[han2503]

Will probably have to miss this as I have my nephew's christening tomorrow, but will try to keep up with what's going on.

Absolutely crucial 3 points here as we have Betis and Juve up next before the NT brake. We're not going to get anything out of the Juve game, so ensuring all 3 points here will keep us on track even if we lose against Juve.

[han2503]

Don't say that, han! Gonna be at that game - with decent tickets even.

There are a lot of things still needing work with this Milan, but after the Betis debacle, they've shown what I think of a 'knife between the teeth' mentality. They just don't give up.

I thought that Castillejo had a good game (not counting imprecision in front of goal, but that's a common team complaint).

I also thought Bakayoko played fairly well (and I'm shocked to be writing that).

Romagnoli was magnificent with the slide tackle that started off that move leading to the goal.

First off, welcome back!!

As for Juve, meh, I really don't think we can get anything out of it, and if we're on any verge of accomplishing anything against them I'm sure the ref will f us over in some way to help them out. Simple as that really

I'd rather we focus on the Betis game tbh and get back on track in that competition as we're in a bit of a pickle now having lost the home game against them which I feel was mostly a hangover performance from the Inter loss looking back on it with a clear head

I knew Suso was going to be good the first moment I saw him play. If you go scavange my posts from 3-4 years you’ll see. Talent is very easy to notice, and Castillejo doesn’t have much IMO. He’s a decent, versatile player to have as sub, but nothing more.

I’m hopeful we can recover Hakan and Higuain for the Juve game.

Yes, I remember, my point is he was very rough around the edges, I think Castillejo has talent maybe not as much as Suso but he will prove very useful for us over an entire season. So I don't understand how you can say we shouldn't have bought him when we've been craving a Suso backup for years now

I was wondering, how lucky were we that no one noticed the linesman's flag and kept playing! Otherwise, the action would have stopped half-way through. Speaking of the linesman, how blind can you be? Methinks an interista or juventino.

Yeah, I wondered about that. Could he have raised it after we'd scored as a way to indicate his decision without interrupting play knowing he has VAR as backup?

I thought the officiating overall wasn't great. When I saw that AR flag I was ballistic - couldn't believe he could call that Patrick was on by a few feet even in live play.

I think Samu can be a solid player, I don't think he will turn into a superstar but he is pacey and can be a threat for us, especially off the bench. The thing is, we still aren't in a position to buy players who are superstars. Have to hope for a young guy to make the jump.

How are you guys feeling about Paqueta. I want to be super excited but I can't see where he could fit in, especially now that we seem to be running with the 4-4-2 or 4-2-2-2. Is he a playmaker or a mezzala? I can't make heads or tails of him going just on youtube videos.

I think he's an AM/Mezzala and my understanding is that he'll be taking over from Bona in the future

Paqueta is a trequartista who’s being employed as mezz’ala at Flamengo. I think he will take Bona’s place in the 4-3-3, which I see us going back to eventually. 4-4-2 with the players we have leaves us to exposed.

My problem is that with Paqueta we’ll have too many AMs and not enough strikers. What do you guys think of a Pato return? I’d take him personally.

I'd prefer Ibra, he has more to offer still than Pato, but I'm all for a nostalgic trip down memory lane if it's cheap.