As much emotions that this kid made me feel, especially the lonely goal against Celtic. I am more than grateful for his contribution, but he is no longer the same player. I mean, he is still at an age where you'd consider being his prime, yet his injuries have taken so much out of him. Hmm as a sub, yeah Id accept him.

What im trying to say is im indifferent to whether he comes or not, he's just not so important anymore. Sad, but he lost a big fan on June 2009.

You guys should see how sad the Bayern forums are, they lost their captain. I share their sentiments when I think of Shevcheno's move away from us.

I am no Van Bommel fan, then again I was no Ibra fan to begin with, but times change I guess.

It is my opinion that Van Bommel is not a flashy midfielder, he is more of a midfield general. Like Gattuso or Seedorf, someone who holds the weight of the midfield.

Yet I beg to question why a 33 year old ? Even if it is a 6 months contract, why not get Lazzari or Montolivio, who in my opinion would jump in a heart beat at the prospect of playing for us.

yes Jesus (IMG:style_emoticons/default/innocent.gif)

That doesn't mean he will be gone, the way things are he will most likely retire at Milan. He is already past his prime, but it doesn't hurt to have him as a squad player, especially given his class.

Many surprises this season in the EPL, teams I didn't expect to see doing this poorly were Liverpool and Aston Villa, both for their history and for their consistency in the past five years. Moreover, I was not surprised by Manchester City and Tottenham having a very consistent run, given the past five years.



I do agree with this, most people do not analyze the situation properly, they always blame a ref's credentials and eyesight, without even giving the situation some thought.

The rules sometimes contradict themselves, and refs are not Godlike, hence they do make mistakes.

He looks tamed. There was never a question about his talent, the major question was about his attitude.

He scored two times already, with both Allegri and the senior players applauding his efforts in training. I hope that he is certainly tamed, as this is certainly his last chance to prove himself at the highest level.


And welcome FantAntonio

With Seedorf and Gattuso on the roster, I have a gut feeling their egos will be dwarfed (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

What has happened to Inter ? I mean, sure Mourinho's Inter was very good and the same could be said about Mancini's Inter. Could it be that Rafa is not cut out for it ?

I simply can not comprehend what has happened to them, is it because they are not hungry anymore ? What happens if they loose the Club World Cup ?

Give the youth a trial in this one. Whether we win or lose, the ultimate positive we should take would be to see our youth prospects in action.

Just surfing the UEFA website, I took a look at our potential opponents for the Last 16. Those are:

- Tottenham
- Schalke
- Manchester United
- Barcelona
- Bayern Munich
- Chelsea
- Shakhtar Donetsk / Arsenal

If we avoid Chelsea or Barcelona, I think we are in for a chance to progress. Keeping in mind that none of the others should be taken lightly.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Owned (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

As a matter of fact, aside from Barca's 'out of this world' display, Madrid did not play as a team at all. When Mourinho was at Inter, he had a rock solid team that functioned as one unit. Sadly the same can not be said about Madrid last night. They were too reckless, very intimidated and divided amongst each other.

On hindsight, Madrid might have been handed an easier result to swallow had Mourinho opted for his famed 4-5-1. To close down the spaces in their own half and spring the counters is how he reached the final last season. Yet last night, it all went wrong; Madrid tried to close space at their own half, but Barca was so fluid and determined. I saw Messi running after defenders and snatching away ball after ball, the same could not be said of CR. That IMO was the reason why Barca won, and with such a huge margin.


Nevertheless, this result will serve as a catalyst for Mourinho to bring the best out of his team. Knowing they have hit rock bottom, there is only one way to go and that is up. It is too early to mention this, but if Mourinho does not deliver a trophy at the end of this season or receives another humiliating defeat in the return leg or in a Champions League Knock-out, I believe it will be the end of his journey with Madrid.

Considering the only attacking option on the bench was Ronaldinho, it seems that Allegri is trying so hard to keep him off the pitch for as much time as possible. Yet bringing him in @ 85mins or 90mins, now that is simply a slap on the face of Ronaldinho.

Considering this happened when the team was playing every three days, and now that there is more breathing space whereby we have already qualified for the next round in the Champions League and that we have a week to prepare for every Serie A fixture, Ronaldinho's chances of coming on @ 85mins or 90mins are most likely going to diminish.

I hope Ronaldinho reacts with anger and humility on the field whenever he gets a chance, this for our sake as we need all the options upfront we can get.

A team wins the Champions League, not a starlet. Kaka integrated well within the team, he is intelligent and knew how to utilize the assets around him; hence he shined. Both Seedorf and Inzaghi moved as if they were in-sync with Kaka, hence rendering the Champions League title in 2007.

But this did not happen in a flash, nor was it down to Kaka's intelligence alone. It was down to our team's efforts. Those of you who do not recognize those efforts, I suggest you re-watch the Champions League 2006-2007 season as it was not an easy competition from the preliminaries to the final.

By saying the above, I am not in anyway undermining Kaka's fantastic season in 2007, nor am I undermining Shevchenko in previous seasons. What I am saying is that Shevchenko and/or Kaka playing in a side like Brescia would not have shined as bright as they did along side their team-mates in Milan.


On a side note, Maldini is 2nd to none. Stating that Nesta is more important for the sake of argument is fine by me, but to state it as a fact is ludicrous. With everything taken into account, Maldini simply presented a commanding presence. I am not being biased by stating that, but the confidence that the team had when Maldini was on the pitch was simple extraordinary.

Brescia are recently back from Serie B, as such we have always faced difficulty against these sides. Keeping in mind that they lie 17th on the Serie A standings; with 3 wins, 3 draws and 8 defeats.

We are without a doubt favorites and it should be an easy 3-points due to the opponent's current league table standing and the fact that we are more superior in terms of quality. However, there is a slight chance that this might end in a draw if Brescia treats this fixture as if it was a final.

In conclusion, I hope we don't slip up, considering last weekends results played to our favor, I doubt the same will happen this time around.




Milan 3 - 1 Brescia

Can I quote you on that? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I like the idea of that. Players like Strasser, Merkel and Verdi should be thrown in for at least 60 mins. And as you said, win or lose, we are in!

Auxerre were very motivated in the first half, for them this is a dog fight for Europa League as such they are glaring their fangs at us.

But I think Allegri has finally got a formation that ticks, it still needs to gel well with Robinho. Abbiati and the defense as a whole have been superb; take Gigi as an example, he isn't as fast nor has he the physical mass to out beat whatever he faces on Auxerre's right flank, but he meets it with experience! The way he outmaneuvers the opposition and wins those technical fouls, now that was the Zambrotta of Juventus (IMG:style_emoticons/default/king.gif)

My assessment of the first half is that we contained them for 45 minutes, with the help of Abiatti and a fortress of a defense. Our midfield was aggressive and eager to bring Auxerre back down to earth. Yet our attack just cant click, Robinho has great work rate and I appreciate him running back to stop counters (something Ibrahimovic didn't bother to do), yet he isn't in-sync with the language the team was speaking.

Mouth watering match up. The derby is apon us, and we have to take this chance to thump them with no less than two goals and a clean sheet!

Serie A has finally changed colors, and it is no longer blue & black; it is a very balances championship and we need to keep hauling in the points. If we are stalled for two or three games (derby included), we might slide down the table relatively fast, considering the pace set by Lazio and the likes.

I'm optomistic given we have topped the table, however that does not necessarily mean we have done a good job. It just means we have outdone our peers to date in Serie A. However, Allegri has much to prove, as a defeat to Inter could cosolidate the fact that he has been beaten by the big boys in Italy and Europe (RM, Juve, and now Inter).


I would like to believe that Ronaldinho will be the deciding factor going into this game; as he is the outlet we need to break a slightly leaky Inter defense.

I would like to highlight that Inter might opt of a 4-2-3-1 formation, something that would cause us trouble both in midfield and in defense. I would welcome a Gattuso - Pirlo - Ambrosini midfield three, with Seedorf and Ronaldinho as AM, and Zlatan to spearhead.

With that said, I had read several people doubting Gattuso's ability to be at 100%, but this is the derby and there is no margin for error. Moreover, he has provin to-date this season that is capable and worthy of a starting spot. In addition, experience is not to be overlooked, as we are facing a very creative midfield from Inter which has been devistating last season.

However, I have grown fond of KPB, and would find his inclusion better in the second half, to bring more steam into the team once Benitez has done a tactical reshuffling of his side.

Flamini is an obvious outlet, however I don't feel he is the right man to start ahead of the midfield three stated above.


Milan 3-1 Inter

What a coincidence (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Hindsight is always biased. You can say that getting the best out of pato instead of accomidating robinho. Yet if robinho was never tested, you would have a different view.

On the gattuso debate; it seems as though allegri is playing on the oldschool italian game, where you have a defensive midfielder higher up on the pitch to win the ball back then spread it around.

I believe our players are not the problem, we have a healthy group of players classified as world class to average. We have enough players in our roaster to keep positive results for an entire season, yet the coaching staff has not done well as of yet.

If anything, they have failed more so than the players in delivering the results. We are in October, this is when our team should be at peak form.

Is it just me, or do you intentionally try to talk in the dialect of Jose Mourinho ?

We were clueless out there, kaddus to Madrid.

I understand why you might feel that way, considering how much we changed shape in midfield via tactics since the start of the season.

Yet, let us take the Chievo game as a solid referance point; whereby Pirlo stated on acmilan.com on 17-OCT, and I quote:

Q) Which team does this Milan side remind you of?
A) "This team reminds me of Carlo Ancelotti’s Milan. Under him we played with an offensive midfielder just behind the strikers, it used to be Kakà or Rui Costa. Recently we have started to use this system again, like we did for years with great success. Hopefully, it will be a good omen.”

That said, during the first half against Chievo we played very narrowly down the pitch, and enforced a diamond midfield at the center; hence the Gattuso-Pirlo-Seedorf combination. This combination is very familiar with each other and have produced very good work rate when deployed together.


Why replace Seedorf with Prince? We don't need speed in the middle of the park, we need as much quality as we can get from that area of the pitch. Hence, I'd rather replace gattuso with Prince.

It will be a high scoring game. I am hopeful of us winning, considering Allegri has played Mourinho several times and is further aware of the later's tactical prowess.

However, I do not see why Mourinho is being praised so much. Sure he has succeeded with well equiped teams; Porto was a very well equiped team with most of its starting XI making it to the creme de la creme of world football.
Mourinho, always had a team of superior ability.

While Allegri, although unproven with a top team and squad, and although he lacks top tier silverware. He still has proved his credentials with Cagliari, where he was named coach of the season.

Now they face-off, and many predict a Madrid win, which is rather likely for the following:

1- Mourinho excells with a squad of world class players.
2- Madrid are playing at home.
3- Tactical awarness of Mourinho.
4- Cristiano Ronaldo.

Except, we can match all of that blow for blow, this time around Mourinho is facing a Milan side with 10x more firepower, a very organized team of 11 players with a very high work rate in midfield. Furthermore, we have experience in abundance, as opposed to Mourinho's team. And we have one Andrea Pirlo who can open up defenses no matter where he is on the pitch.


I see this as a very evenly matched contest, and I hold firm that I am hopeful for a Milan win.