Empoli close again

Balo passing to nobody

As Expected, another lost opportunity

KPB on

Good move by Abate, but another wasted opportunity

... and we are lucky to come out of this with a point.

Such a waste. We should have won this game.

It's obvious we'll never progress throughout this season.

Add this to a long list of missed opportunities, and you have the story for the season. Spent lots of money in the summer and we are marginally better off than last year (if that).

The commentators at the beginning of the game highlighted the difference in player salaries between the two teams. Don't remember the exact numbers, but it was something like 10-to-1 (a little over 10M to well over 100M), yet Empoli was the better team form most of the match (arguably we played better then them for maybe 15 minutes at the start of the 2nd half).

Finally, hate to disagree with some of you, but IMHO Saponara would have made a good addition to our team (if we kept him and gave him half a chance). As I see it, he has the creativity we are missing in mid-field.

I really don't think that's the case about Saponara, obviously we're talking about a hypothetical situation here, but Saponara really does strike me as the type of player who really thrives at a team like Empoli but simply struggles at a team like Milan where expectations are much higher

I guess we can only see who's right here once he gets the big money move to Juve or maybe Inter. But I personally don't think he'd succeed and certainly won't produce like he currently is. But that's just the feeling I get when I watch him play now, compared to how he did play back when he was given opportunities with us

You may well be right. As I see it, however, we really did not give him much of an opportunity, and that's not how you develop a young player. If he keeps going the way he played yesterday, I believe he has a reasonable chance at a big team.

To my other point, we are still 6th, which makes our poor results against (what should be) lesser teams even more frustrating. Turn 3-4 of our ties to wins, and we would have been up there with Fiorentina and Juve challenging for a CL spot.

This post has been edited by Forza Milan!: Jan 24 2016, 05:03 PM

Saponara was a beast yesterday. But, I do agree with Han here. He played pretty bad when he got the chance here, except that Inter match. He was also sidelined with injury most of the time. I don't know if that's just bad luck or bad youth development.

These "If"s are big ones guys. I honestly think Miha has done better than the other coaches as he has reached a certain stability and employed a system. But, so many of our essential problems are still there. We still can't get a hold of the ball and control the game. The build up play on the attack is really starting look good, and we're creating decent chances. But, there is no control on the field. It's disappointing since we could've done so much better with a 1-2 key signings. But, oh well, I feel like a parrot.

I think it's Mihajlović who's holding us back. With a little more understanding of the midfield-attack link we'd be a much stronger team.

I guess we can never really say, I really do hope Juve sign him so we can see how he does there, but personally speaking he just gives me that Cerci/Candreva type of vibe.

Remember Giovinco? He was amazing at Parma when Juve sent him out on loans but never really was capable of breaking through with them, Sapo really does remind me of him


Totally agree there, our lack of tempo control in midfield is what does us in, we are simply incapable of just putting our foot on the ball to calm things down, we usually make the situation worse as we tend to get sucked into playing even more erratically the more the opposition presses us and runs at us, so that equals even more mistakes, more turnovers, more counterattacks and more opportunities for our opponents to create chances.

I personally think this is a combination of things. First off, the quality in midfield is dire, with Monto being the only guy capable of at least attempting anything relating to controlling the tempo, but he's really not that good at it, all the other mids we have tend to rush it too much which in turn causes the situations mentioned above. I remember back in the day when we had Pirlo and Seedorf in there we could literally turn the game to a crawling pace when we wanted to and speed it up to one touch, free flowing movements when we needed to as well. We simply don't have the quality to do that atm so we suffer a lot when the opposition presses us and forces us into silly errors.

The other reason I personally think is the formation we're using, it's fine and all when we're in control and the opposition back off and let us play, like what happened against Lazio or Fiorentina for example. But when we're pressured, the lack of and defensive cover in that midfield is completely exposed. Look at both goals against Empoli and the one against Bologna, we're cut through with barely any effort from either team as Honda, Bona and one of the 2 central mids is caught out too high up the pitch and it's basically one mid running back and just the 4 defenders (if that when the FBs push up we get even more outnumbered)

Btw guys, Coppa game is tomorrow, we can keep the convos in here though, no need for another 2 page thread