Milan - Juventus (30/10 - 20:45)

jovola i dont know why you keep going back to 2006/2007 season...that season we were downright abysmal.... we barely made it to fourth spot in Serie A, we also won the CL barely... we were really crap throughout and had a couple of favourable draws in the CL until we beat bayern (where we drew leg 1 at home), man utd (where we lost leg 1) and then liverpool (where the difference was a lucky pippo deflection)...

If you want to set examples, look at 2002/2003 until 2005/2006 seasons, where we were challenging for Scudetto and CL for most of the years until the end.

You make it seem as if nothing's wrong at the moment when in fact we bought two of the best strikers in the world and we still haven't seen them play great together. Our amazing youth prospect Pato who was excelling for us before suddenly doesn't know how to play any more, Ibra can't find the goal for some reason, and Robinho isn't as dominant as he was at Real and Brazil.

It's clear that something's wrong and the easiest thing to do is point at the coach - and that's what everyones doing. I'm not saying it actually is his fault, but my personal belief is that this coach is definitely no Capello or Sacchi.

There was nothing barely in taking CL that year and the teams you mention were and are the top of euro football, in Serie A we had -8 for the calcipoli.So it is hard to judge that result.

The point is that i will be happier to see them click in spring then now as that is the most important period. For this part of the season the results are ok, if we boost later.

Originally Posted by ACMILAN1983

Robinho only showed up for the last 20 minutes in the match, otherwise he was completely anonymous through the match and didn't even help defensively, normally a positive feature of his game. Also, Robinho's dominance was due to him attacking down Juve's right, where they had Pepe defending, so it's really no surprise he was penetrating more than our other players.

If we're talking about Robinho playing a big hand in Ibra's goal, then does that mean Antonini who set up the goal and frequently at the end overlapped to get into good crossing positions had a good game? I would say no. Did Pato and Pirlo who set up Ibra for guilt edged chances have good games? Again, I think the answer is no.

For all his good work at the end, Robinho was poor overall yesterday. In fact, not many of our players actually played a good or even average game. The irony being that on the whole, the team didn't actually play a bad game either.

Every player of Ac Milan can be said to have had a bad game because Milan lost. Robinho had a great second half and it made a difference. The entire offense was completely shut down and Robinho was the only thing going on for Milan. He was penetrating and crossing and teeing of Antonini time after time. Its no surprise that the eventual Milan goal came from his play. The lay off to Antonini was clever as it left him with plenty of time to make the perfect cross. the run leading to the pass was also clever.
Since Football is a low scoring game, forwards cannot be judged on how active they were all night. Its their moment of brilliance that makes the difference. Ibra had a decent game as well because he scored. His job is simply to score. Robinhos job is simply to create plays. Both did their jobs. Antonini is different because he is also a defender. He has to be judged by what he does on both ends.

the difference between 2006/2007 season was we had the god of soccer on our team - kaka , lets not forget we wouldve been kicked out on aggregate if it wasnt for his solo BRILLIANCE against manu and that beautiful pass to inzaghi vs liverpool. i know soccer is won with 11 men on the field - but lets face it when you have a player like kaka hes a game changer.. we need one of those.. kaka, at patos age was scoring solo goals, anyone remember that goal against fenerbahce? yea.. ganso should be a top priority.. time being robinho should get maximum playing time..

Originally Posted by GeoTav

No matter the age of the players we have, I think Allegri should start to rotate everywhere on the pitch and involve everyone in this long season ...

Pato or not Pato, Ibrahimovic or not Ibrahimovic, if they look tired, if they perform bad, we have other players in attack to replace them.

There are so many possible combinations that are possible up front that we should be able to score against any type of defence ...

Inzaghi - Robinho supported by Ronaldinho
Robinho and Pato behind Inzaghi or Ibrahimovic
Ibra - Pato supported by Ronaldinho
Ibra - Pato supported by Robinho
Ibra - Robinho supported by Ronaldinho
...

Inzaghi is not an option.. Milan tried Ronaldinho and Inzaghi several time and it has never worked. Besides his age, Inzaghi doesnt have the talent to control or convert any of Ronaldinho's through balls.

we should try pato supporting binho and ibra see how it goes

Originally Posted by fLame

I just feel like I have to post because some of the latest posts have been massively idiotic.

First things first - if you think that Pato is our problem, then excuse me sir - you are an idiot.
I even have a simple undeniable proof to that - name at least one Brazil / AC Milan game where the team did well and Pato did crappy? Hmmm... anyone?

Our problem is a sh**ty midfield and a sh**ty coach that doesn't realize how sh**ty our midfield is. And you know what? I am yet to see a striker who plays well with a sh**ty midfield...

Moving on to idiocy #2 - many people here assume that we can take a good player from another team and he will no doubt be world class for us. Hamsik? Seriously? looooooool.

I know you are high from watching every Brazil prospect playing amazing sambo football and scoring 40 yard screamers. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those prospects turn out average at best in a top club.

Every year we have new prospects like Neymar and people start day dreaming about selling a settled star Pato, for the promise of a someone who played a couple of great games in Brazil league.

I rest my case.

I see what you mean.. Pato is no way the problem. Infact non of the forwards are the problem. You asked a simple logical question.. is their a game Milan played well and Pato played sh..ty? The guy just recently performed brilliantly for Brazil. Pato is as good as the opportunities he is afforded. The coach is to blame.

Originally Posted by jovola

There was nothing barely in taking CL that year and the teams you mention were and are the top of euro football, in Serie A we had -8 for the calcipoli.So it is hard to judge that result.

The point is that i will be happier to see them click in spring then now as that is the most important period. For this part of the season the results are ok, if we boost later.

First of all, we began the season at -9 points, which was then reduced to -3 points on appeal. Still, we were terrible that season. Milan should never be struggling to make it to fourth spot.

In Champs League we were terrible dude, TERRIBLE. We relied on individual brilliance of Kaka too many times and he was the best player in the world back then because of how greatly he lifted us.

What you are trying to say is that - everything is ok at the moment if we play well in spring.

What I'm trying to say - no, it's not good enough. The team doesn't look like it's clicking, and players are performing worse and worse as the season goes on (Ibra, Pato, Prince, Pirlo, Gattuso, Antonini, Ronaldinho) just off the top of my head.


kogalo, good post about attackers/defenders. I completely agree that Robinho was better than the rest of the team, but he was still far from his usual self - however he is on the right track. Post here more often

Originally Posted by Reza

The next person to use insults will be forced to look at the Inter logo for a week (computer wallpaper)

So please stop and just disagree without insulting.

Excuse me, as you posted after my post, and I posted after Kastriot's (both of you and Kastriot posted warning about insults) may I ask whether my post contained what you perceived as insults or not? Because if not, I don't see why you needed to repeat the same warning (from Kastriot).

Woah........ this is nuts
Our players haven't even started fighting amongst each other and our fans are already at each others throats!

Everyone is gonna have opinions about who or what the problem with us is when things are going bad, but can't we wait till the game is over before we start bashing about which season we had is the worst in the last decade?

If we win this, we still have a strong fighting chance to progress, and everyones gonna be behind the team again (how fickle are we all :P)

Lose this, and we potentially get kicked out at the group stages. I don't want to even think about a worst case scenario right now, and talking about how bad we were in the past half decade doesn't help either.

Can we stick to the topic here? The game one Wednesday evening guys?

I agree with hitmann, but I think its more down to Allegri having a problem in motivating our superstars than anything else. If the past two matches are any indication. I didn't find us particularly good against Napoli dispite the win, and against Juve I thought that although credit must be given to Juve for cutting off our passing lanes, the passes we normally make (when everyone is on form) are actually much better than those which went astray against those Zebras.

I watched both matches live and one thing I noticed was that the team seem extremely disjointed going forward. Once we get to a point in the attack, Gattuso or Pirlo both have a tendancy to pass back and slow things down, regardless of whether we are winning, drawn or losing. Its frustrating when I see Boateng or Antonini running up expecting a pass, only to slow down when they run offside, and are forced to walk back to our half. I mean, yes we keep posession, but we're not dangerous at all.

I maintain my opinion that our Milan with Allegri at the helm just seems...... too passive most games.... Only Robinho has been pushing the team forward. Even Ibra has been suspect walking around in the middle of the park. We have problems in pressuring other teams. I noticed that we never seem to be able to take the ball off opponents feet unless we're desperately defending in our own penalty box. This is not good enough. We lose enough balls being pressured off the pitch, and yet we cannot do the same to our opponents. Its a small wonder why no one really fears playing us anymore.
We have Flams and Prince who can instill that sort of fear and pressure to opponents, and yet we never even try using them together. Its frustrating, because we have the means to be great, yet our esteemed coach never even considers it.

In my opinion, Allegri is the problem, and so far nothing I've seen has proved me otherwise. Even when results go our way, its more down to individual brilliance (Robinho, Ibra, Pato goals all examples) than actual great team play. Can anyone at all give me an example, bar the first game, where we actually scored by stringing more than 3 dangerous passes together?

That, in my opinion, has to change. Unfortunately I just don't see Allegri as the man to change it.

Originally Posted by kogalo

Every player of Ac Milan can be said to have had a bad game because Milan lost. Robinho had a great second half and it made a difference. The entire offense was completely shut down and Robinho was the only thing going on for Milan. He was penetrating and crossing and teeing of Antonini time after time. Its no surprise that the eventual Milan goal came from his play. The lay off to Antonini was clever as it left him with plenty of time to make the perfect cross. the run leading to the pass was also clever.
Since Football is a low scoring game, forwards cannot be judged on how active they were all night. Its their moment of brilliance that makes the difference. Ibra had a decent game as well because he scored. His job is simply to score. Robinhos job is simply to create plays. Both did their jobs. Antonini is different because he is also a defender. He has to be judged by what he does on both ends.

No, not every Milan player had a bad game. I'd argue Nesta, Rino and Abbiati were at the very least solid, if not good.

Robinho had a good 20 minutes, during which time we were creating, but we created throughout the whole match. Besides this 20 minutes, he was completely anonymous. It's no surprise we scored from his side mostly because Juve were very weak that side, it wasn't Robinho's brilliance that helped us score, it was Juve's faults.

To simply judge performances on individual moments in a match is a poor way of assessing games. Ibra's sole job isn't to score, it's also to create and provide an outlet up front. He did his job on the whole, but at the same time he missed numerous great chances to score which could have made the game easy for us (might I add that according to your logic of his role to score, he failed multiple times before finally succeeding once). Robinho's role isn't to solely create (which again I stress he did for only 20 minutes), it is also to move with guile to open up opponents and support the midfield defensively. He failed in both accounts.

A performance should be judged on how the individual performs within the system throughout the match, not on what they do in individual moments.

Originally Posted by Reza

It was a poor joke, punishment for insulting. No I can't do anything like that.

What would be funny is instead of banning ppl, forcing them to change their avatars to a I <3 Inter avatar....I'm sure that would get everybody on their best behaviour

Originally Posted by drucurl

What would be funny is instead of banning ppl, forcing them to change their avatars to a I <3 Inter avatar....I'm sure that would get everybody on their best behaviour

That's actually doable

Well at least Inter is making us happy this season

Originally Posted by Ryo

Woah........ this is nuts
Our players haven't even started fighting amongst each other and our fans are already at each others throats!

Should come as no surprise to anyone who's been here a while.