[amancik]

And Nesta was his usual majestic self. Everyone kinda forgot about Thiago Silva.

[han2503]

Well, considering all the missing player, we had a good game. Not many teams can keep Barca goalless. Most thought we are gonna lose or even embarrassed.

Agreed

i think nesta coming off was due to yellow card and tirdeness obviously

He was limping man. Don't know, it didn't look bad when he came back on the pitch at the end, maybe it was pre-cautionary seeing as Thiago is out for a while

Nesta surely was MOM again against Barcelona. But Ambrosini, Seedorf, Antonini and Bonera played excellent and surpassed my expectations. If only Ibra and Binho could have scored...

But in no way did we embarrass ourselves.

Agreed, on all counts

Seedorf, as always showed up for this kind of game, Ambro although he had a worrying first half completely redeemed himself in the second, while Antonini and Bonera have been having great seasons.

Bu tno matter how dependable Bonera has been I'll be on my knees praying for Nesta before I go to bed every night (no joke)

[William405]

Or Emanuelsonized.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

nice (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

[amancik]

I think this game showed why Milan are the Italian Champions and we deserve to win the Scudetto again this season. If we can play like this in the second-leg and actually go through, then at that point we can start thinking about winning the Champions League. I just hope that they take the Fiorentina game seriously.

[Jack Sparrow]

That was a damn honourable draw. Proud of the coach and the boys for pulling it off. We didn't take it to them...but ee sure didn't roll over. We got lucky but we were also wasteful...so (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

All in all...a good evening's work. Now you boys must excuse me...I'm a little drunk and I have work tomorrow.

[X-Offender]

Such a good result. One goal in Camp Nou would put us in a very favorable position. Bonera, Antonini and Ambrosini were impressive tonight. In fact, the whole backline did great, even though our attitude kind of stank. Emanuelson and El Shaarawy brought nothing to the table, and don't let me get started on Mesbah. One of the most pathetic players to have worn the Milan jersey in the last few years.

This post has been edited by X-Offender: Mar 28 2012, 10:01 PM

[William405]

That was a damn honourable draw. Proud of the coach and the boys for pulling it off. We didn't take it to them...but ee sure didn't roll over. We got lucky but we were also wasteful...so (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

All in all...a good evening's work. Now you boys must excuse me...I'm a little drunk and I have work tomorrow.

I thought you acknowledged Allegri for a second,then I read that.

How do you guys think we should play them in the second leg?

They were basically playing in our half most of the match,and in Camp Nou,they'll make that count,specially those one two's between Xavi and Messi.

This post has been edited by William405: Mar 28 2012, 10:08 PM

[han2503]

I thought you acknowledged Allegri for a second,then I read that.

How do you guys think we should play them in the second leg?

They were basically playing in our half most of the match,and in Camp Nou,they'll make that count,specially those one two's between Xavi and Messi.

I say we either play with 3 CBs and Antonini and Abate as wingbacks with Nocerino, VB, Ambro/Urby just in front of the defence or play 4-4-1-1

It depends really, Barca were very narrow today, I expected them to stretch us on the wings a lot more, which is why their chances were limited (aside from some heart stopping moments)

The important thing is to counter attack them well, what we did today is not counter attacking, we just passed the ball forward and hoped it pinged onto the right person.

If I were Max I'd play Maxi next to Ibra, he's the only one who can really play with his back to goal for us, and he will bring Ibra into the game more. Plus I trust him more with finishing than Robinho who made a mess of that chance. Ibra's was a lot more difficuilt but Robs was wide open, all he had to do was place that

[Rossoneri7]

Alan Shearer: "all the teams think about is how to stop Messi, and Milan did exactly that."

[Zed.D]

OK, I had hoped we'd play this the Italian way and we did... fairly.

The important thing was not to concede and I'm still in shock that we managed to do that, given Barca's chances. they say you need a certain amount of luck in these games and we got our share of it. I hope in the away game instead of relying on more luck, we actually play to progress, because we probably won't be getting any more luck.

"Why don't we try pressing more??" I was asking myself this all game long. every time we had the ball, one Barca player would systematically run at our player who had the ball and they'd misplace their pass or give it away as a result, but most of the times when they had it, we'd just stand and let them do whatever they want with it. zero effort to close up spaces. I mean, every time we actually tried to press we managed to get the ball away from them, why not do it more? we need to stop being so static and just run for 90 minutes each game if we want to survive these big games. all Italian league teams need to.

As for the players, Ambro was great and IMO our MVP, simply rolled back the years. very proud of him tonight.

Bonera, again, was decent. I completely prefer him to Abate at this moment and I want to see him start the away game as well.

Antonins was very good (can't believe I'm actually saying it). he too should start in the away game.

Seedorf wasn't as bad as I'd imagined him to be but still not as good as those mentioned above. especially in the second half he started to wear out.

Mesbah is fucking bad. absolutely horrible. he wasn't like this in his first few games but the tougher the situation gets for him the more he shows he true colors. not Milan caliber. not even good enough for our bench.

Mexes is the new Silva! I love how consistently well he's playing. (hope I didn't jinx him)

Robinho... that miss. *facepalm* I'm sure he will be shown the exit door before we decide anything on Pato because I believe the management are not retarded. compare this to his Arsenal performance. unbelievably inconsistent, he needs to be cashed in on and be replaced with Tevez. end of.

Why are our players slipping and sliding all over the pitch FFS??

Shouldn't our players be wearing the right boots and the slipping and sliding be done from the Barca players?

I'm convinced the San Siro pitch sucks sh1te even when it looks OK from our TV screens. everyone from both sides was slipping all over the place. embarrassing for a club like Milan to play on this awful, **** pitch.

This post has been edited by Zed.D: Mar 28 2012, 10:37 PM

[han2503]

Agreed with the majority of what you said, as for the pressing bit, the worry will always be at the back of your head that if you push up too much to press them then they'll get in behind you.

You could see those possibilities opening up whenever we pressed them too high up the pitch and there were spaces for them to run into, and we were lucky that the bounce of the ball went our way in those moments when the ball was ping ponging around.

The only thing I regret aside from the missed chances is that we didn't fight for corners, even just taking the ball to the corner flag and hitting it at their leg to get something from it. We all know that that's where we have the edge on them, when the ball was in the air we almost always won it. We need to make these situations happen at the Camp Nou, because scoring from open play in Spain will be virtually impossible, especially if we have Robinho and Ibra missing chances out there.

I'm convinced the San Siro pitch sucks sh1te even when it looks OK from our TV screens. everyone from both sides was slipping all over the place. embarrassing for a club like Milan to play on this awful, **** pitch.

It's definately sh!t, I guess the Barca players stayed on their feet better because they had control of the ball while our players kept slipping around when having to change direction quickly.

I think Max has tried a lot of combinations with Barca in these 3 games, no doubt this was a great result considering it's a KO tie. The gung-ho style of the group stage match at the San Siro showed that we can score on them and put them under pressure but that it could compromise us at the back. We still need to find a balance between that and what we did today. I think the handling of their 3 main creators (Messi, Xavi and Iniesta) was spot on

[Jack Bauer]

“I had to make three substitutions due to physical problems. Hopefully some can start to recover for the second leg and others can find better form.”

Hope we won't lose any of them for long term. Enough is enough (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

http://youtu.be/_L0_c3GKXjc

This post has been edited by Jack Bauer: Mar 28 2012, 10:53 PM

[Zed.D]

Agreed with the majority of what you said, as for the pressing bit, the worry will always be at the back of your head that if you push up too much to press them then they'll get in behind you.

You could see those possibilities opening up whenever we pressed them too high up the pitch and there were spaces for them to run into, and we were lucky that the bounce of the ball went our way in those moments when the ball was ping ponging around.

No, not necessarily high up the pitch but in our own half. a lot of time to think what to do with that ball is what we must not allow Barca's midfielders. it just requires a lot of effort and sacrifice. I'm talking about the way Ambro played. I didn't see that from Boa, Ibra, Nocerino, El Sha and of worst of all, Robinho. too static.

The only thing I regret aside from the missed chances is that we didn't fight for corners, even just taking the ball to the corner flag and hitting it at their leg to get something from it. We all know that that's where we have the edge on them, when the ball was in the air we almost always won it. We need to make these situations happen at the Camp Nou, because scoring from open play in Spain will be virtually impossible, especially if we have Robinho and Ibra missing chances out there.

Hadn't thought about it. very good point. but then again there's a lot of things we need to do in the next game if we want to progress...

This post has been edited by Zed.D: Mar 28 2012, 10:57 PM

[Fillipo Simone]

Seedorf wasn't as bad as I'd imagined him to be but still not as good as those mentioned above. especially in the second half he started to wear out.

Seriously? Is it his fault he's 35, came back from a nasty injury and hasn't got room for a whole 90? Yet he played with almost surgical precision, almost every smart attack came through him. Defensively he also done very good. I'd say it was the dream performance - only the assist missed.

[Zed.D]

Seriously? Is it his fault he's 35, came back from a nasty injury and hasn't got room for a whole 90? Yet he played with almost surgical precision, almost every smart attack came through him. Defensively he also done very good. I'd say it was the dream performance - only the assist missed.

Surgical precision? he made quite a few mistakes in the second half.

Is it his fault that he's 35? why do you ask me? I'm just judging his performance which I thought was good, but no "dream performance".