Bright side? Naah, I was prepared to "look at the bright side" last season when I've already crossed the season off my calender after 10 matches - saying it's a total miss. But doing so again...that's simply unacceptable (though inevitable). We're simply wasting too much time - years with Allegri. That's really bad for a club with the reputation of Milan.


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What's he suppose to do you ask? For starters, he should try making the same mistake for the n-th time. Also, he should learn to adapt and not constantly harp on a degraded system who is clearly not functioning and hasn't got the player selection to work. And that's just the two starting remarks. I can enlist you another dozen memo's to Allegri, but what's the point, really.


I don't blame it on Abbiati at all. Toni's headers and movement is quite hard to catch, but firstly Constant should have done better with dealing Janković and secondly Zapata with the header.

Our CBs are fine..they were put under heavy pressure when Verona countered. Various instances, I remember Zapata and Mexes having 3-4 players running at them. Not that they didn't do any mistakes though.
The whole system was wrong imo, I can't pinpoint it but I guess Montolivo at DM wasn't ideal.

Ideal? It was terrible. But that's the problem with Monto. You can't put him as a AM, you can't put him in the deeper Pirlo position. In the end, you have to adapt the whole damn system to his needs, but he isn't exactly Pirlo so it's highly questionable if it pays out. Sure, a team like Fiorentina could afford it. And sure, Italy with De Rossi and Pirlo around can use Monto as a bonus. But you can't depend on him. He's simply said not that good.

Oh yes, new poll here

Couldn't agree more ... Every-time I watch him play in our midfield I reminisce on Clarence :/

How can you NOT blame him??

He was standing nearly in the centre of the goal when Toni hit the ball, had he been properly positioned he would have easily got that.

It's so typical of him to make an amazing save one minute and then completely messes up in the next. He's just not good enough anymore. Next summer we need to fix our goal keeping situation first thing


Yes the problem was with Monto, but again, it goes down to tactics, if you're going to make the entire midfield 3 push up + the fullbacks as well then these counters are inevitable. If Allegri was going to have Monto basically joining the attack then he should have made Nocerino and Poli drop behind him, simple. It was basically Abbiate, Mexes, Zapata sitting back, and the rest all pushing up. So what do you expect really?


I find your criticism of Monto to be OTT at times Fillipo.

Monto wasn't the problem, it was the retarded, back assed system we were playing that was the problem. He played in both the holding and mezzala roles last season to perfection, something Pirlo could never or would never do. He plays as an AM for Italy as well, how much more versatile do you want him to be exactly?

The problem yesterday was the system as I explained above, plus him playing a bad game as well (which I'm not denying) everyone is entitled to bad games, everyone was terrible yesterday, not just him

Yeah, I totally agree. No denying Monto was bad though. Same story with how our CBs looked amateurish because of the immense pressure when we were counter attacked. I thought the problem was so obvious in the first half that Allegri would have certainly fixed in the second one.

Yes, the problem is with the system. But I'm simply said not satisfied with Montolivo's effort and performances.

He's played badly for Italy as an AM, it's hardly a good example. And you say he's played his position last season to perfection? In 31 Serie A games he made 4 assists? That's just too little if you ask me. He just isn't creative enough - and that's the point: he's a good asset in a team that can find plenty of energy and creativity elsewhere. But when all comes down to him, he's nothing special.

Games against England and Germany for Italy in the Euros show how great he can still be playing as the AM.

But that's the thing, he's not going to make a whole lot of assists playing where he does on the pitch, it's pointless to debate that. He's not about the assists, his game is about conducting play, controlling the temp, etc. How many assists did Pirlo notch up each season with us for that matter?

I agree, so far he hasn't been playing in the same level he did last season, but it's not like we've played 10 games, we've only played 2 games so far.

Also, I said he played both the regista and mezzala positions last season to perfection when we needed to switch him around due to injuries and such

Agreed. He played excellent against Barcelona as well - but this just comes to rarely. In the meantime he's full of performances like yesterday: half-heated, too many mistakes, too little effort and lacking quality (in the final pass, precision and shooting ability).

In this system, and with this team, he's absolute king. No one can do what he's doing, so I expect more.

Pirlo? He made a total of 16 assists last season. In 06/07 he made 10 assists with us, next season it was 11, and the following 6. But it was a team that had other sources of scoring and assisting goals. Get Pirlo into this team, and I'm sure he'd make more then 10 assists per season.

And that's what I mean. Montolivo is good, he's the best we have right now. I'm just not enchanted with the man, IMO he leaves too much to be desired for.

He played excellent in a lot of games last season, not just Barca. That's why he earned the armband, with merit. I don't see yesterday's game as half hearted, it was mostly a bad performance not due to desire or lack-there-of but due to form and fitness levels which are still a bit off.

Pirlo at Juve is a different entity to what Pirlo at Milan was. He plays a totally different game at Juve.

What Monto does is similar to what Pirlo used to do with us, i.e his game is more about pulling strings and controlling the tempo rather than being the final assist man. And no matter who you have around you, one player simply cannot do both. That's why we need a proper trequartista because no matter what Monto does it still won't be enough. Also, Pirlo took all the corners and free-kicks when he was here, while Monto doesn't so that does skew the assist ratio a bit