+1

Marco Van Borriell...

He's showing us he can do it at Milan, not just Genoa.

I was wrong about him, and I have to say he's on fire right now.

Borri>>>>Gila imho. Gila, like Hunt basically ONLY was there to finish off moves from the midfield. Yeah he was able to hold on to the ball a tad better than Hunt and knock it down for Kaka/Clarence, but his finishing and overall game play isolated him badly.

Borri might not be as prolific as Gila was (though even THAT is debatable) but his tangible and intangible contributions make him vital

^^ agreed.

I personally think Gila's movement was a darn sight better too as was his ball holding. KJH seems incapable of moving at anyting except straight lines.

Borriello rules over them primarily because of the work rate and physicality. He can really make a presence in the box, more than KJH and Gila.

That said, I think Gila's finishing is on par with Marco's.

I think this work rate of Borriello's that you've been talking about for so long is overrated. What he does is useless backtracking with not tactical outcome when what he should be doing is drawing players to his side to open up spaces which he does not do well when the ball is near the area.

Overrated maybe, but you can tell the difference between when it's Borriello up there and when it's either Hunter or Pippo.

Well if you're comparing his workrate with someone like Anelka you have a point. But then we're not saying he's up there with them. In our current team among all our strikers he does the most dirty work.

And I don't think the backtracking is useless...it actually does open up space for the mid-field. The last match against Bari, we had R80 and Pato drop back....

Time and time again he has drawn two or even three players to himself around the box or further back in the middle and passed the ball on to someone like ronnie. He does this time and time again and as a result opens up possibilities that we otherwise wouldn't have. Most of the time it breaks up the defensive tactic put in place by the opposing team because it's so hard to get the ball away from Borri once he is in possession in the area. And a lot of times he does this really quickly. He gets the ball, two players go after him, another player makes a run and space opens up to pass the ball anywhere basically.

In other words, shut up. I hate you. I win.

Put that on a T-shirt.

I knew my post would tempt you to post my love!!!

The drawing of players does happen but most of the time it's nowhere near the box and it's actually useless because there's no one else in it or near it that can take advantage of the space left behind.

I'm not saying Borriello does not do enough... it's just that he does stuff that we don't take advantage of...

Oh dear.

Expand on that!

haha i thought the same thing

Jack... is this your video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x76L2seQ00

Oh hell no...me who worshipped at the altar of Alan Shearer, make a video of that lout.

It could be my MPD acting up again, I wouldn't know about it. But yeesh..that spelling...

Dear Borriello please fix you hairstyle because you start looking like a pimp

Dear Fillipo, this is exactly the look I was going for

Ugh. He's gotta go. I can't believe he's higher on the pecking order then Klaas. It's really a shame Huntelaar was never given a chance and now he's most likely gonna be sold to chip away at Ibra's signing. Boriello should go, not Klaas.

i do not agree u Borri is much better than hunter .. on last season he scored a more goals than hunter... and i think he will score again if he will paly

Huntelaar might be a better finisher, but Borriello is more useful in our system. People might say Huntelaar is similar to Inzaghi but Inzaghi is totally in different class of poacher. He is impossible to mark.

What I'm currently finding irritating about Bori, even though I've been a big fan of his throughout the year, is the fact that now that he's facing competition he wants to jump ship. He should want what's best for the team, also he should grow some [soccer] balls and fight, for all we know Ibra could flop big time and Bori could win his place.

I don't like this petulant attitude where it's either my way or the highway. And it's not like he won't face any compeition at Juve, plus he seemed more then happy when Barca were being mentioned as a prossible destination, and we all know he would barely get a look in there.

+1

I agree. On the other hand he has a big problem - time is working against him. Let's be honest, most of us here considered Borriello to be crap as he was introduced to Milan. Afterwards he had a spell at Empoli, Sampdoria and Treviso which weren not exactly spectacular, and in the end that dope affair. What does he got now? "Just" 28 years, one good season with Genoa and one with Milan and a not so sure position with the Azzuri. His late peak is what worries him, because I think he knows that he'll hardly get better then he is now. He's been a Milan player for a long time, but still, somehow, he's the first we'd cross off our list - everyone of us - Pippo is just Pippo, Pato is our brilliant little pet, Sheva was a legend, Ibra now is our "hope," Paloschi is Milan's cute homemade future,...he's the only one that jumps out of that scale.

What I don't get is why the hell Juve? There's as much competition there as with Milan, if not more.

i want him to stay at all cost !

Why?

He was important last season, but he is no must keep for this season, not even close.

Agreed. Especially if someone like Robinho is coming to replace him.

Like I said in the other thread, getting Robinho is all well and good, but selling Boriello would leve us with 2 options for center strikers, and Pato if he's not injured...

Selling Boriello and getting Robinho would leave us in the same position we're currently in, only the depth has shifted from the center to the wide areas

I disagree with you, han. Robinho also can play CF, but we don't even need him for that...

CF: Pato, Ibrahimovic, Robinho, Inzaghi
LW: Ronaldinho, Pato, Robinho
RW: Pato, Robinho

Why do we still need Borriello then? We are loaded in CF options.
And what if we kept Boriello and don't sign Robinho or so:

CF: Pato, Ibrahimovic, Borriello, Inzaghi
LW: Ronaldinho, Pato
RW: Pato

We are having depth problems and not so little.... so depth needs to be shifted from the center to the wide areas anyway

Robinho wouldn't fit into a CF position in a 3 man attack imo. He's just not that type of player.

Also Pato getting injured would mean Robinho being needed on the wing, thus our only alternative to Ibra would be Pippo and imo at his age, Pippo cannot be a starter playing 90 minutes especially not in consecutive matches.

Imo if we want to be competitive on all fronts, we don't need Robinho or Boriello, we need both, simple.

Inter didn't win the treble by having a good first 11 they had a great squad throughout

Well, having both of course has got his benefits.... or having someone like Paloschi (and Robinho instead of Borriello) would be something too... I won't disagree having both Borriello and Robinho gives us more options and has got a good side, but...

...dumping Borriello for Robinho doesn't leave us in the same position. It is an improvement since Robinho can play also wide which where we have the least depth.

(IMO, we can't expect to keep Borriello and sign Robinho..)

Borriello can only play as CF, Robinho can play both as CF and WF. Easy.

I don't see Borriello playing CF efficiently enough. That said, I'm with han on this one. If we wanna make some changes we should have both players in our roster. If not we should keep the 2-3 million and sell Kaladze/Jankulovski and use the money for a decent and fresh fullback.

Topic moved.

EDIT:...and moved back. I don't want to declare him a past player when he's still technically away on loan.

A loan with obligation to buy. It's like an Ibra loan.

Roma made a good deal. Only 10m split into three instalments.

They had to pay 2m to make the loan happen though, so it will ammount to 12m, 2 more then we spent to get him back from Genoa, plus whatever we asked them for when we co-owned him in the first place and sold them half his rights

footballitalia.co.uk

its there for all to see a free loan and 10m

Yup, it's a free loan with an obligation of 10 million next summer. Forget about your 2 million han.

Damn, didn't someone post in the transfer thread that the loan fee was 2m?

Yep, but things changed when the official statement was released.

Yup, conflicting reports were emerging before the official one. But it should all be clear now.