I only watched the first half. Nothing special, but we were a tad superior to Sao Paolo. I honestly don't think these friendlies can indicate anything, because we lack too many important players. But still, we managed to beat Valencia and Sao Paolo, and if you take away the first 35 minutes against City, we scored three goals and wasted a shitload of opportunities afterwards.

I agree,still not convinced by the shape of the team but like you say it's early days. Unfortunately i don't really have a lot of time or patience for Allegri so whatever he does i'll be unconvinced

Highlights

Kingsley looks really good.

25 seconds into the video... You are right jack s. Vergara could turn out to be a big signing for us. That was a well taken gamble on Milan's part.

EU place WELL SPENT!

Agreed about Allegri

Regarding the shape of the team, yeah, it's getting pretty old now, it seems that we cannot keep our shape for an extended period of time, things not working switch to a wide 4-3-3 and punt the sh!t out of the ball and hope it reaches something. Same thing we saw last season basically.

Allegri's fetish with the formation is seriously tiring. Especially when we have zero wingers on this team. SES yesterday showed what he can really do playing close to goal. He got into good positions on both the right side of the attack and the left, today aside from a couple of link-ups with Petagna it was the same old isolated Stephan as last season.

I know we have a lot of missing players atm, but still these games need to be spent perfecting the system we'll be playing next season. The personnel shouldn't matter too much, it's how Allegri applies the system so he can understand what tactics need to be used, etc.

For all we know we could be starting the season with this group of players but we could also be starting the season with Honda and Ljajic (please god) in the team.

!!! Most def.

This post has been edited by Jack Bauer: Aug 1 2013, 11:48 PM

I'd say personnel does matter. He played 4-3-3 today because we had no attacking mid. Boateng has played every game so far, he had to rest. What, you wanted him to pay Emanuelson as AM again? Let's wait till we sign Honda (and hopefully Ljajic), Saponara recovers, and then we'll understand Allegri's clear intentions.

Don't know if you saw the whole game, but there were some worrying signs in regards to Vergara. He takes too much time on the ball, at one point in the first half he spent an entire 2 minutes with the ball running back and forth trying to decide who to pass it to and he lost out and created a dangerous situation for us. And I noticed this against Man City as well but he managed to avoid getting caught out then.

I think he's still way too green to tell if he'll be good or not, there are promising signs and not so promising signs


He could have tried SES there, if I'm not mistaken he played that position in Serie B and most of us thought he was an AM when we signed him. It's not like Boateng is a good alternative at AM anyway, he's been horrible so far throughout this pre-season playing in that position

One look at that player and I KNOW he is not Milan material. Reminds me of a younger more inexperienced version of Acerbi.

Ah, okay, I hadn't watched the highlights vid so I thought you were being serious.

Personally I was more impressed with Pacifico than Vergara.

Have to say, there are some really promising players on the Primavera team. Petagna, Pacifico, K. Boateng and Cristante have been impressive when they've played this season.

Cristante has made a few mistakes but I think it's mostly the pressure he has on him since he's a full member of the senior team while the others are freer knowing they're going back to the Primavera squad after this so there isn't as much pressure.

I think it's wrong to judge a player after 1 or 2 pre-season games. especially when he is a kid who perhaps feels like a stranger and is not comfortable where everything is different. his mistakes at the beginning of that video were cringeworthy, but perhaps that's not how bad he is. but I understand forming an opinion on new players right away is in fashion so we can say I told you so if we were right about them. I do it too.

Oh come on, whether on the wings or in the hole it's the same for SES. He can't dribble and doesn't have enough creativity and vision to pull it off.

At least it's not a constant switch of formations and tactics.

At this point it doesn't matter that much if he plays well there or not, it's getting back into shape and being match fit for the season that's important

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhotp3kT5A8