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Posted by: Fillipo Simone Jan 7 2015, 01:26 PM

Another frustrating match. Do you guys want a Pippo-meter? And how should I form the question/answers?

As for the match itself, MoM easily to Bonaventura. Alex tried his best, SES also showed some effort at the beginning, but lost it mid-way through.

Flop? Rami for sure with a disastrous performance, followed by Essien and Montolivo. Terrible, terrible play.

Posted by: Danny Jan 7 2015, 01:53 PM

MOM Bona or Alex. Gave it to Bona.

Flop. Take your fucking pick tbh. Monto for me - cost us the first goal, and was a disaster throughout. But equally could have been Menez, Rami, MDS, Essien, or SES.

Posted by: X-Offender Jan 7 2015, 02:00 PM

Top - Bona. Easy.

Flop - Everyone else? But Monto was by far the most ghastly one, along with Essien and De Sciglio. But unlike Essien who's there just to replace De Jong, Monto is supposed to be the brains of our midfield, yet he's so slow and mediocre it hurts.

Posted by: Fillipo Simone Jan 7 2015, 02:05 PM

Really? Did you guys see Rami? Completely lost on the flank, no sense of space and marking. Yes, much of the danger was pre-created by Essien and Monto passing to the opposition, and MDS had some real trouble with Berardi. But it was Rami who never covered, never was there when the Sassuolo players decided to use the right flank. Much of the goals is on him for me, and his overall play was poor.

At least Monto tried something offensively, made some nice passes that almost created something. I know, it's very poor, but still.

Posted by: X-Offender Jan 7 2015, 02:09 PM

He was crap, like everyone else as I said. But those three took the cake IMO. Our midfield was nonexistent because of Essien and Montolivo, and that's where all our problems originated from.

Posted by: Danny Jan 7 2015, 04:43 PM

I agree on how terrible Rami was, as I've preached for so so long he's an average defender at best with utterly suspect positional sense. He's good with the ball at his feet (maybe better in midfield, tbh), but terrible at everything else. And that's at his supposed best position of CB. And he let his man go totally for the opening goal. No argument here. He was painful.

But that was maybe the worst I've ever seen Monto play. That he was even worse than Rami gives some idea how utterly awful he was. I didn't see a single 'nice pass' from him.

Posted by: Danny Jan 7 2015, 04:43 PM

That Poli, himself having a pretty bad match, was our best midfielder, says it all.

Posted by: Fillipo Simone Jan 7 2015, 06:39 PM

Bona was our best midfielder, no doubt.

Posted by: X-Offender Jan 7 2015, 06:58 PM

He was played as forward.

Posted by: Danny Jan 7 2015, 07:31 PM

Indeed. Although once the goal was conceded it was up in the air as to what formation we actually went with. Some of the time it was Bona and Menez as strikers with SES left winger in a weird hybrid 4-4-2.

It was such a mess.

Posted by: han2503 Jan 7 2015, 09:47 PM

Rami was playing at RB, he's been good at CB as of late when he's played next to Mexes.

Rami was playing out of position, he's simply not a RB, but was plugging a hole that we had no one else to fill.

I think he was bad, but for me flop has to either go to Essien or DS. DS was having so much trouble with Berardi and most of Sassuolo's best plays came from him

Posted by: Danny Jan 7 2015, 09:57 PM

You misread me. I was saying 'hypothetically' his best position is CB, but I described his flaws in said position. And that he's good with the ball but not much else hence might actually be better in midfield.

I think it was obvious to even Stevie Wonder that he was at RB yesterday.

Posted by: Fillipo Simone Jan 7 2015, 11:23 PM

Well, I for one completely disagree.

Firstly, yes, Essien was bad, but Monto was even worse because his mistake resulted the first goal in the first place.

Secondly, MDS, really? Sure, he had a very bad showing, but no - the danger came from the right, which was always left completely uncovered by Rami. Sansone and Zaza were by far the more dangerous duo, coming from the right. You can see at the highlights, the best chances Sassuolo created (bar that one Berardi counter) all were on the right.

Posted by: han2503 Jan 8 2015, 10:14 AM

The first goal Sassuolo created started off from our left side with DS leaving Berardi free to lob the ball to Sansone, yes, Rami was equally as bad on that one as he was caught out by Sansone, but I think DS's first half was simply awful, one of the worst he's played

Second goal DS was the one initially on Zaza, but he was blocked off when Zaza ran towards the near post, thus Zaza being completely alone to put in the corner. At first I thought Alex was on him, but the replays clearly showed that DS was on him

Also, was it Monto making a bad pass, or was it Zapata who hit the ball at him too hard instead of passing it and Monto couldn't control it?

I'm not sure if this was the instance that resulted in the goal, but I've seen this done countless times in games. Essien did this a few times as well, they pass the ball so hard for a short distance that the receiver of the pass simply can't control it and we lose possession

As for who was worse, at least Monto tried some things and they came off. Essien was just a nightmare, and he also lost the ball in a crucial position, it just wasn't punished as Monto's was. Rami was also bad, but I thought DS was the worse one of the 2 FBs, this especially being since RB is not Rami's position.

@ Danny, I don't want to get into the Rami debate with you, all I'll say is that he's been good when he's played there in recent weeks along side Mexes. Even if you say he's only good on the ball and nothing else...

Posted by: Fillipo Simone Jan 8 2015, 10:33 AM

Well, take another look Han.

The second goal goes on Alex and MDS, because Zaza was simply left unmarked and both could/should have done more. Here we agree. But the first goal?? Blaming that one on MDS. Mattia covered the left flank, this is his job. Berardi did not come from the left, he was positioned centrally and found Sansone.

Also, take a look at the sintesi. You'll see that almost every attack came of Rami's side, not MDS. Mattia had a bad showing, but I cannot find a reason (other then people wanting to prove their point of how MDS is bad or out of form) why I'd pick him over Rami. Once again, Rami made the crucial marking and positioning errors, he let his man go on numerous occasions without even being near.

Posted by: han2503 Jan 8 2015, 11:32 AM

There were more chances created from DS's side by Berardi turning DS

As you probably remember, I'm one of DS's avid backers, but he is out of form atm, he hasn't been consistently good for a while now, that being said, I've always maintained that even if he's not in his best form, he's still defensively reliable. That's why I've always maintained that Armero should never start in front of him, even if he's playing terribly.

That being said, he was continuously a step behind Berardi, in the game, you might be right about the first goal, and I've said it was Rami's mistake as well since Sansone completely caught him out. But DS was a major problem for us in that first half, he improved slightly in the second but Sassuolo were mostly running at us on our left side in that first half.

As for mistakes, we conceded twice, first was on Monto and Rami (going to have to concede this one as I don't remember all that clearly), second on DS and maybe/slightly Alex.

Sassuolo had probably 1 or 2 more clear cut chances aside from those 2 and all were from bad midfield play and our FBs getting turned over

Posted by: Danny Jan 8 2015, 04:27 PM

I don't want to get into it either, I was just correcting your incorrect assumption about my post.

Posted by: Danny Jan 8 2015, 04:28 PM

We disagree on a lot, but for once you've nailed it.