[Fillipo Simone]

Important match. I hope Pastore performs just like the last few matches.

[han2503]

Don't be ridiculous. If you see how Mourinho played Inter last season and how he plays Madrid now, you'll realize he plays a very offensive 4-2-3-1, with two defensive midfielders in front of the defense, one of which has the duty to organize the game (Thiago Motta, Xabi Alonso), and one to act as a sort of "water carrier" for the other (Cambiasso, Khedira). The rest of the line-up is purely offensive. Two wingers, one trequartista and one striker. Compare it to how're playing now, and you'll notice a huge difference. It's true that Mourinho's teams also a have a very good defensive mentality, but that's because he manages to incite his players to play a very coral game i.e. defending in 11 players and attacking in 11 players. That's not how we play. We defend with 3 players and attack with 3 players, leaving a huge gap in midfield, which accompanied by the scarce quality of our midfielders, leads us to play a very ugly and catenaccario football.

Exactly!!

Also notice that Khedira+Alonso, Motta+Cambiasso are nothing like our DMs, yes esentially they are called that, but while we have DMs that are just destroyers and lack any footballing quality, those 2 pairs of DMs are very modern DMs, they can acually play football, they win the ball, make a great pass, move forward. We play with essentially 3 destroyers who don't know how to make a pass long then a meter without messing it up. Cambiasso for example aside from all his defensive qualities, has attacking qualites that enable him to move the ball forward smartly and accurately, same goes for Khedira. While Alonso imo is not even a DM, he's like Pirlo, plays in the position but is not that, he's a passer, he's a creative player. You can't really compare our DMs to those.

Fact here is that Allegri has had options and he still plays the terrible midfield because it makes him feel secure, even though we're left with practically no rythem to our game, just punt it up and hope for the best. That's Allegri's tactic.