[Fillipo Simone]

MoM goes to Rami IMO. Very good showing, if this wasn't just a happy coincidence, we should think of combining him and Abate as our main fullbacks. IMO Mexes and MDS were good as well, Lopez especially. Zapata made a slightly less convincing appearance.

Flop was between Muntari and SES for obvious reasons. Han compared Stephans miss with Icardi's, but it wasn't quite the same. Still, my pick is Muntari.

[Fillipo Simone]

SES has, generally, been very poor for 2 years now. He's had maybe a handful of acceptable performances. His lack of ability/mistakes are obviously not as costly to the team as he's higher up the field. But people try to find the positives in his performances, when they'll look for the negatives in the same quality of performance for lesser liked players.

He's just bad.

Thing is, out of those 2 years, half and more was spent being injured or recuperating. All I wanted to say is, let's cut him some slack. He's one of the more talented and younger players we have around him, so I won't shout "he's just bad" yet. For that we have Muntari (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Nah, man, the hustle and bustle that he puts up in every match is not effort. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) That's the minimum requirement, and while it is good to see the guy putting in the steps all the time, or always, as you put it, that's not what I meant. Flamini put this in every time he was here, and look where that took him.

Where? I never liked Flamini, but the guy was plagued with injuries and as soon as he managed to escape the vicious cycle he turned up for Milan and played actually good. So what's the example here? I really think we made a mistake by letting him go: he wasn't anything special and had a big salary, but he'd be surely better then both Essien and Muntari.

What I need to see is effort and SES trying to develop his game, failing and then picking himself up, asserting himself on the pitch, enhancing his game reading skills and visions, as well as his dribbling, pace and finishing. Keep on improving as any young player should and he'll get there.

Yeah well, let's give him time, shall we? I don't get why you fall into these fix and petrified judgments already?

Han beat you to it, my friend, and I've answered part of your question above. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif) Lazy he is not, but crazy he is a bit, in that he is wasting time developing his game. His skills repertoire. As of this writing, at least for me, his range and talent is lower than Balotelli, let alone Pato.

Does he have time? Oh plenty. But with this attitude, he is just going to end up being a pedestrian player. We've all seen guys like him that failed to do justice to the break they got by being lulled into a false sense of security. Injuries haven't helped, I know, but were SES developing his game, concretely, it would have shown.

Now you see, I think people just like to construct this attitude problem. Where exactly did SES show attitude problems and where does his mentality offers especially negative examples? People don't like his hair: I agree. But what did he do other then that? Act in some commercials? Milan practically invented the thing with footballers starring.

Maybe I jumped the gun there saying he's deluding himself, but first Pato, then Balotelli, now SES. It's becoming a recurring trend. Having faith and defending potential "prospects" who lack the talent to justify it.

Yes, it is a pattern. A pattern that shows patience and open-mindness. Nothing more, and certainly nothing negative there.