QUOTE (X-Offender @ Mar 9 2019, 10:35 PM)
No, this was day and night compared to Sassuolo. Here we controlled the game and didn't really risk anything. Against Sassuolo we couldn't keep the ball and let them do as they pleased.
I feel we're going to struggle a lot against Inter. We're not in a very good shape, I think the players are starting to get tired.
Agreed, but the things that concerned me most against both Sassuolo and Lazio are still very much present.
Imprecise passing, sitting very deep for no reason, continuous back passing and rudimentary errors which we shouldn't be making. Had Calabria been on the pitch we would have kept the clean sheet, the defense doesn't worry me at all. But the midfield and the two wingers are worrying for me.
Hakan looked bright when he came on, so that's encouraging for the derby, like I said, I'd play him instead of Paqueta who's looking very heavy legged atm. This kid has already played an entire season in Brazil and non-stop for us. Rino needs to rest him a bit or we're going to burn him out
Also, I don't like the negative approach we're taking to these kinds of games. I don't see any reason for sitting so deep defensively with continuous back passing to complement the rather negative approach. We have really lacked any sort of fluidity since the Lazio game and it's getting worrying. We shouldn't have had any issues against Chievo who are atrocious in their own right, but in the first half we barely created anything and only made minor improvements in the second half. We need to be doing better with the final passing, we cannot let Piatek keep getting isolated. We have a striker in red hot form and we're wasting him because we can barely get the ball to him in easy games like this one
QUOTE (X-Offender @ Mar 9 2019, 10:42 PM)
I just wanted to say, Kessie frustrates the hell out of me. I think he does a fantastic job in covering a lot of ground and pressing the opponent, but he's so imprecise whenever he has the ball, especially in attack. Be it passing or shooting, he always messes up, and we end up wasting good scoring opportunities.
Kessie is VERY frustrating, forget about his shooting, which makes me want to pop a vein in my head. His general passing game is terrible. His physical play is top notch no doubt, but his passing is poor. Even when there's a simple pass to be played, he generally chooses the bad option, and his touch has been getting poorer and poorer. Like when he makes the pass first time, he tends to lift the ball rather than keeping it on the ground which generally invites trouble or kills the flow of the move
He is very important to our midfield in terms of the defensive side, you could see the effect it had on us when he went off injured against Lazio for example, but he's being tasked with playing a box-to-box role and while his defensive side is generally very good, his attacking play is lacking a lot. He'd good at bulldozing his way into the box, but every time he gets into a good position in such situations he wastes it by shooting erratically rather than squaring or pulling the ball back. Just zero thought to the way he uses the ball most of the time
QUOTE (Fillipo Simone @ Mar 9 2019, 10:44 PM)
To put it simply... he's very stupid.
That's harsh. But yes, his footballing IQ is lacking. H's got the attributes to be a top notch player, physically speaking. But his movement and decisions are questionable at best.
I'm not going to say we absolutely have to replace him as a starter next season, because the budget will be restricted due to FFP and we have far more important positions to address (both wings, LB and redeeming Bakayoko), but if we are going to go ahead and purchase Bakayoko and have him as our pure DM, than we need to have a more dynamic players playing next to him, Paqueta provides that on the left, Kessie right now does not, he's good to have against the bigger teams as he helps us dominate the middle physically, but in such games like today, he's a hindrance more than a help. So his place in this team must be looed into seriously this summer, especially if we get CL football
QUOTE (CrazyMilanFan @ Mar 9 2019, 10:48 PM)
How are inter playing btw any idea?
Can't really say, I watched them against Fiorentina a couple weeks ago and they looked good at times and bad others. They lost to Cagliari which I didn't see but that couldn't have been pretty. But their current form really doesn't matter as they generally tend to be up for it against us. If we keep playing like we are now, I can't see us winning that's for sure
QUOTE (X-Offender @ Mar 9 2019, 10:55 PM)
They have a lot of issues, but I think they can still pull off a good performance if they want to. We need to enter the pitch with the mentality of completely dominating them, otherwise we're going to succumb to pressure and let them have it.
My only concern right now is Icardi. Let's see if they can fix their issues with him before the game. Radja is also injured apparently but something tells me he'll be fit against us, it's just Spalletti trying to play some weak mind games before the game