QUOTE (CrazyMilanFan @ Feb 17 2019, 05:18 PM)
Lazio lost as well.. Hopefully Roma will drop points too..
Let's see if Mihajlovic can do us a favour for old time's sake
Inter won though, which is disappointing after the sh!t show that's been going down across town with the Icardi nonsense.
I think we need to stop looking at who's behind us and start focusing on that 3rd spot. We've already gotten a bunch of really difficult fixtures out of the way this year. Managing to consolidate 4th spot after having faced Napoli, Roma and Atalanta, the last 2 away from home is something that I absolutely did not expect to happen, but here we are, 4 points off 3rd with a little bit of leeway (depending still one what Roma do tomorrow) from the 5th spot. The table is really tight, but the fixture list in the upcoming 3 games massively favours us. We need to make sure we grab all 9 points against Empoli (H) Sassuolo (H) and Chievo (A) with a Coppa fixture against Lazio wedged in between
But tese 3 games are massively important as Inter will face Fiorentina, Lazio and Roma face each other and Lazio will also play Fiorentina. So 9 points would not only help in consolidating 4th, but they'd potentially put some distance between us and the Roman clubs, not to mention hopefully make up ground on Inter before the derby
QUOTE (William405 @ Feb 17 2019, 08:01 PM)
Yes, I hope so. Anyway, we just need to focus on always playing good and I think the 4th spot, at this pace, could very well be ours. (IMG:
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Agreed. In the past few years, this game would have been prime opportunity for us to implode but we went out there, played a slightly shaky first half but managed to keep things tight and came out gunning to win it in the second half
What Rino has managed to do with this team, imo has been amazing so far this season. The fact that he managed to keep things together and not fall apart through the massive injury crises we were in while still maintaining a good position in the table and getting results when in previous years we would have thrown in the towel by October had we faced the same kinds of issues is admirable and deserves massive amounts of respect and kudos
QUOTE (X-Offender @ Feb 17 2019, 09:01 PM)
We played really well last night. Didn't dominate the game by any means but we looked solid and took our chances. Hopefully the players can keep up this momentum till the end of the season.
Piatek and Paqueta are turning out to be two of the best signings we've made in a very long time. Piatek is just fantastic. He's got great technique and fights for every ball. I honestly wasn't expecting him to turn out like this. And Paqueta man, what a player. He's so practical, all the tricks he does have an end to them, he doesn't just do them for show. Plus he plays for the team and defends the ball well. Top class
But the real revelation so far has been Bakayoko. What a beast! Totally deserves every penny of that 40M clause.
Agreed on all. Especially Bakayoko. And this coming from someone who was highly critical of him in his first few games (which were admittedly a nightmare)
He's become the most important puzzle piece within our formation imo. He shields the defense so well and connects defense and attack so seamlessly. Initiating that release clause next summer has to be priority 1. And he seems just as determined to stay so that's also great to see
You know, during January when that Higuain mess was going down I could already see the rest of our season crumbling before my eyes.
But now, in hindsight, him wanting to leave is the best thing that could have happened to this team. In fact I'll go even further and say Bonucci wanting to leave and go back to Juve was the best thing that could have happened to us, as it started the chain reaction that lead to Piatek. Not to mention getting Caldara off Juve as well who, even though so far has had a very disappointing time of it, he's still imo one of the best young Italian defenders next to Romagnoli. So Leonardo has so far made some seriously inspired moves. I was a bit let down that we couldn't get a winger but we'll see if we can still achieve our goals for a CL spot without one.