Do you guys have any job vacancies open? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/innocent.gif)

Well, to be brutally honest, Sassuolo do have a pretty good record against us. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) They're about to better it too! Unless something absolutely magical happens in these dying minutes.

(IMG:http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/ah232/hannvis/milan-Sassuolostats_zps5de0bded.png)

Another terrible performance, just guileless

Incredible. All the clamor after the Napoli and Roma results, after the win against Madrid, after Cerci's signing, and this is how we play? Losing at home to Sassuolo. Nothing has changed, really. We're still the shitty team we were a month ago.

What's clear is the attitude of the players is all wrong here. V Napoli, Roma and Real we were totally up for it and fought like lions. Today we were pussies, pure and simple. Add to that Pippo's ghastly naive tactics and Sassuolo's wily counter attacking and we deservedly lost. That, today, is the real Milan, and we're all back down to earth with a horrible bump.

Ratings:

Lopez: 6 No chance with either goal, didn't have much to do otherwise in truth.

Rami: 3 Dire. Caught out of position again and again and while the guy is classy ON the ball, he's absolutely fucking useless as a defender.

Alex: 5 Struggled to keep order, and truthfully didn't manage to do so. His own work was good enough, but was unable to organise the shambles around him.

Zapata: 4 Ordinary. Poor on the ball, but then, always has been.

MDS: 3 Back to classic out of form MDS. Got forward ok but like Rami on the other side exposed the CBs frequently.

Poli: 4 Gets that 4 for his goal. Otherwise a really, really weak show from him, not his usual hard grafting self and faded even worse than normal in the second half.

Essien: 2 Terrible. No focus, no concentration, and slow.

Monto: 2 Back to last season's Monto. Cost us the first goal (in conjunction with a useless defence) and contributed absolutely nothing of quality in this match.

Bona: 5 Didn't hide but not a lot came off for him.

Menez: 3 After a bright first 10 minutes he turned into his old selfish me me me self. Went AWOL soon after. His stinking attitude is back, oh how we've missed it.

SES: 2 Usual SES when it's not a friendly.

Subs:

Cerci: 6 Oddly rather good in these circumstances. Bright, tried to make things happen and nearly scored.

Pazzo: 4 Made one excellent shot. Otherwise, not a lot.

Abate: NA not enough time.

Pippo: 0 After all his good progress today was an absolute disaster, tactically and formationally. If we weren't out of shape at the front we were caught again and again at the back. Pippo did nothing to change anything and it just continued after the break.

TOTAL. MESS.

I know what Han is thinking. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) We needed Mexès there. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) But agreed with the overall assessments. And besides, I've always believed that it took us a while to fall from grace, it's going to take more than one season in the right direction to get back to our best.

Unfortunately, we have the wrong man at the helm. Needed a much more mature coach at this juncture. Not someone that is learning (?) on the job. Imagine if you went out like this, no one would hire you!

Bona was the only player who really tried, I would give him a 6.5. The rest were rubbish.

I don't know if saying "tried" is right. I don't think the others were "not trying".

But I do admire Bona's perseverance. He might not be the greatest player around but he just makes up for that in so many different ways. He's very impressive in that regard.

With the rest, I just think they were bad, not for lack of trying, but just bad. From defenders to attackers. It felt like they were still digesting all the holiday food they ate

He didn't hide, but didn't produce much quality either. Effort without end product is kinda useless. I'm not going to score him higher than 5 just because he worked hard.

This is one match I can't blame Pippo. He selected what he had available, the formation was standard and all position bar Rami were the players usual comfort zones.

What I don't get is how this mentality still sticks on with us. I mean we start rather well, look dominant and confident, the score and afterwards throw all away step by step.

It's very frustrating to watch Milan like this. First you have the defense, where only Lopez stands out as a consistently good player. Zapata and Rami are like clones, you'll never know what to expect. One day the play fine, the next day the turn a horror show (see Bonera). De Sciligio hasn't been focused and defensively solid for quite some time, which makes us even less solid. Only Abate can be called reliable and Mexes to an extent.

Then you have the midfield, covered with either terrible players like Muntari and Essien or completely anonymous players like Poli, Montolivo,.. There's no true spark, no power, no vision. Just sheer mediocrity.

At last you have the strikers. Hopefully Cerci will humble Menez a bit, because right up until now Menez owned the show, and the fact that he knew this made him only even more selfish and self-centered. SES? What's there to say about him? Han are you really sure he can play a central role? Because he's drifting naturally to the left. And then you have a funny tactical situation with MDS and SES both running and sliding through while Menez dribbles, slowly progresses without even considering of passing the ball to the flanks, and then making the cross (or more often a direct shot) into a striker-less box zone. That's just like we shoot ourselves in the left foot.

Very depressing and very perplexing. I really see so little room for progress with this kind of team overall.

It's not that we don't have a good squad, decent. Not great. But even with this squad we should be more consistent and play with a different mentality. Inzaghi's job is not only to select players and formations. I, you, everyone could do that. His tactical approach, motivation and such are desperate. Time for someone with experience I think.

You make that first statement and then follow it with this...

The reason why SES was "drifting" to the left as you called it is because he was played on the left. We were using a standard 4-3-3, Bona was on the right, SES on the left and Menez was supposed to be the "false 9"

That's Pippo's no striker strategy. If SES is used as a winger, than naturally he'll play on the wing, problem with that is, Menez also naturally drifts there or goes very deep, which leaves us with no presence up front, hence shooting ourselves in the foot, the best chance we had came after Pazzo came on and he was used as a point of reference, atm, we don't have that. And instead of that being a pro for us because we're more difficult to defend against, we make it more easy for the opposition, which totally defeats the purpose of using the false 9

As I've kept saying now for a while, sometimes this Menez up top thing works out for us, but more often than not we struggle because there's no one up front. Either play SES there and give him a FIXED position in the centre or bring in a striker. Simple as.

This is all about tactics, that falls on Pippo

This really is one where the tactics let us down. Ok, the players initially crumpled after Monto's shocking pass gifted Sass a goal, but instead of changing the stupidly high line our FBs were playing Pippo just let it go as it was.

Time and time again Rami especially was caught miles up the pitch and Berardi, to name just one, was having a field day with it.

This was a strong first XI we put out there, and for the first 20 minutes it was a good display.

But soon as the goal went in we just ceased. That falls initially on the players. But the tactical failings thereafter fall very much on Pippo.

This was his worst performance as Milan boss, by a mile.

How hard would it have been to tell both Rami and MDS to stay back more and help out the CBs?

And yet he managed to get 3 excellent results v Napoli, Roma and Real?

The players today showed no courage, as if Sass were below them and they didn't need to try. A total lack of respect.

And Pippo's own naivety cost yet more.

Milan cannot only show up for, and be tactically solid for the big games. It's the bread and butter matches like today we need to produce as much for.

For me, the big problem was we played today with the same tactical counter attacking mentality as for those big 3 matches I mentioned, but while actually using the ball more than the players would expect for such a tactic.

It was like two gameplans fudged horribly into one match, and they both cancelled each other out.

Not just effort, he produced as well. But it's difficult making a difference when the rest of the players have their heads up their asses. Bona isn't exactly Messi, you know.