Milan - Torino, 15 Giornata...

I decided to open this thread, because I think we have something to discuss here after today's performance. Milan played like a school football team: we havent been sharp, we havent been fast, we had a lot of mistakes in defence and many other things.
Milan - Torino was supposed to be an easy game...but now I am not sure.
Gazzetta suggests the following line up:
-----------------Kalac----------------
--Bonera---Kaladze---Maldini---Janku--
-----Gourcuff---Brocchi---Seedorf-----
-----------------Kaka-----------------
---------Gila------------Inzaghi-------

Not only we are in a bad shape now...but we also ll have to play this game without Pirlo....

Jim you missed this one.

Originally Posted by rahul.acm

Jim you missed this one.

Oh, i m sorry! It was Jum's turn to open this thread?

Originally Posted by Egoistka

I decided to open this thread, because I think we have something to discuss here after today's performance. Milan played like a school football team: we havent been sharp, we havent been fast, we had a lot of mistakes in defence and many other things.

I would be worried if we played like that vs Torino.

We have to realize that this Lille game was totally meaningless for us and if there is something I am unhappy about it's that Carlo didn't field a team with 6-7 younsgters in it but still chose to play and thus risk tiredness and injury to players we desperately need healthy and fresh in the Serie A games from no to the winter break.

When was really the least time Milan won a meaningless game like this one? We played Celta, Deportivo, and Borussia D in Cl under the very same circumstances - we had already made sure that we'd finish top of the group - and we lost all those games after some heartless displays very much like the one tonight ... and in those seasons we were very solid as we were big favourits in both Serie A and CL.

that's why tonight's perfomance is hardly a reason for any worries in itself ... what we should concern ourselves about is if our performances and results don't improve significantly from now till late February when the CL will resume. We have to use this "gap" to our full advantage to concentrate on improving our league positiona and make up for as many points we've lost so far as possible.

A significant improvement in form - read perfomance and results - would also be necessary once the CL starts as the opponents will only get tougher from then on.
Just hope that till then we recover some players from injuries and add some players in January because we will need a full strength squad once the CL resumes and we have to again do battle on 2 fronts.

Originally Posted by zlatanov

I would be worried if we played like that vs Torino.

We have to realize that this Lille game was totally meaningless for us and if there is something I am unhappy about it's that Carlo didn't field a team with 6-7 younsgters in it but still chose to play and thus risk tiredness and injury to players we desperately need healthy and fresh in the Serie A games from no to the winter break.

When was really the least time Milan won a meaningless game like this one? We played Celta, Deportivo, and Borussia D in Cl under the very same circumstances - we had already made sure that we'd finish top of the group - and we lost all those games after some heartless displays very much like the night tonight ... and in those seasons we were very solid as we were big favourits in both Serie A and CL.

that's why tonight's perfomance is hardly a reason for any worries in itself ... what we should concern ourselves about is if our performances and results don't improve significantly from now till late February when the CL will resume. We have to use this "gap" to our full advantage to concentrate on improving our league positiona and make up for as many points we've lost so far.

A significant improvement in form - read perfomance and results - would also be necessary once the CL starts as the opponents will only get tougher from now on.
Just hope that till then we recover some players from injuries and add some players in January because we will need a full strength squad once the CL resumes and we have to again do battle on 2 fronts.

The thing is that we could have lost this game...but not like THAT! The performance was really bad...if we play like that against Torino - we will lose badly. And i also don't understand why we played Kaka tonight. Wasn't it better to let him rest, especially after his foot injury? Why didn't we play Gila? He needs to play in such games, because this is his chance to improve his form...And also many other WHY?...

Originally Posted by rahul.acm

Jim you missed this one.

yeah, I myself am still rubbing my eyes in disbelief

Originally Posted by Egoistka

The thing is that we could have lost this game...but not like THAT! The performance was really bad...if we play like that against Torino - we will lose badly. And i also don't understand why we played Kaka tonight. Wasn't it better to let him rest, especially after his foot injury? Why didn't we play Gila? He needs to play in such games, because this is his chance to improve his form...And also many other WHY?...

we lost this game namely because we played the we we did - without any alert in our actions whatsoever and visibly lacking concentration and desire to do anything more than just go through the motions ... nothing much dif than how we played those games vs Depor, Dortmund and Celta.
If we had played at 70% of how we can, we'd have never lost the game in this manner.

this year, there have been indeed some games in which we played OK to pretty well, while still we failed to get the result but this one wasn't one of them and I do believe we simply had no motivation or need to give it all today, we tried, but it's not easy for humans to give their best in a moment like this.

In short, we couldn't find the drive to play any better than the ridiculous at times perfomance we gave today and that's why we lost. And this game, I think, is just a one time thing and is hardly indicative of our true form at the moment - we may not be stellar right now but aren't so utterly clueless either.

Zlat remember that not all of the youngsters are registered to play in Europe. Still that is not an excuse for our poor performance but a 0-2 loss in an unimportant game shouldn't have triggered the responses I saw today.

No matter how insignificant a game may appear, it doesn't give the players a right to lose at San Siro. THE TEAM PLAYED BAD AGAINST LILLE! (As per Carlo, as he knows the best) It is complacency and pushing the defeats behind by calling them meaningless is making the matters worse. This way you do not give importance to the specific mistakes and they keep occurring. All the CL matches should be played with an objective of winning because playing in CL is a completely different world. You rely upon the past games to gain confidence and by looking at the Lille game, I am sure all the players who played today will feel discouraged if they happened to play in the semis or final.

We cannot afford to let any points slip through our hands at home. It has to be recalled that we are Milan who do not lose at home. We have to win this game and continue winning. Our players have to wake up, our strikers have to stop looking for those lucky foul calls and hopeless shots which makes us look like ****s and discourages other players, our midfielders like Seedorf and Pirlo have to get more consistent, Kalac has to realize that he is not playing for peruggia. Ancelotti has to start giving punisments to the players for not doing their jobs. I hope that by the time the Christmas holidays arrive, we gain some ground in the league and create some fear among our opponents in the CL.

Originally Posted by zlatanov

we lost this game namely because we played the we we did - without any alert in our actions whatsoever and visibly lacking concentration and desire to do anything more than just go through the motions ... nothing much dif than how we played those games vs Depor, Dortmund and Celta.
If we had played at 70% of how we can, we'd have never lost the game in this manner.

this year, there have been indeed some games in which we played OK to pretty well, while still we failed to get the result but this one wasn't one of them and I do believe we simply had no motivation or need to give it all today, we tried, but it's not easy for humans to give their best in a moment like this.

In short, we couldn't find the drive to play any better than the ridiculous at times perfomance we gave today and that's why we lost. And this game, I think, is just a one time thing and is hardly indicative of our true form at the moment - we may not be stellar right now but aren't so utterly clueless either.

Maybe, maybe...will see. I guess the game agaisnt Torino will show.

Originally Posted by Mystik

Zlat remember that not all of the youngsters are registered to play in Europe. Still that is not an excuse for our poor performance but a 0-2 loss in an unimportant game shouldn't have triggered the responses I saw today.

every team in CL can register 2 lists of players:
List A is the list of senior players we see being played in the CL games, number is limited to 25 players.
There is however a List B, which consists of players in the youth formations, who have to be born in 1985 at the earliest and have played for no less than 2 years for the team. The number of players in this List B is unlimited.
So, I believe that techincally we could have played with our youth formation today and still be within regulation.
I took the info from CL regulation on the uefa.com site.

Originally Posted by rahul.acm

No matter how insignificant a game may appear, it doesn't give the players a right to lose at San Siro. THE TEAM PLAYED BAD AGAINST LILLE! (As per Carlo, as he knows the best) It is complacency and pushing the defeats behind by calling them meaningless is making the matters worse. This way you do not give importance to the specific mistakes and they keep occurring. All the CL matches should be played with an objective of winning because playing in CL is a completely different world. You rely upon the past games to gain confidence and by looking at the Lille game, I am sure all the players who played today will feel discouraged if they happened to play in the semis or final.

We cannot afford to let any points slip through our hands at home. It has to be recalled that we are Milan who do not lose at home. We have to win this game and continue winning. Our players have to wake up, our strikers have to stop looking for those lucky foul calls and hopeless shots which makes us look like ****s and discourages other players, our midfielders like Seedorf and Pirlo have to get more consistent, Kalac has to realize that he is not playing for peruggia. Ancelotti has to start giving punisments to the players for not doing their jobs. I hope that by the time the Christmas holidays arrive, we gain some ground in the league and create some fear among our opponents in the CL.

I agree with you...we could not do that today, even though we knew we were through.
About continuing winning...I think we can win the game against Torino, but the next one against Fiorentina, I am afraid we canb hardly draw. I hope we ll win, but I watch Fiorentina sometimes...and they play better then we are at the moment.

Originally Posted by rahul.acm

No matter how insignificant a game may appear, it doesn't give the players a right to lose at San Siro. THE TEAM PLAYED BAD AGAINST LILLE!

Agree... Next week we'll hear milanistas dont show support on half empty stadium. Its one thing to loose but trying hard, its other to field the first team and play like u dont give a f*** about the game.

So yeah, i hope motivation and believe comes back somehow for the torino match or we're dead cold...

I'm with Zlatanov on this matter. The match against Lille had little interest to us, it was a completely meaningless match. The only positive we could have gotten from the match is had we'd actually tried hard and won, we'd have a little more confidence. However, that comes at a cost, including greater risk of injury and greater fatigue. This comes in ahead of what is becoming an important match against Torino, where we can finally start looking to bounce back domestically. We've moved forward in previous weeks and have won 2 games of 3, and now we can make it 3 games of 4.

The CL is an important tournament, but to put effort into matches which has nothing to offer would be unnecessary use of energy. I couldn't really care less about honouring the prestige and class of the tournament, we do what we have to and if that means literally giving away a win to opponents then so be it. Also, even had we won last night, it has little bearing on our future in the tournament, nor will it actually help morale for the next game in the tournament, as there's now such a huge gap. So again, it simply boils had we won last night, we'd have gotten a little confidence ahead of Torino, but that would be at a major cost considering how much more work would have to be put in (oh and I guess AEK people would be less agrieved at us, but I don't care about what they think).

I'm confident to say the least that the team will really perform better against Torino, and I expect a positive result.

FORZA MILAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ps - Can people stop swearing

There's always an excuse isn't there! If we play badly it's because we already qualified, because we weren't concentrating on this game but on the next one, because we didn't need to win, the loss doesn't need to be taken seriously as it was just a one off and we weren't playing anywhere near our 'best' form. What a load of rubbish.

If this is all true when can we start to worry and criticise? If yesterday's performance was a one off, then fine it could be explained away, but given how our seasons performances have been it can be considered the usual less than encouraging display. Yesterday they could have shown more heart, more passion, more courage and more pride ... yet they just wilted, it was a pathetic showing and this needs to be recognised and not dismissed as merely a blip.