[X-Offender]

I would say Pippo is a great motivator, but then you read his post-match interviews and you just wanna facepalm yourself. What he said after today's game was nonsensical - read.

I hate such behavior. If you're not admitting to the public that your team played bad it's like saying it to your players. And of course they'll lose concentration and motivation, because apparently what they're doing right now is fine for Pippo.

[Danny]

In his defence X, you made your mind up after the Juve game he's a failure and that's it, so whatever he says now you're going to take apart.

As for this match, it's starting to get VERY frustrating. We're on a horrible slide of two points in 3 games, with those two points v teams we should comfortably beat.

Pippo doesn't seem to want to quite pick his best team, always going for a flaw or two here or there which seems to undermine the rest of the team.

Today it was the CB partnership - I don't give a f*ck what anyone says, Rami's goal aside he was a shambles, especially inside the first half an hour. Zapata was better but his red card was foolish.

It was also the continued wasting of Honda as a RW and putting Menez behind the strikers, while simply switching them around would work infinitely better.

Alex being on the bench after giving, IMO, the best defensive display this season from any Milan defender (v Lazio) is just f*cking ridiculous. He's a titan in the air, he's strong on the ground, and he puts himself in where it hurts. Yet he's just sitting, rotting away on the bench.

As for the display, yeah, it wasn't terrible, especially going forward, but it's just not clicking. Defence is poorly-organised, and every time opponents run at us our backline looks terrified and has a panic attack.

This team is currently far far less than the sum of its parts, and the subs today kinda summed up the frustration. Why exactly sub off Poli & Torres for Essien and Pazzo. Two better models removed for two weaker ones. It made no sense.

I just feel like the team is much better than its points tally suggests, but the truth is, and here's a blunt way of looking at it; if you discount Lazio & Parma, we haven't won in 90 minutes since pre-season at Monza.

Something is dreadfully wrong.

[han2503]

But Han, it's all interconnected. Our management is stubbornly appointing rookie coaches, one after another: Leonardo, Inzaghi, Seedorf. Allegri coached only Cagliari in Serie A and still counts as a veteran in comparison to the other three. So, unless the management doesn't change, we're stuck with rookie coaches.

If we're stuck with them, give them space and time to turn things around (assuming the can do that). For that to do, they simply have to locate the problems in our team. And as said, I think this teams mentality problems go beyond just sheer selection and preparation. Somethings evidently wrong.

That's why I said I'm not turning against him and I don't won't to seem like I'm getting completely on his back. But for me I need to at least see some form of improvements as the weeks go by.

The defence is still a horrific mess, no matter who's playing, as Danny said, it was panic stations any time a Cesena player managed to get himself into a position to run at our CBs. I think Rami and Zapata is just an ill fated pairing, just like Bonera and Zapata, all 3 of those players need to be next to someone who can basically hold their hand throughout a game. Mexes and Alex know how to do that, so for me either one of them needs to be on the pitch at all times. Also our defending as a collective has just not improved, our midfield is simply detached from both the attack and defence.

As for our attack, so far we haven't gone a game without scoring (Juve aside), I think we're okay in that department, we're not going to be scoring 5 goals in each game, which is why we need our defence to be solid and be able to hold onto a clean sheet so when we do only score 1 goal, it won't mean we're losing points

[Danny]

Indeed Han, for all our disagreements on Mexes I admit he's at least a leader. As you know I'd prefer Alex but the defence is a bunch of cooks and no chef as things stand. Which is also why I wouldn't give Abate the armband. He is miles off captain/leader material, as brilliant a RB as he is.

[X-Offender]

No one is captain material in this team, except for maybe De Jong.

[Danny]

No one is captain material in this team, except for maybe De Jong.

Agree on this too. I also wouldn't want to burden De Jong - it ruined Monto, I don't want the same happening to essentially our prize asset.

[Jack Sparrow]

Another typical confused match. I see the resolve and morale are high, but more results like this and we're back in the crapper.

I've always been against the 4-2-3-1 for this team, I don't think we have the double pivot kind of midfielders. We should play with the 4-3-3 that doesn't involve a flat midfield, but has De Jong in control of his area without having to run into other people.

So a 4-3-3 that becomes a 4-1-2-3 or a 4-1-2-1-2 or a 4-1-4-1 even. De Jong flies solo it would seem.

Granted our goal was an Abbiati howler, but it's about time we were done chopping around the defence. Pippo was out of options, I understand Alex has just recovered from injury and couldn't play 90 minutes in the heat, but let's keep it simple. Our lineup going forward for the backline is:

--Abate---Rami--Alex--De Sciglio---

That's fixed.

Menez looks more and more tired as he seems to be required to do everything on his own. This is a problem. I would like to see SeS get a start. Admittedly the red card forced Alex on, instead of the initial plan of SeS again forcing us into a corner in terms of tactical changes.

It wasn't a horrible match, but we're stuck in a rut and need to change things around.

Having just 4 fit players for 3 positions in midfield doesn't help either.

I'll give the team a 6 on 10 for performance.

[X-Offender]

If we're going to play 4-3-3, then Pippo must play either Honda or Bonaventura in midfield.