then why was everyone ok with just having three strikers? i remember most of you guys were relived we reinforced the mid and said even if we dont get another striker we'll be fine. how can you even dream of only having 3 strikers, especially when two of them cant even play together

anyways i'm reffering to an earlier comment that with 3 it would be too much, 2 is clearly not enough for us. we barely created any good chances.

just wait everyone, this is just the beginning with our small squad we havent even played the CWC, just wait when the fatigue sets in.

Galliani is a real stupid manager. how in the hell he thought our squad was good enough?!

I looks simple to me: we'll be eliminated from the CL and we'll be lucky if we finish fourth in the league. I believe that's what Galliani and co wanted for Milan.

post match comments from carlo

"...the fans don't have to worry. we will play Shakhtar and win because we always do well in CL or maybe we will lose again like we did against Celtic. for some odd reason the smaller team defend against us, in all my 30 years of experience in football I've never seen anything like this! we have devised a plan for the future. for now on Milan players will carry a flash card around their necks so every time that things aren't going our way we will show our opponents our cards which says "European champions" and they will have no choice but to fall over and hand us the victory, besides the fact that we managed to luck out last season and win this trophy means we must be a good squad this year."

Next week we have Roma and most probably another defeat. by then we would be behind Inter by 13 points (in just 9 games!!!). no wonder why we finished about 35 points behind them last season. Calciopoli problems were our board's biggest lie. Juve were relegated to Serie B and lost some of their best players and yet they're doing far better than us.

What the fvck. I don't want this loser as my favorite team's manager.

He really said those things???

^^^

That's my question too!

^^^ hahaha no

oh you ****. I was so furious that I went for it... .

heheh

If you weren't my Canadian neighbor, I swear to Lucifer a rabid dog would be feasting on your danglers RIGHT NOW!

Lets make a new record, longest LOOSING STREAK!! CUZ WE'RE PRETTY GOOD AT IT!!!

upset...yes.

but i'm actually glad this is happening because it is proving how bad our team really is.

as exciting as last year was, winning the CL and fighting back for 4th place hurt us this season. the management saw the championship and a decent finish in the league and thought this was a great team. hopefully with this dreadful performance our management will see that we need at least 5-6 new players (and maybe encouraging others to retire) by next season.

Overall ... We were unlucky and it just wasn't our day !!

To play at the San Siro and loose to a team like Empoli, the alarm bells should sound !! There was something wrong.

If I was to dissect the the game and look at certain incidents, it could be clearly visible that they were playing with 8 men in the box for the most part of the game. It is clear that Empoli played on the counter-attack. Kudos to them, cuz they hanged on and closed the spaces very well.

But in all honesty, Milan wasn't playing at it's best. Had Milan played the way we all know it can; then my prediction of a 4-0 finish would have been the correct result. But we were slow, and were closed down. The team was organized and even Gilardino had good movement off the ball !! But the problem is one, these teams close down the spaces and lock the game in their box, where there is no way to penetrate, unless luck is on your side. ( watch the game AGAIN !! we had the possesion, we were the once who attacked for 98% of the match, we were the once who applied the pressure .. Does this really mean the team is sh1t )

Inter's game last night They should have drawn with Reggina .. I mean there was nothing fancy about their game there and they faced a much more lenient defense than we did. But I guess it is all down to luck




Sadly it is ... But the result doesn't transmit the actual game play. They were totally anti football !!

I have one thing to say in response to everything you just said:

WHATEVER DUDE.

Here are datasport's (harsh but accurate) ratings for Milan's players:

MILAN
Dida 6.5 -Non ha grandi colpe sul gol di Saudati. Per il resto e` arrivato su ogni pallone con sicurezza.
Kaladze 6 -Ha chiuso bene gli spazi entrando subito in partita.
Jankulovski 5.5 -Non e` stato il miglior Jankulovski. Ha spinto pochissimo sulla fascia ed e` stato spesso superato dall`avversario diretto Busce`.
Nesta 6.5 -Prestazione altalenante del centrale rossonero. A tratti e` stato insuperabile, arrivando in anticipo su ogni palla. Nella ripresa invece ha subito la vivacita` di Saudati e compagni.
Maldini 6 -Positivo il suo rientro dopo il lungo stop. E` stato preciso negli interventi. Nella ripresa ha accusato la stanchezza ed e` stato rilevato da Kaladze.
Oddo 4.5 -Assolutamente inesistente. Non si e` visto per niente sulla fascia e non si e` particolarmente distinto nemmeno in marcatura.
Brocchi 6 -Ha giocato pochi palloni ma ha creato delle situazioni importanti soprattutto per Ambrosini.
Ambrosini 6.5 -Con Pirlo, forse il migliore nel Milan. Soprattutto per la duttilita` tattica e la capacita` di fare anche la seconda punta all`occorrenza.
Pirlo 6.5 -Uno dei pochi salvabili di oggi. Ha innalzato il tasso tecnico della squadra. Si e` procurato punizioni da posizioni favorevoli creando pericoli alla porta difesa da Balli.
Seedorf 6 - Per gran parte della gara e` stato brillante servendo palle importanti ai compagni. Nella ripresa pero`, e` calato molto e non e` riuscito a liberarsi delle marcature strette degli avversari.
Gattuso 5.5 -E` apparso fuori condizione. Non e` riuscito a fare buon filtro a centrocampo ed e` stato anche poco preciso nei passaggi.
Gourcuff 5.5 -Molto deludente. Doveva dare vivacita` al reparto offensivo ma non ha inciso sulla gara.
Gilardino 5.5 -I gol dell`Olimpico non gli sono serviti a sbloccarsi anche a San Siro. Assolutamente inesistente nel primo tempo, si e` fatto vedere piu` spesso sotto porta nella ripresa, soprattutto nelle palle alte. Ma non e` mai riuscito ad impensierire seriamente il portiere avversario.
Inzaghi 5 - E` arrivato sempre in ritardo sulle palle importanti, facendo mancare la zampata decisiva che lo contraddistingue.

Yeah and I had put my life on hold just to wait for ur response

Good.

Luck? Who invented that word? There is no such thing. You make your own luck. Bad luck is when you lose 1 game that you were absolutely brilliant in. Not when you consistently lose. You're responses are too old school for their own good.

Why our management thought something like that?! what if last season was just a one-off? (it sure as hell was). we won the CL thanks to our team's class and doubling the effort in the last months (like what Sacchi said, we turned the dust to gold!), but this time we won't be able to get away from what we deserve with this kind of attitude and team quality, unless some important decisions are made in January...

Brilliantly put!

My overall thoughts:

We do need new blood and I'm afraid the management are gonna make some January transfers, thus making the excuse for not buying anyone the following summer. This is absolutely new to me. All these losses and lack of transfers. I have always been pleased with our market until just these recent couple of years. And all these new records we are breaking by losing at home and away to small teams should really make the emergency alarms go off in our offices. I am not for any rash decisions, but I want to see improvments made not only on the pitch, but in our market as well.

did u actually read my post ? Or did u just take the first word and based ur - long awaited - response on that ??

Cuz I did say:








p.s. my responses are of my analysis of the game .. if the team loose or draw, don't come looking for me, cuz i am just a fan.

I know, and I'm not. You are though, always, defending what seems like a lost cause. All this talk about opponents closing down too much, bad luck and bad refereeing seem like something Moratti should be coming up with. Not Milan. I think you should change your mind regarding the issue.

Look .. I am not giving excuses for the team. I never was and never have done!

I am an optimistic person, what can I do about that ... And being optimistic about Milan, well blame Milan for that, they are the ones who spoiled me

Change my mind regarding what issues ?! We need a new striker ?? An alternative for Kaka' ?? A Maldini replacement and a left back ??

What do I look like to u ? 8 years old ?? The season had already begun and even a blind man knows AC Milan has depth problems Do I have to act like part of the cattle and repeat the same "lame" thing every single time ?? What good will that do ??


Or is m1ke the one who will listen to us and act on our behalf to bring someone in for the team!


I am not being sarcastic in anyway here ..

I just see it differently. I lived through the Gli Invincibli era. Then after that came the dark hour, before Carlo saved Milan ... And basically what I am trying to say is .. From my prospective I don't see a crisis .. You can discredit the team as much as you like .. But me, no I am grateful ! There is no team on the face of this Earth today that has given more than what this current team had given.

I lived through the dark days too (and no old person jokes!). I love Milan as a team - always have - and I'll support them no matter how disappointing the results are.

Thing is, the team is playing poorly right now. The elements are all there and lord knows the talent is, but it's not combining the way it should. Something is wrong, and it makes me very sad.

Never in my whole 2 years here I complained about a ref-decision. But this one was clear, it should have been a penalty.

I really can say that Milan did not play bad at all. Sure, it wasn't a brilliant match, and we had big mistakes in the defense and our strikers missed big also, but..guys, I do remember the 1997 season. I do remember some of the darkest Milan moments. And this play today does not fit in. Empoli just played awfully tuff. They defended with 9 men, Pozzi was a real midfielder. And we had the indisponed Pippo-Gila pair and no alternative on the bench. No alternative...

That's what I don't understand...why doesn't someone use this Willy youngster once? Even if he is the worst player in our history, maybe, just maybe, he would do something.

But today, Carlo's subs were rational. Brocchi in fact did real good, he was active and dangerous from time to time. Gourcuff?? Never did anything when he came on. Maybe he is the new Platini or Zidane or whatever, but a super sub he isn't. He really should start one match. I do not expect anything big of him when he gets the last 20m but still - I've seen Dos Santos, Krkic or Messi (in his first match) play. They all knew that they have Ronaldinho, Iniesta, Henry, etc. infront so they did use their 10m to show themself. Yohann just usually fit's into our lethargy.

Nesta? I think his positioning was overall bad and he was below the usual level - that means still better then everyone else in our defense. Maldini? Played but still with pain. He was very good,...


Only thing I have to say: this season is, in german said a misch-masch and life goes on. Till Ronaldo and Pato start to play we'll have to get used to such ups and downs and disappointing results. Oh, even Milan can make a break,..

If you play bad and lose, fair enough, you know you can play better.

But if you lose to an average side while playing good? That's the time to panic.

These are the games to win and today we just failed against Empoli.

I agree with tennie . But i will wait untill ronaldo is back and when pato can play. If Milan still cant win by then ...

Great post man

For maybe the 15th millionth time in forum history, I'm agreeing with R7 here.

I really haven't posted anything in the threads regarding the loss, because it's pointless. Everytime we lose, the forum is divided into two sections, the guys who feel we're sh!t, and the guys who think all is not over yet.

I think R7 hit the nail on the head. Sure it feels bad to lose to Empoli. But then are we really presuming that no alarm bells are ringing. All of you are smart people, you know we've never targetted the scudetto this season or the last. Is that a fault? A lot of you think so, and while I can't blame you, you also know why we're not targetting it. We don't have the depth. Let's be clear, we all agree we don't have the depth to compete on two fronts.

So then is it the management's fault? Ok in this explanation, you'll also see the reason, why a bunch of 'deluded idiots' like myself, R7, Nova and Tennie(I'm including u, so that way we have female representation) don't go out of their way to criticize the hell out of Milan.

R7 hit the nail on the head. He was a part of the great Milan of MvB and so on. For me MvB is a superstar I see in videos.

I'll tell you what though, from the days of Capello in 95 I've seen us plunge to the depths of not even being in the top 10. It was in such a state that I saw Carlo walk in, and just work sheer magic. I was watching a Milan crumble into becoming a shell, kinda like the Newcastle today, and this guy with a paunch, a Milan hero walks in and hauls us up to the pinnacle of European football. We're still ranked number 1 club in the world. Do you know what that means to be, to see your club from 11th in Italy, to being number 1 in the world. And now what? You want me to start a war chant (yeah you're included too, u yank ) about carlo needing to get fired, coz he lost one match 1-0?

Or maybe it's coz he doesn't play Yoann enough? Well, he uncovered Andrea Pirlo (unabased fanboy I'am, but that's not the point), he made Gatusso what he is, Sheva was the number 1 striker post Ancelotti, Pippo was a has-been when he came to Milan. And of course there was Kaka (ok, let's assume he was great enough to shine anywhere). So you know what , nostalgic that I'am I WILL forgive him if Yoann doesn't turn out to be Zidane II, and if it is Carlo's fault.

And as for the management, bigmac, you've said it yourself, you couldn't fault our transfers till two years ago. You think in the space of two years something has gone wrong? Maybe it's something we don't know of. Or maybe we need time to make those transfers happen. We stopped buying players for the sake of it, it was what got us in that hell hole pre Ancelotti in the first place. I'm not judging it, I simply don't know enough. But I refuse to believe that a team who's never ever compromised on getting players to improve their squad, would do so without any reason, in two years.

And as for Mourinho, look I love good football. It's why I chose Milan among all the teams in Italy. It's why against all rationality I loved Newcastle. And it's why as much as I despise that they have no nationals, I like Arsenal. For some people results and points in the league are the be-all-and-end-all. But I'd rather watch my team finish fourth and still have played the best football, than have reached the first place with a lot of 1-nils. Maybe I'm not as competitive a person as some of you, but a club that compromises the beautiful game for points is not a football club. It's about how beautifully you play, not in the points. This is football, not the stock market.

And as for being the master motivator, why wasn't Mourinho able to 'motivate' Sheva and Ballack. Don't for one moment say, it was because these guys had lost it. Don't say they're not good enough for the EPL either. Football is football. If Obafemi Martins can do well, Sheva should have stomped all over the EPL like a Colossus.

R7 had a point, given Sheva and Ballack, I strongly believe Ancelotti would have done much better. We know what he can do with Sheva, and I've seen enough of Ancelotti over the years to say with complete conviction that
Rino---Pirlo---Ballack
--Turtle-----Kaka
-----Pippo/Gila---

would obliterate anything.


And as for making excuses....lemme just once look at it from the player's point of view. They've just be roundly booed by their 'home' fans. Ok maybe deservedly, and I don't think the players are retards to not know they haven't played well. If I were in a player's shoes, knowing that the management was refusing to hang me out to dry as a scapegoat, instead steadily defending me all along (even THOUGH it's my fault), only motivates me to push much harder and do well to repay that trust.

Ok, so suppose this is a bad season, what's the worst that can happen? We get knocked out of CL? And we finish 5th or lower in the Serie A. Well guess what I've seen worse..MUCH worse. And I've seen enough of Milan, that we're not some psycho Chelsea to jump around screaming 'heads must roll!' and fire everything in sight. We'll do what's needed. Milan have always been very very clinical about their targets. And they've already told us what they are for this season. 1 down two more to go. CWC and CL. If they reach the targets they've set this season, I'm satisfied.

We'll challenge for the Serie A when we're ready. And that satisfies me. But then when you love a club so much, you get satisfied easily.

And @ R7....Tennie for admin.. Tennie for U.N Peace Corps. Send her off to Baghdad, with her fish doll. She'd set things right in a jiffy.

I saw Scheva in London at Stamford Bridge and actually in Calfornia. IMO its not that Mourinhos problem is motivation with Scheva, in England you don't get the space at the top of the box that you do in Italy. Scheva is just slow in a fast moving rollercoaster as Totti called the EPL. He doesn't get the space. Mourinho gave Scheva change after chance. Even the new coach started with the Scheva tipped formation and immediately moved to Mourinhos tactics with Drogba up top. With Ballack, he was a starter through the season and one of Mourinh's stated key players. Like Ronaldo, Ballack is injury prone and since Levrksn he has been injured pretty consistently. Bayern are at the top of their game now.

With this club it was a sinking ship when Scheva left and no replacement came in. To me it was simple tactics. We have very minimal dangerous attackers. I was right when this event happened. The only peak we are at is in the form of the force know as Kaka( and quality from Pirlo), it was his world class play that beat Man U, Celtic and others in the champions league last season.

Pretty much our interpretations with the coaching, reinforcements and everything have been correct. My prediction is that we would tank in the league without reinforcements up top. At this moment we haven't even played the big guns yet Inter, Roma, and Juventus are we are 10 points out of first place with no real change in sight. Galliani and Silvio have come out to state that Milan are in a crisis. Thus I think we were right to criticize the coaching and everything because we foresaw this happening. And its easier from our end because we are not responsible but if you have watched the past 3 years our play has gotten worse and worse. Our champions league win had really nothing IMO to do with us being the best of Europe but really a large force know as Kaka.

The game today shows how reliant we are on him and how our plan B can't beat bottom of the table dwelling Empoli or at least show bad.

IMO you have reached the lowest possible point when you accuse referees for bad calls instead of looking in the mirror. The majority of Kaka's goals have come from penalties thus showing we are getting calls.

Great post Jack ... I'm glade u see the light too




She would bring them together alright


Send Tennie to Iraq !!!

I only can agree. Very good post,..

Best post so far. Those highlighted points have always been my opinion. We may continue to deceive ourselves but fact is the handwriting was there on the wall for the past 2 seasons. It is a team in decline, ageing. Yes, we will continue to support Milan, no matter what, but truth is the mgt had blundered in believing we're okay as is. While Ancelloti is not the type of coach to lift a team in crisis. He simply lack that personality, or motivational and technical ability to.

Omfg.....I cannot believe this!!! On what basis are you coming up with this observation?

Before Ancelotti there was a bloke called Faith Terim. And before him Zacheroni. If you'd remember what Milan were like then and in what position, maybe you wouldn't have made that previous statement.

But my fish doll doesn't speak Arabic!!!!!

Funny Tennie. You think a lot of talking goes on in Iraq?

Anyway here's what a majority in the forum wanted...



It's from goal.com.

(It's a generally accurate translation of his post-match comments).

And the fish doll doesn't like sharp pointies or things that fire bullets. He's a bit of a coward, he is.

A couple of stiff Jack Daniels and he'll be fine.

So it speaks English

Tennie u worry me

I just wanna rate Seedorf. He gets a big fat 0 from me. That was without a shadow of a doubt the most uninspired and slow play I've ever seen from a player of his qualities. Not physically slow but thought-wise and execution-wise...

damn was that painful... and Gourcuff's problem is supposed to be that he keeps the ball on his feet too much! It's a pity...

We'll never beat a defending team with Seedorf on... he plays for them, killing down every chance of counter-attacking! He didn't make a single one-touch pass... In fact, I don't think he ever had less than 5 touches on the ball!

Sometimes I just wish he could try his luck from out of the 18-yards more often. You know one of those shots that give u the urge to scream ur lungs out !

It's wierd, but usually the number of one-touches and vertical-axis plays we make are indicative of our form. When we're playing badly, we rarely do that kind of thing.