I voted Kaka MotM. Simply because I'm kind of enjoying seeing him 'reinvent' himself as a player. He's now doing some vital grunt work.
I still feel that Montolivo in the double pivot hurts our chances. As I understand the 4-2-3-1 in the pivot one player holds and distributes while the other presses. Or you have both players do a bit of both.
In this case, Montolivo is oddly the one who seems to do the pressing. So it's weird. Put yourself in his shoes. You have to press, make the tackle, win the ball AND THEN make the distributing pass. This is difficult for any player. This is in fact on hindsight why I feel Pirlo struggled in Allegri's Milan.
Unfortunately De Jong is no presser/terrier type a la Gattuso either. He too holds and makes the short pass or the long ball into open space.
I suspect this is why Muntari is looking good in that double pivot.
I will write a longer tactical piece as a different topic I think. Please bear with me, it's some time since I stepped on the football field, and I might get a few things horribly wrong because they don't work as I imagine. (IMG:
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Back to topic.
MoTM : Kaka (out of sheer affection), but otherwise on gameplay Honda. Grabbed the important second and worked well with Bonera on the right to maintain our defensive shape. Massive improvements in his play now.
Flop: Constant. Look, with Taraabt and Kaka drifting to the left, you need solidity in that left flank. Constant is always out of position and a better team would have screwed us over.