[Fillipo Simone]

Well, IMO there's the "good" group and the "bad" group.

Balo, Abate, de Jong, Mexes and Zapata were good. My vote goes to Zapata who was flawless.

The bad group includes Emo, Montolivo, Muntari.

Abbiati was tragic, yet my flop goes to Montolivo who has been poor overall this match, whereas Abbiati made one horrible howler, while making some good saves earlier on.

[Fillipo Simone]

IMO doing the minimum is not enough to be good. Especially when you are the sole creative force and the team captain. Yes, he managed to move the ball - but he was unable to manage the team. The problem is: while Muntari and de Jong ain't capable of constantly creating and making good passes, Montolivo is. So when Muntari fails at this task, it's expected or normal. But it shouldn't be normal for Montolivo. So yes - if judged and compared with Muntari, Riccardo did good. But for creative players standards, he had a poor game. Poli brought in more vividness and spirit then Monty had all game long.

[han2503]

IMO doing the minimum is not enough to be good. Especially when you are the sole creative force and the team captain. Yes, he managed to move the ball - but he was unable to manage the team. The problem is: while Muntari and de Jong ain't capable of constantly creating and making good passes, Montolivo is. So when Muntari fails at this task, it's expected or normal. But it shouldn't be normal for Montolivo. So yes - if judged and compared with Muntari, Riccardo did good. But for creative players standards, he had a poor game. Poli brought in more vividness and spirit then Monty had all game long.

But that is not Monto's game.

I've had this discussion with someone in the Serie A thread, and I said that Poli simply cannot be used as Monto's alternaive because they're completely different players. Monto is crucial for us because he dictates our game, Poli is simply not that. Think of it this way, if Monto is what Xavi is to Barca, Poli is Iniesta .i.e he makes runs and quick one-twos, gets into forwards areas, etc. Monto is simply not that. So it's pointless to talk about them in a comparative context, personally I think BOTH should be playing but with Allegri I wouldn't count on it happening any time soon.

I understand what you're saying in regards to what our expectations of Monto should be, but I'm just giving him the benefit of the doubt for this game because he's clearly not at 100%, and I took that into consideration when I said that I thought his performance fell into the good category