[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.

[Danny]

This has turned into an excellent debate.

The Pato and Balotelli example is an intriguing one. Pato showed signs of being a world beater, in a VERY STRONG MILAN TEAM, lest we forget. It all went horribly wrong down to his bad decisions both on and off the pitch, and his general lack of intelligence. However, he shone in a Milan team blessed with top-class players and that's not easy to do if you're not a great player.

Balotelli also shone briefly in a declining Milan team, with 6 months from January last year till the summer, which were basically the best of his career. However since summer 2013 he has been absolutely ghastly, and his talent horribly over rated. A declining but still reasonable Milan helped him look good, and a terrible Milan made him look as he really is - and the same has happened at Liverpool. Talent shines everywhere, even during difficult patches. He's just not very good.

And then we come to SES. We've had him for 4 years - no player in the modern game has been cut the level of slack he has, all because he's young, Italian, has a cool haircut, has a culty-esque following from fans desperate for a hero, and because of 4 excellent months in 2012 where he looked outstanding. However it's also easy to mislead people and say 'he carried Milan' during that time when in fact he came nowhere near it. He scored a few goals and we won the odd match but we were still a midtable team till that 2-2 result in Naples and we went on an excellent run as a whole unit. Had the boy 'carried' us he'd have done what Suarez did at Liverpool last season, or Ibra does for every team he plays for - put us in at least the top 3. That's 'carrying'. But he didn't - we were mediocre till that trip to Naples turned things round that season, and while he scored 2 in that match, it was also the end of his 'carrying' us as the team as a whole drastically improved.

So here we are, literally two years later - and he has been quite simply a shambles. Yet, as I say, a bizarre amount of leeway is given to him by so many supporters.

As for Han's Abate example, not hard to rate a player who has clearly been one of the world's better RB's ever since he replaced Cafu. He isn't Cafu, of course, but only truly blind individuals would ever have claimed he was anything other than good. He's been in especially good form this season, but it's also a bit wide of the mark to have 'stuck by him'. Easy to do that when a player is plainly a good player.

[han2503]

As for Han's Abate example, not hard to rate a player who has clearly been one of the world's better RB's ever since he replaced Cafu. He isn't Cafu, of course, but only truly blind individuals would ever have claimed he was anything other than good. He's been in especially good form this season, but it's also a bit wide of the mark to have 'stuck by him'. Easy to do that when a player is plainly a good player.

I'm not going to get into the other points you made as I completely don't agree about SES and it's pointless to get into that particular debate

But this here I just had to comment on. Maybe you're also a person who's always rated Abate, but take a general look around any Milan forum and you'll know that before this season they were hoping he would leave and we'd sign that Croatian dude that ended up at Sassuolo (IRRC his name is Vrslajko or something like that).

People wanted to punt him over to CSKA when they wanted him the summer before this one.

And I was defending him namely to kurt and Fillipo on this very same forum just a few months ago as well

Don't kid yourself, Abate has been underrated/overlooked by many Milan fans over the years and has been called average/bad for many years now. If they're not criticising his defending, they're criticising his crossing or his positioning. It's only this season where people have finally shut up about him

[Danny]

People wanted to punt him over to CSKA when they wanted him the summer before this one.

You might want to quote anyone on here who did?

And I was defending him namely to kurt and Fillipo on this very same forum just a few months ago as well

They're both nuts (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)