[acid911]

Flamini is a move in the right direction I hope. If our mid-field were strong enough, and the fullbacks more well...uhm Sergio like, our defence and goalkeeper would be less exposed.

To be honest, half of Dida's mistakes were because of his own doing (he was horribly out of form), and the other half because of our lacking defense. It was so bad, they just invited the opposition to come in and attack. Add to that Dida's woes and things took a turn for the worse. In fact, he had a very solid streak right before the Inter match, in which he made some mouth-watering saves and let in only 1 goal, or kept a clean sheet in most matches. (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) The Inter match was a curtain call, though.

On pure talent alone, he's still one of the Top 10 (or even Top 5) keepers of the world at this time. I haven't seen a keeper with more agility and leap than him up till now. Plus, his spot kicks and penalty stopping abilities. I mean, Cech made some pretty bad calls in the match against Liverpool - good on air balls, but butterfingers on direct shots. In fact, he was horrible at times. It was good Liverpool didn't get any free kicks in dangerous areas or even a penalty kick. Is he anywhere bad? No. He's a top, top keepers. But he was lucky the midfield and defense held solid and didn't let Liverpool keep possession for long or mount attacks. On his day he could have easily stopped that Torres shot. (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Point being, there is no one to blame except Dida for the mess he's into. And as much as hate to admit it, I'll be surprised to see him in the starting XI come next season. But you can't discount the part our leaky defense and sleepy midfield played in the first half of the season. They sent out an open invitation for the opposition to mount attacks. The only little point that troubles me is we might not see Dida in Milan colors (even as No. 2), while we'll be seeing absolutely crap players (whether they were out of form the whole season is another thing) like Favalli, Kaladze, Kalac, Brocchi, Emerson, Oddo, Amrbo, Gattuso, and Pirlo stay on. The last few were out of touch, yes, but what about the second rate crap like the first four? They'll pretty much don the red and black come next season, I'm certain. And they shared as much of the blame for our bad performances and goals that we let in, as, say, Dida. (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

It was our defense that exposed our goalkeeper for most part of the season, unlike Chelsea who protected theirs yesterday. Do we need a new keeper? Maybe. Do we need to revamp the defense? Exactly. We've got only two world class defenders in Paolo and Nesta. The rest are just fillers. We'll need two more young ones for the back. At least. (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)