[han2503]

Who: A.C. Milan vs. U.S. Sassuolo



(IMG:http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/ah232/hannvis/milan-Sassuolo_zpseb010f2c.png)



Where: Stadio San Siro



(IMG:http://www.acmilan.com/uploads/club/sansiro.jpg)



When:
6th January 2015 @ 3:00pm CET


Head-to-Head Record



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

[Fillipo Simone]

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.

[han2503]

This is one match I can't blame Pippo.

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.

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

[Fillipo Simone]

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

In all honesty, I don't think SES can play centrally. You're convinced, but there's no real indication of that.

And what would you do? Play Pazzini centrally?

Oh, and new poll is here

[han2503]

In all honesty, I don't think SES can play centrally. You're convinced, but there's no real indication of that.

And what would you do? Play Pazzini centrally?

Oh, and new poll is here

I think SES's position is a second striker, someone that plays off the main man.

But we don't have that position in our system, so best way to try to use him is as a striker.

If that doesn't work, then yes, put Pazzo there, anything is better than not having anyone up there aside from Menez who usually drifts wide or goes very deep and we end up with no one up front