[han2503]

Who: A.C. Milan vs. F.C. Internazionale Milano



(IMG:http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/ah232/hannvis/milan-inter_zps4626da11.png)



Where: Stadio San Siro



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



When:
31st January 2016 @ 8:45pm CET

[maldini03]

I think the formation has it's pros and cons tbh, it's perfect for playing the way we've done against those teams mentioned above, it allows us to really stretch opposition out on counters and make full use of the (essentially) 4 players in attack.

But we see the drawback of that very same formation when facing the smaller sides and we continue to press forward without being able to penetrate through their defence. Once we lose the ball in those situations we usually end up being at a numerical disadvantage with Monto and the other mid busting their guts trying to catch up and the CBs back tracking.

The problem is that while it's a good counter attacking formation, it's also not one good for deploying a possession based game, a 4-4-2 used to success even without having mastermind central mids usually deploys 2 wingers that are fast, creative and capable of creating the chances themselves instead of relying on the central players.

So basically it's a combination of both, the system is flawed because we don't have the right players for it, and we don't have the smart CMs either to counter the fact that we don't have skilful wingers. So when playing against the smaller sides we tend to try to go for the possession approach which is what really kills us imo, we don't have the players for it and the system is not built for that kind of approach

That's an extremely astute explanation and I think you are spot on, but with the players we have what is our best bet against the smaller teams.

[han2503]

That's an extremely astute explanation and I think you are spot on, but with the players we have what is our best bet against the smaller teams.

I honestly don't know atm, I wanted us to try a xmas tree a while back, but that was mostly to counter our incredibly shaky defence which has stabilized a lot as the months have gone on.

I think atm best bet would be to go for a slightly different tactical approach, Miha is generally speaking playing the best 11 we have atm, there really is no complaint from the majority of fans in general about the personnel he's choosing, at least that's the impression I get from most, so there's no need to change that or the formation imo.

As I said, the problem generally tends to arise when we push up too high and commit too many men while mostly passing the ball sideways, then we lose it and we get sliced through with 2 or 3 passes at the most. These are the situations we need to work on mitigating

Let's not forget that we're playing with no pure DMs, something we haven't seen at Milan in years now. I think this is a very bold approach from Miha considering how previous coaches tended to try to solve our defensive problems by sticking even more defensive/creatively inept players in that midfield