply of the wings and centre, penalty box striker like Hunter really can become top scorer. I do not think Millito is any better than him. He has some abilities but Hunter has his strong point, too.

So, the first thing I want to conclude is: a WC AMC can help the attacking the best. If he accomplish the task along with Dinho & Pato, Hunter is more than enough to CF position.

Second, WC or WC potential AMC is easer to find, and therefore, cheaper than rare CF like Dzeko.

Third, AMC normally is fast, skillful and can adapt to other position, ex: at the wing.

Fourth, GK, FBs, CBs, DMs, Wingers, CF (believe in Hunter) all have good, consistent first team player.

I can name many of them:
1. Impossible mission: Sneijder, Diego, Totti, Gerrard, Iniesta
2. Costly: Hernanes, Jovetic, Hamsik, Honda, Ribery
3. Was not treated well: Van der Vaart
4. Memories: Kaka, Gourcuff
… Just a few

First team:
---------------------Abbiati------------------------
--Abate-------Nesta---------Silva--------Antonini--
-------------Pirlo--------------Ambrosini-----------
---------------------WC AMC----------------------
--Pato-------------------------------------Dinho--
---------------------Hunter------------------------

Second team (to easier to watch the sub, formation might wrong):
---------------------Storari------------------------
--Oddo-------Bonera---------Astori----------Zam--
------------Gattuso-------------Flamini------------
---------------------Seedorf----------------------
--Adiyiah---------------------------------Paloschi--
---------------------Borriello-----------------------

22 player and: Roma, Yepes, Diniz, Gooch = 26

It is just a squad with minimal changes. In reality, it will be bigger and better and IMO, I keep WC AMC as the most priority.

You know what is going to be really funny. If Gourcuff manages to lead Bordeaux to win the CL, then win the Ligue 1 and then leads France to WC winner. If he manages to do that, he will no doubt win all the Player of the Year awards by year's end.

Wonder what will Galli say then.

Also I think Gourcuff has prove that he is a big game player and much better than all the midfielders in Milan. It is really funny how the whole world knows that Milan must bring in new midfielders for next season and yet, they just kicked arguably the best one out their door for 15mil.
In the current market, 15mil will probably get someone VDV instead of someone like Gourcuff.

Originally Posted by Gabriel489

You know what is going to be really funny. If Gourcuff manages to lead Bordeaux to win the CL, then win the Ligue 1 and then leads France to WC winner. If he manages to do that, he will no doubt win all the Player of the Year awards by year's end.

Wonder what will Galli say then.

Also I think Gourcuff has prove that he is a big game player and much better than all the midfielders in Milan. It is really funny how the whole world knows that Milan must bring in new midfielders for next season and yet, they just kicked arguably the best one out their door for 15mil.
In the current market, 15mil will probably get someone VDV instead of someone like Gourcuff.

You know what's sad? Even a vdV would have improved our squad greatly.

Either way, we need another CB coming next year... have a look at the situation now! Nesta is gone for next game, so is Bonera, so is Zambrotta (lack of fitness), so is Onyewu..... So we have to use Favalli. (Seems to me we wouldn't use Kala anyway)

If we get 5 million for Astori, let it be.... We use that to help us get another quality CB. Even better if we sell Kala for around 5 mil. as well, but most likely, galliani will resign the "champion."

Anybody else think Kaladze is pulling the same crap Gattuso pulled couple of months ago to get an extension? Rumor has it that Kaladze has a lot of investments like night clubs and restaurants in milan and that is why he never wanted to leave even though he wasn't playing much.

Originally Posted by slifersd

Anybody else think Kaladze is pulling the same crap Gattuso pulled couple of months ago to get an extension? Rumor has it that Kaladze has a lot of investments like night clubs and restaurants in milan and that is why he never wanted to leave even though he wasn't playing much.

he can go to Inter for all I care...or maybe Atalanta in Bergamo which 20 minutes from Milano...

Originally Posted by kastriot

he can go to Inter for all I care...or maybe Atalanta in Bergamo which 20 minutes from Milano...

Oh come on, Inter is not stupid enough to sign that loser. Unlike us, they don't actually make it a habit to sign unwanted garbage from other teams.

Originally Posted by Mystik

Pretty good game by Gourcuff today Geo...scored a nice free kick and almost scored a similar but even more beautiful free kick. His all-round play has matured a lot under Blanc as well and he's just generally a joy to watch, especially in the CL. You think there's any chance of him leaving Bordeaux anytime soon? Has the French media ever asked him about a return to Milan?

To be honest, it was his first (very) good game since weeks and weeks !!
It's not a good season for him, but if he comes back to his real level right now, it's perfect for Bordeaux, because it's not a good time for this club (they've done like Inter, even better and now worse: they were 1st at +6 and 2 games in hand some weeks ago, really easy, and they are now 1st at +0 and 1 game in hand).

They asked once or twice and he replied that the idea of coming back to Milan someday could become true. But if he does, I don't think that will happen in a very near future. If Blanc leaves at the end of this season, Gourcuff will leave for sure (and I think guys like Tremoulinas, Chamakh and/or Fernando in midfield will take the leaving bandwagon). If Blanc stays (and I think a very good result in CL should secure the fact that Blanc stays, it's my opinion), well, most of the players should stay one more year.

kastriot, other rumours are because Kaladze is almost a part of the family of Berlusconi (or the contrary ). Said like that, we could think "What ?! He's his secret son ?!" ...

Originally Posted by Gabriel489

You know what is going to be really funny. If Gourcuff manages to lead Bordeaux to win the CL, then win the Ligue 1 and then leads France to WC winner. If he manages to do that, he will no doubt win all the Player of the Year awards by year's end.

Wonder what will Galli say then.

Also I think Gourcuff has prove that he is a big game player and much better than all the midfielders in Milan. It is really funny how the whole world knows that Milan must bring in new midfielders for next season and yet, they just kicked arguably the best one out their door for 15mil.
In the current market, 15mil will probably get someone VDV instead of someone like Gourcuff.

No way: France can't win the WC !!
Then, for CL, I don't think they will win it, but who knows, it's 1/8 of chances for each team, and with some luck, Bordeaux can play against Lyon or CSKA Moscow (if I say it in another way: the inexperienced teams can play each other in 1/4 finals, allowing one of them to qualify in 1/2 finals, and who knows what can happen).
And about Ligue 1, they're far to be the winners (explanation in my previous post).

Gourcuff was a big part of the last year succes of Bordeaux, but this season, it's more the team as a whole, because Gourcuff has been very unconsistent (as I said: it was his first good game in 2010 yesterday) ...

Agree that last night may be Gourcuff first good/great game in 2010. But he was byfar the best player in the world from Sept 09 till the winter break.

As for CL. I really think this will the year for a small team to win, much like Porto did back in 04. Just look at the last 8.
Barcelona, ManU, Bayern and Inter are the only so call big teams.
Arsenal and Lyon are really either top tier 2nd grade team or just make it to call themselves 1st grade team.
Then you have Bordeaux and Sparta Moscow.

It will be interesting to see how the draw will be. Hopefully two of the top four teams will play against each other.

La Gazzetta dello Sport, reports about several market options of Ac Milan, for the back line.

Rossoneri are observing Mario Yepes (34), with whom there could be yet an agreement. For the player in co-ownership, Davide Astori (23), according to what declared by Marroccu, Milan can buy the full property for almost 15 millon euros.

The defenders which can leave Milan are Favalli, Kaladze and Oniewu.

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Another old freebie to replace a decomposed and another freebie who spent 99% of his time on the treatment table? Is it just me or there isn't any revolution in tis case?