Sampdoria - AC Milan (Saturday, 27-11-10: 17:00 CET)

[Xudong]

The first half was not great. neither team's play was smooth, but I am just happy that we managed to score. I particularly liked it when I saw Robinho celebrating the goal with Ronaldinho.

[Bosniaco]

Bravo Robi !!!!

Good goal by Milan.

I feel that the player have to scriface much more when we dont have Pirlo, Dinho, Pato on the field. They have to wrok twice as harder. Earn their money

[Ryo]

Have this game live on cable TV, so will only be posting at half time and full time.

That said, the first half was excellent from our point of view, bar a few things:

1.) With the current system, my heart doesn't completely stop whenever the opponents, in this case Sampdoria, are in posession of the ball. Why? Because we harry and pressure them all over the pitch. Whenever they have the ball, there are at least two players trying to win it back at one time. We shut down their passing lanes so effectively, I'm expecting them to lose the ball back to us, or to mistime passes to conceed posession to us.

2.) Nesta is tired. Three times this match I watched him misjudge a flick or a long ball to let in Pazzini. In each case, he was saved by our quick-thinking Abate (twice) or our ever-omnipresent Thiago. But in each of those three defensive phases, we really could have lost out, had the Samp offense brought their shooting boots today (0 shots on target for them so far). That said....

3.) Abate is truly a revelation this season. I enjoyed watching him last year for his tireless energy and his passion for the shirt. This season I can proudly add that he has added great defensive work along with those other qualities. His interceptions as mentioned above, saved Nesta twice from any embarrasing blushes, and he even had the sense on the 38th or so minute, to play an offside trap as the last defender! This is seriously way more than I would have ever expected from him, his improvement rate in defense over one and a half seasons is phenomenal! If there was a best improved player award, I seriously would give it to him.

4.) Our attack tonight has been imperious. Not one shot so far has been off target, and had their keeper not been so on form, we should probably be up 4-0 by now. That said, we need to maintain our momentum and score more goals, or else we may be susceptable to any set plays from them (yes, those are the only times I actually worry about us conceeding).

5.) Despite the good defense and stunning attack play, you can visibly see that the team is working at 70% right now. We don't particularly speed up play, and maintain ball posession more when the passing options are all blocked. All in all, I like this team where everyone knows what to do and when to do it, and we're conserving energy in the process as well. The only qualm I have so far is that Boateng has been losing the ball a bit too much tonight, leading us to expend more needless energy recovering.

All in all, we need to keep this up for the second half and theres no reason why we can't beat Samp by a larger margin than 1 goal.

[Bosniaco]

I kind of knew this was going to happen. 1:1

[Bosniaco]

I hate how Alegri does his subs so late, my god.

[OCmilano]

Put in some fire into the game. Come on R80 come on Flamini for Gattuso.

[OCmilano]

NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW Alegri

[OCmilano]

Shot to early seedorf. Shtttttttttttttttt

[OCmilano]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Bosniaco]

85th min no subs hellllllooooooooooooooooo

[Bosniaco]

Allegri thinks he is still at Cagliari and satisfied with a draw

[hitmannq8]

first sub at 89:50 seconds.... double sub ronaldinho + flamini

damnit allegri you've been doing good with the team so far but how the F can't you see some changes had to be made? damnit ... and damn seedorf

[Bosniaco]

Robi almost scored my god

[OCmilano]

Great double sub at the end.

[Jeff]

Not a bad game by Milan. Though we drew, I think we did well. Keep up the good work.