Milan's Biggest Need + Crisis Solution + Don't blame management

Originally Posted by Debs

Dev....excellent post, excellent analysis. You should be a sports writer!

Confidence is always an issue--such an intangible yet oh so obvious when we lack it. Sad thing is, I have no clue how you build it or restore it...other than to win a few games! Our lack of summer mercato doesn't help us any...but Idon't need to belabor that fact, we're all too well aware of it. I have no answers...

thanks to you and dru! Sports writing isn't something I'm interested in lol, especially as I might get grouped together with writers like those of goal.com and tribalfootball

Originally Posted by Jim_UK

Warro, i know you can't predict injuries but you can prepare for them by making a squad able to cope should something happen. Even i, with my limited knowledge of football management can see that having only 3 genuine strikers in your squad (Ronaldo, Inzaghi & Gilardino), of which 2 are injury prone and 1 has lost his confidence, is not enough to stretch through an entire season.

That is a genuine and quite a glaring mistake.

Not when you have made the concession to "allow" your coach to play with one striker...in a one striker formation, 4 strikers is too much, and 3 just enuf....worse when a young striker is on the way, who would be willing to take the bench, then we have a surplus.

If you play with 2 strikers continuously, then there is a glaring need for 4 in the squad.

Interesting that you state: "genuine"....meaning..not intentional?

As I said before...we would have been fine, had R99 not gotten his mysterious injury, and importantly, having said injury treated properly.

How do you prepare for that? Would Luca Toni, et al, have been willing to be behind R99, Gila, and Pippo? To sit on the bench, possibly lose their international place, to pick pine splinters from their backsides? I wouldnt, thats for sure.

Look, its easy when we are in a "crisis" to point fingers...but how will that help? Will it make us feel better to have identified the "culprit"? What will it solve?

I think the majority of us here realise that our management, while being a tad "overconfident", (after last season´s UCL) mean well, and want well for the club...I was heartened that there were no "votes of support" from the board for Carlo, who, IMO, doesnt need it.

What he needs is a fit Ronaldo, a working, thinking Gourcuff, Gila to finish properly, Kaka to take his chances, likewise Clarence, and more penetration from the DMs when we are attacking.

There are so many "factors" that have led to us being in this situation....to place the blame firmly at Management´s door-step, and soley so, is disingenius, and rather short-sighted, and shows a total lack of understanding of what modern club football at the highest level is all about.

Originally Posted by Warro Bantan

What he needs is a fit Ronaldo

The problem is that a 'fit Ronaldo' is amost a science fiction entity.

Originally posted by jeff

NIce post will4li.

Rotation will work, yes, but then I dno't expect much since we have the likes of Cafu and Favalli on the bench who, unfortunately, seem not so ready to play a full 90 minutes.

Old age perhaps... but I guess it's more about the lack of enthusiasm....

Jeff,you pinpointed main part of influence-makers(which is kind fixable) behind the scene.

We are real old; no fix, winter market is next jan.We lack enthusiasm; no fix,It's a nature course to encounter mental fatigue when you get all trothies in pocket.you just need a break to get remotivated especially in so busy a schedule of modern soccer.

Other than rotation, I see no other options except just wait in patience for odds to change.the concern is that we mightbe 10 point drift behind when odds do go our way.
rotation will solve all syndromes we are suffering if the policy works.Worth a gamble since field starters in a roll already fails.What we can do for the team is that make sure be patient when the policy byproduces undesirable effects occassionally. And keep it in mind always! what you are asking for milan team is a hattrick(at least CL champion and seriea both) in a single season.

Originally Posted by Warro Bantan

Not when you have made the concession to "allow" your coach to play with one striker...in a one striker formation, 4 strikers is too much, and 3 just enuf....worse when a young striker is on the way, who would be willing to take the bench, then we have a surplus.

If you play with 2 strikers continuously, then there is a glaring need for 4 in the squad.

Interesting that you state: "genuine"....meaning..not intentional?

As I said before...we would have been fine, had R99 not gotten his mysterious injury, and importantly, having said injury treated properly.

How do you prepare for that? Would Luca Toni, et al, have been willing to be behind R99, Gila, and Pippo? To sit on the bench, possibly lose their international place, to pick pine splinters from their backsides? I wouldnt, thats for sure.

Look, its easy when we are in a "crisis" to point fingers...but how will that help? Will it make us feel better to have identified the "culprit"? What will it solve?

I think the majority of us here realise that our management, while being a tad "overconfident", (after last season´s UCL) mean well, and want well for the club...I was heartened that there were no "votes of support" from the board for Carlo, who, IMO, doesnt need it.

What he needs is a fit Ronaldo, a working, thinking Gourcuff, Gila to finish properly, Kaka to take his chances, likewise Clarence, and more penetration from the DMs when we are attacking.

There are so many "factors" that have led to us being in this situation....to place the blame firmly at Management´s door-step, and soley so, is disingenius, and rather short-sighted, and shows a total lack of understanding of what modern club football at the highest level is all about.

Nice one warro
I have to agree with u that the availability of ronaldo from the start of the season might solve some of the pproblem we had. Unfortunately his injury turn from bad to worse. To me it's fine with having two strikers as initially the plan was to have ronaldo/gila or ronaldo/pippo but since his injury there's no way playing pippo/gila at the same time.
Seeing gourcuff more on the field is something that i would like to see.
I hope the so called crisis we have now will open the eyes of the management. Guys, please realised that the management we have here is the one that have gave us a lot all these past years.

Originally Posted by sveto

There is no crisis, it is just a bad period that Milan is goung thru and it will go through
The solution for all of us is just to shut up and support the team,
Patience,Patience and Patience.
I will not be surprised if we beat Lazio on Sunday( which is by the way Dida's birthday)
FORZA MILAN

Well, if President Silvio Berlusconi says “this is the darkest crisis since I became President”, then i think it's safe to say it's time that everyone acknowledges things. We are indeed in crisis!

Like the chinese proverb says, the first step to wisdom is to say i'm really stupid....

Originally Posted by will4li

Originally posted by jeff


Jeff,you pinpointed main part of influence-makers(which is kind fixable) behind the scene.

We are real old; no fix, winter market is next jan.We lack enthusiasm; no fix,It's a nature course to encounter mental fatigue when you get all trothies in pocket.you just need a break to get remotivated especially in so busy a schedule of modern soccer.

Other than rotation, I see no other options except just wait in patience for odds to change.the concern is that we mightbe 10 point drift behind when odds do go our way.
rotation will solve all syndromes we are suffering if the policy works.Worth a gamble since field starters in a roll already fails.What we can do for the team is that make sure be patient when the policy byproduces undesirable effects occassionally. And keep it in mind always! what you are asking for milan team is a hattrick(at least CL champion and seriea both) in a single season.

Well, rotating players is one of Carlo's weakness, he doesn't! That's why everytime we bring in fresh blood, they are usually out of the door the very next season. They soon realize there's almost no chance of taking the places of Pirlo, Seedorf, with exception to Kaka which i don't think anyone will be thinking they can replace.

Carlo will play a semi-fit Seedorf, Pirlo, Gattuso etc etc and even stick with them thru bad patches for long period...

Again, it's the 'we are a family' policy... i guess every player will need to ask themselves are they the sons/daughters or are they the distant 2nd cousins....

Berlusconi's darkest day


Milan patron Silvio Berlusconi has called this “the darkest crisis since I became President” after disastrous results in Serie A and Europe.

The Champions League holders have picked up just four points from their last five domestic matches and crashed to a shock 2-1 defeat at Celtic on Wednesday.

“The situation is pitch black. This is the first real crisis since I took over and, in fact, it’s the worst since I became President of this club,” stated Berlusconi, who has been at the helm for 20 years.

Carlo Ancelotti can feel slightly nervous, as the patron has never been fond of his tactical ideals, but Berlusconi did try to reassure the fans.

“I think some of the causes are refereeing errors and a certain amount of bad luck. I confidently await the return to fitness of Ronaldo and Alexandre Pato’s debut. His teammates have spoken very highly of him.”

Pato was signed during the summer for £10m, but as he was only 17 he cannot be legally registered for competition until the next transfer window in January.

Ronaldo has not played at all in official tournaments this season due to a long-running injury saga.

Milan’s campaign had started very brightly with a 3-0 victory away to Genoa – to date their only win in Serie A – the European Super Cup win against Sevilla and a 2-1 Champions League result with Benfica.


http://www.channel4.com/sport/footba...lia/oct6d.html
---------------------------------------------------


Its clear that Uncle Silvio is not happy, but do you guys think their solution is to sit and wait for Ronaldo/Pato to come back, find their form, blend in, etc, or will they jump into the market and give us a couple of quality signings this january?

I don't understand why Berlu said that this is the darkest period since he became president as I recalled we've been in worse situation back in 96 when we bought Kluivert, Davids, Reiziger (who were expected to be the next Dutch trio) and yet miserably ended up in 13/14 for two seasons in a row. Perhaps the media just twisted the words but I could be wrong.

About the rotation it's really difficult to break into the midfield sector as solid as Kaka-Pirlo-Seedorf-Rino b/c they've been gelling one to another for more than 3 years, and it's even more difficult for the new recruits (Dhorassoo, Vogel, even Gorky) to do so b/c they came from different leagues and need time to adapt. And to make life harder for them our midfield quartet rarely get injured.

I think our scheme is a bit predictable especially in serie-A where the opponents (especially the minnows) often put 9 men behind the ball. Fielding 2 DMs in the same time are useless IMO as the opponents rely solely on counter attack without planning to control ball posession.

I think we should take a more aggressive approach toward the game. Since we can't use 2 strikers at least until Ronaldo is healthy, it'll be better if we play with only one DM and include AM like Gorky more often, and tell our full backs like Marek and Oddo to pay attention mainly on the defense as it's kinda useless to charge forward providing crosses as there's only one striker in the box.

Originally Posted by Mehdi

I know most of us has been calling for a deeper squad for some time but after reaching 3 EC finals in 5 years obviously management felt the policy was working.

The policy used in the last 2 summer's was different than the ones that was always there. The one they had usually was making a quality signing and a couple of freebies that might be of use to the team. That was the policy after we had a huge spending spree in the market the year before with Pippo, Rui Costa, Nesta and those.

The policy used this summer and the last was different than previous years. We didnt even get any old freebies! All we got is Emerson, who I think is very useful. Pato has been bought for January so the management had known he is not going to be available for 4 months. And they should know how injury prone Pippo and Ronaldo are, and yet the gave Oliveira to Zaragoza on loan. Really every time and every way I think of it, the management are guilty.

Absolutely, if management can sit there and bask in the glory of European Cup victory, then they must take responsibility when the team loses.

Transfer policies have to be dynamic, not static. Management needed to look a couple of years (at least) into the future and start making changes NOW, not wait until the team crashes out of competitions. They have failed to do that, and if we dont have problems now, we will certainly do so in the future, if their policy continues as such.

As for Pato, it would be extremely unfair on the 18 year old, if our club president and us the fans were counting on him to turn things round. The guy has NO experience in European football and just signed his first professional contract, it would be crazy to expect him to shoulder such a big burden. His is TRULY one for the future. The person who needs to start delivvering now, is Gila, who managment keeps saying is for the future, well for me, Gila's future is now, if he doesnt deliver, then he is wasting squad space and should be shipped out, even at a loss.

Yes we are in crisis, there is no doubting that. The solution? IMO, things need to be done in the winter mercato:

1) A new, established striker is a PRIORITY. Let Pato take his time to develop, and if Gila does not deliver, let him sit and sulk on the bench. We need a solid alternative to Pippo and Ronaldo, our only 2 reliable, yet hugely injury prone strikers. Makes me regret not getting Suazo this summer, he would have been perfect.

2) I think our midfield is pretty much sorted out. The only thing that needs to be done is rotation. Pirlo needs to rest more, else he'll be completely burned out come March. Same for Seedorf and Kaka. I would play Gourcuff and Emerson much more than Carlo is doing now.

3) Our biggest weakness is in defense, and not central defense as everyone seems to think. Nesta, Kaladze, Maldini, Simic, Bonera is as solid and experienced as you need to cover the 2 centerback spots. What we need are reliable backup wing backs. Oddo and Janku are starting material IMO, but Cafu and Favalli are WAAY past it. Notice how many times our wingbacks win us games by pushing forward and making nice crosses? I almost never see that when Favalli and Cafu are playing. Let's forget about Zambrotta and go and get the next promising up and coming right and left backs and give them a shot as back ups.

4) Gk. If Dida continues in this vain, then replacing him is a priority, otherwise we end up working our butts off to score a goal, and then concede one in the last second from a freekick on the halfway line (remember Bayern's goal last year?).

Originally Posted by Warro Bantan

entire post

I think you gloss over the failings far too easily and i think you're wrong, but i won't sit here and argue with you.

is simple what we need... a good striker coz Pipo is 35, ronaldo most of the time have injury, Glia can't score continually, and Pato is good but maybe is still to young, i think Huntelar,then a difender coz grande Maldini can't play in evry game and i do not see Kalaze as good replacement so barzagli or Mexes are great zambrotta too and a goalkeeer maybe good option is Amelia... Opinions???

Sidentoe: our topic threads are a little bit fragmented so I merged some of the posts together. - J