After seeing Milan over the past month it seems every game is going to be a tough one for us. hopefully Pirlo's return will make us play better football. hopefully a different tactic will see us do better up front. hopefully...

ahh .. So its Torino's turn


definite 3 points here .. Considering Juve play merda in the same week

Hopefully you'll stop hoping so much. Sigh. I predict either another 1-0 win. If you're feeling lucky, then maybe we can up that to say, 2-1 for us, but that's the most I'm about to go with our current form and style of play. Anything higher would be nothing short of a miracle.

Wish to see Pirlo get an extended run in this one. It's about time, I'd say. Grazie Pirlo!

Don't understand how you can possibly be so confident... we're barely squeezing through against the likes of Chievo, and even though Torino are no great shakes themselves, they are better then the Serie B bound Chievo.

We need soft penalties in order to get the 3 points in easy games, so for this one I'm predicting for Carlo put out the xmas tree formation with Pirlo maybe in Seedorf's place, and Pato or Pippo upfront. The score will either be a hard fought 1-0 or a drab 1-1 draw. And until Carlo changes his hard headed ways this will continue to be the story of our season. Just don't know how we will fare against the bigger teams, because we might have gotten luvky against Inter but we won't get away with it next time

I would like to see a 4-3-1-2 for this one, with one of Kaka or Ronaldinho starting on the bench. Pato-Pippo-Shevchenko (two of the three) up front.

There's an off chance I'll be at this one; depends on travel times from Florence.

I think everyone is hoping for that Tennie. Whether it will happen or not, I think we all know the answer to that.

A little early but I'm going to put it out there

Predicted lineup (Carlo's most probable)



Maybe (and that's a big maybe, Pato starts. Subs could maybe be Pirlo at some point and switching the striker, maybe if we need a goal he'll throw on another striker.

What I would like to see



Take the game by the scruff of the neck score 2 goals in the first half, close the game up. Around the 60th minute, take off Pirlo and bring on Flamini, exchange Kaka for Dinho and Pato/Sheva for Pippo. Imo with the squad we have this is how Carlo should rotate the team, but since our coach does not understand the basic concept of player rotation I know this won't happen, the xmas tree will be used and we'll graft out a dodgy 1-0 win or if luck runs out like it did againt Lecce, we'll lose points and begin to lose ground on Inter.

Lucky against inter ?! ... man i was in the stands for that game and i dont know what you saw, but Milan ruled on that night !

About Carlo, you can criticize and downgrade all his accomplishments, but that wont change where he stands in the Milan structure .. he remains the coach.

Milan didn't squeeze through Chievo .. Milan had a great deal of possession, countless buildups to the opponents 18 yard box and several attempts on goal. While Chievo only woke up in the second half, and towards the end decided they have nothing more to loose, so they started attacking (which is where Milan looked a bit under pressure) .. But overall, the team did well. It is the attack that isn't meeting its potential.

In any case, why should i be worried ?! I believe in the coach and the player's abilities .. There is nothing to be worried about. Milan is 1 point off the top and the Scudetto will be decided in May.

Sure we had a lot of possession against Inter but at the end of the day we won it because of an offside goal and because Adriano is good for nothing and doesn't recongnise the net from his @ss.

I criticise him because he has a squad full of world class players at his disposal and he is not using it to his advantage. Non of the games we won so far are because of good tactics or the fact that we played well. All were basically achieved thanks to bad ref calls or strange luck. Can't understand how you call this an achievment. I think it's the refs that you should be meriting them to not Carlo. And hopefully he won't remain the coach for much longer. He talks about being like Fergie when in reality he could never be like him because he doesn't know how to let go of a past team and structure a new one. He has his favourites and his formations and he sticks by them no matter what. That's why we were so terrible last season and the one before that, that's why we are playing on Thursday nights this season instead of Wed/Tue.

Yes Milan squeezed through Chievo, we created a handful of chances that aren't really even worthy of being mentiones. Yes we controlled possession but most of it was useles and in the center of the pitch, and what do you really expect against a team like Chievo? who let's honest here, are woeful at best. And even they manged to put us under pressure and could have scored because we couldn't manage to score a goal against them without the ref's help. We didn't have to try to close the game up from the 30th minute mark, it's a classic Carlo tactic and if Chievo scored (which they came close to) we would have lost points because of him.

The attack isn't meeting it's potential because of the tactics Carlo uses, it's too congested, always trying to go through the same way, of course a team will manage to close us up easily we're too predictable and it becaomes easy for them to anticipate what we're going to do before we even do it.

I'm not telling you how you should feel, if you are not worried then good for you, but I also remember you saying that you weren't worried last season also and look where we ended up...

I'm just saying right now we may be lucky and still getting the points somehow but this kind of luck won't last long, we are a big club with world class players, we should rely on our own talents not on luck.

how can possession in any area of the pitch be useless!?!?!
any coach will tell you possession is everything sometimes going forward to come back and start again or just playing the ball around in the middle may seem pointless but it may be possible (and very likely) that they are working the opposition trying to move them around looking for spaces...as for these ref decisions don't they all favour the big clubs us,juve inter etc same in all leagues we should take that as the norm? i ust find it hard to comprehend that for all the apparant poor form we still sit 1 point off the top of the table and the best is yet to come!

Kaka' wasn't offside .. The lines man was right there when Ronaldinho launched the ball Kaka' sprinted, and as you know how fast the merda are against Kaka ... On telly it seemed as though he was off side

About Adriano ... erm did you forget how a 40 yr old shut out Ibra-Cadabra ?! Yeah they had their chances, but theyw ere always going to have their chances, they have a very strong team. It is the merits of the defense and the Gkeeper!

You can say that han, it doesnt really bother me .. I signed up to milanfan as a supporter, not as a critic. I can see when times are hard and dont need someone to tell me whats going on as if i have no sense in observing the obvious I just give the benefit of the doubt, instead of 'assuming'.

Now whether you think Milan will win or not, that's your personal opinion. And no, im not going to change my opinion based on an argument .. Rather, i built up my opinion following Milan for several years, and if you think last season was the lowest of the lows ... Tennie or Filipo can bring you to speed on what a horrendous season is.


han my man ... i have a migraine from work .. so please dont escalate it

add me to that list

It is useless when it's just passing it back and fourth between the 5 mids and not even trying to move it forward. Carlo tried to shut out the game after the goal, it was abvious to see. And pssession is useless when you aren't even trying to create anything with it.

Big clubs do get the calls sometimes, but it's mostly the 50/50 calls not penalties and sending offs out of thin air. I just don't like seeing that even if it's in favour of my team. The Italian football shows are having a field day with all these decisions and everyone is jumping to yell out foul play.


Kaka's leg was ahead of Materazzi at the point Ronaldinho released the ball, it's more clear to see when you've scrutinized the replay a million times. Believe me on this. Sure it would have been a really difficuilt call for the lines-man I'll give him that but the point is, Kaka was clearly offside.

I'm only mentioning Adriano, but let's not get into all the chances Inter managed to create and the fact that they were reduced to 10 men when most of these were created...

If everyone just praises the team and finds no faults and thinks everything the player and the coach does is perfect then there is really no need for a forum since people come here to discuss EVERY aspect of Milan, not just saying how much they love the team, but discussing the shortcomings of the team and celebrating the teams victories together. This isn't a matter of black and white. You can still support the team while criticising the things you don't like.

I'm not going to tell you I remember the Serie B years because I was barely out of the diaper during that time. But I remember tougher times during the late 90s and so on. But concidering the team we had then, to the team Carlo had last season, it shouldn't be an excuse.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was to help you with the migraine... hope it eases up

i stand by what i said no possession is useless. Even if there is no intention of moving forward and creating anything keeping the football in any situation is not useless....non productive maybe but never useless

Well not being productive as you want to call it could have cost us the points since Chievo came close to scoring twice in the second half.

I personally call it useless, sure we're keeping the ball in our possession but not trying to even do anything with it is asking for us to lose it and they somehow score on the counter.

+1 cookie to han. (and one for the penguins as well)

Nicely stated. Critical analysis - while also acknowledging the good things said/done - is important.

and thats what makes this great game...opinions
i understand what your point is and in parts agree. But like i say i just can't agree that possession is useless we rely on constant passing of the football thats are game and possission is 9 tenths as they say. I'm a football purist and thats just my way i think the game should be played

The penguins want a cookie each Tennie.

Between you and me I know they're greedy b*st*rds. But what can you do?

I respect that but at some point you have to just say, stop that and actually play some football, I'm ok with possession that will eventually lead to something, but to see us passing it around in the midfield and sometimes even going back to the defence and when they pass themselves into a corner they just punt the ball up is imo, wasting time that could see us scoring a goal to kill the game.

Last week against Lecce I think if you add it up atleast 30 minutes of the match was wasted passing the ball arounf between the defence and midfield, and at this point we needed a goal. I even commented about it during the game, I would go through the thread to find it but I don't really feel like it ( ) I voiced my frustrations at the fact that we were passing the ball around in the defence like we were winning 3-0 instead of still drawing.

Oh, all right. 1 cookie to each penguin. And while I'm at it one also to Mishie's chicken. Don't want anyone to feel left out.

well i won't believe you unless you do ()
As for the Lecce game i think 1 lapse of concentration was what lost us the game not the passing/possession football i can see why people get frustrated with it as rightly or wrongly like to see a attack on the end of the passing but after all it was Lecce (merda!) and we should have passed them off the park (and did) with a cutting edge...for me its time to play 2 strikers but that doesn't mean abandoning are passing principles;)

i hope for 2 stikers but that will be very unlikly as we are getting another midfielder back so it is nearly impossible that we play 2 stiker

I didn't see any cutting edge to our passing at either Lecce or today. It was passing without any point behind it. In the past under Carlo we could pass the best of them off the park (and I'm talking about the Man Us and Barcas, not Lecce and Chievo) now we try to keep possession like we're so afraid to try to attack because we might lose the ball. There's a difference between playing possession football with a motive behind it (your style of playing) and trying to keep the ball because you're afraid to lose it. If we can pass Lecce off the park then why didn't we do it? Thier goal is not the point. The point is with all the possession we had we didn't manage to turn it into goals, it took a solo run and a cross from Pato to break the deadlock not a team move after passing Lecce off the park ;p

Oh btw, as for the 2 strikers thing, we know it's not going to happen with Carlo, the only time we'll play with 2 strikers is either when we're desperate or in the UEFA Cup

oh don't misunderstand me there is no way we're playing to our full potentail and there certainly seems to be a fear factor in our play..maybe the side without Pirlo isn't as confident playing that way who knows after all even tho last season he was poor arguably still one of our best players..hopefully the fear factor will disappear with his return and a 2-0 win against Toro will be the result!

A team has 70% of the possession but loses the game in the end. do they give 3points to them? what use is there in their possession?

Barca for example usually has a better possession than its opponent and hits 4-5 goals past them. that is useful possession because it ends up being converted to goals.

Milan's possession comes mainly from exchanging passes between defense and midfield. we don't have a great possession in attack.

You're right, zd. We don't. Which is stupefying if you look at the names of the AMs/strikers who play for Milan. Things are not clicking as they should be. I know some blame the coach for this; I personally think more of the responsibility is on the players. Be that as it may...yeah. It should be better. Not to say we should be hitting 6 goals past every opponent, but sheesh. Real goalscoring opportunities shouldn't be THAT hard to come by.

if that were the case then of course something would be seriously wrong but i've never seen a team with 70% possession and lose a game, but i know what your saying and i agree but what use is there in having hardly any possession?? to have the football in your control is paramount to winning game and the more possession should relate to creating more chances but as mentioned in my previous points i was talking about productive possession not non productive and at the moment we have the later and i've stated my reasons why i think this may be the case

Well, when a team doesn't play good usually the coach is the first one to blame maybe he's getting something in his tactics wrong?

I remember those 3 games where we started with a classic 4-3-1-2 [not with Pato as a winger, but a striker] and we scored 9 goals and made plenty of chances.. we should have continued that path but instead we opted for Christmas tree against Inter. we shouldn't sacrifice the good of the team because Ronaldinho needs to get to his best. the team always comes first. Christmas tree isn't the appropriate formation for Milan in Serie A.

Of course, productive possession is definitely good. I mentioned Barca. we have more possession but we create few chances. so it's not wrong to say our possession is not useful yet.

Fishdoll is scared. I'm agreeing with zd again.

I would be perfectly happy with rotating Kaka and Ronaldinho and starting 2 strikers. In fact, I'd send Galliani a box of cookies.

EDIT: I'd like to add that I expect the fluidity of play (and therefore opportunities for attacking players) to improve when Pirlo is back.

To be honest with you all in pretty sure if Carlo had his way R10 wouldn't be at the club i don't think he thought we really needed him we needed another striker so partly his hands were tied with that decision much the same about Sheva's return to so i have sympathy for him to a degree, and why not rotate Kaka and R10 if it benefits the overall team play

Agreed.

OMG! The apocalypse is upon us.


We really don't know. I'm with you on the fact that you doubt how involved in the decisions regarding Dinho and Sheva Carlo was.

But still Both Dinho and Sheva give him the neccissary means to rotate the team while still maintaining the overall quality of the first 11. But Carlo refuses to take advantage of this and sticks to the smax tree.

As much as I love Milan, I don't think I can watch them play again.
If I see a 1-0 game again I WILL CRY

That's not exactly a positive, considering that he's long worn out his welcome and the management haven't got the acorns to replace him.

I'd happily win every remaining game 1-0 if it meant bringing home the Scudetto. We lack the cutting edge at the moment, and considering we're not playing particularly well, we're picking up a lot of points.

If we go on one of our usual post-Christmas runs, we'll be hard to stop.

We're gonna win this. No question. 4-0, like the other ones...

I still am ok with a 1-0 if it means Ronaldinho and Kaka are moving 10% more into getting into a grove. And I think it makes sense that a formation which needs to click, gets practise time against the weaker teams.

As for the two strikers thing, yes it will work now. But it means nothing. Last season Roma's 4-2-3-1 was the greatest thing since Elvis Presley. I remember all the statments over here in the forum, about how they played brilliant football etc. But then what happened? They got figured out, and now they're in the pooper without a Plan B.

I've given up on understanding this forum. One second we complain of predictability and being figured out, and then we say we should go back to how things were.

Seedorf---Kaka
-----Striker----

is different from

Kaka---Ronaldinho
----Striker-------

The second formation also has way more potential. Potential which we paid a lot of money for, and which needs to be realised really quickly. If Carlo doesn't play Ronaldinho, he's just doing what Mou did to Sheva...destroy a player's career and end up with 21 million for nothing.

Carlo didn't want Ronaldinho, he wanted Eto'o and Drogba. Every season they do this. Give Carlo 1 player he wants (in this case Flamini) and the rest are people whom Carlo has to rehabilitate. Yet we have a man, who doesn't complain with the cards he's dealt and bravely tries to play his hand. I don't recall Carlo coming to a conference and saying my team are too weak, I can't do anything with it. He's a good coach, and a good man, and if the notorious Silvio Berlusconi comes out and says, Carletto is family...I think it means something. Surely, if they thought the coach was the problem, they wouldn't have spent all this money on the players would they?

As for Silvio being in love with the coach...puhleeze... You don't become a multi-millionaire and then Prime Minister of your country, by harbouring sentimental attachements to people.

Is he Milan's SAF. I think he could be. Of course unlike Carlo, SAF has carte blanche. Hell, he is Manchester United. A position Carletto will never be given, for another 4 or 5 years at least.

I think in 7 years, a coach still has the management and the team behind him, it counts for a lot of respect. Respect which is sadly lacking on this forum.

Case in point...Favalli. Nobody notices the good match he had yesterday. But every single mistake he makes is amplified beyond belief. Same with Emerson. He won us two matches, before he made that foul (regrettable, but it's not like it's never ever happened in football before)..and it cost us a draw...too bad...but at that point he is back to being shite in our eyes.

Rino brought down Gerrard in Istanbul. That's glossed over, coz at that time he was likeable. Then last season happened, and nobody gave a flying f@ck that Rino and Pirlo are probably the most overworked footballers in Italy, and we sentenced them to the firing squad. Suddenly this season, Rino is back, and he's playing great,and now since we have nobody else, we train our guns on Ambro, who's been the worst of the lot. Not Flamini, he's young, he's fashionable...nope...he needs time..when the fact was yesterday against Chievo, he wasn't too great at all...as 'bad' as Ambro has been.

Well..this post has gone in totally the wrong direction from what I intended. But I just wanted to raise a protest,at how 90% of this forum feels that 'discussion' simply means you point a gun at the most culpable party and unleash the most stringent tirades possible.

Sure let's go for it...fire everyone who's not 'fashionable' and get in the cool guys. Oh wait...they've already tried that. I think that team is called Madrid. Oh and there's another team in England who does exactly what the fans want.... after all the fans 'pay the player's wages' ()....my darling Newcastle...not going too well is it?


Whatever...I'm done...I'll stick to the Hot Girls thread from now on. Lately I can't seem to find anything to agree upon in the forum. Not even when it comes to music or movies. *Yawn* This is a drag.

You can say that again.

I can't believe I'm about to do this but I'm going to quote Grey's Anatomy on this one

'Things aren't always bright and shiny Jack'

What I mean by this is that it's can't always be butterflies and rainbows Jack. The team is going through a really bad spell and it's not the fact that we're grabbing late winners that makes us angry but it's the dodgey ways we've been winning the games in. I think we've picked up something like 6 - 9 points already thanks to strange ref decisions, be it a penalty or a strange sending off, or both on some cases. It doesn't sit well with us and I don't understand how you can praise the team and most of all Carlo for this.

No one wants to revert back to the Seedorf-Kaka-Striker setup, that is even worse then the Dinho-Kaka-Striker system. Everyone agrees that this whole xmas tree cr@p has gotten way too old and we should revert back to playing with 2 strikers. That's what everyone means when they say we should play how we used to.


I'm praying that we don't have to put up with Carlo's cr@p for another 4 or 5 years. Like Miz said, Carlo overstayed his welcome after the Athens win, and some would even tell you that he should have left after Istanbul, that how fead up some have gotten with him. Like I said, he can never be SAF because he doesn't know how to rebuild a team, SAF probably has had something like 4 generations of different teams come out from under him, we're into the 7th year with Carlo and we're still dragging along with the same team, only now they're older and less motivated to win things. That's the only difference from the 02 team to this team.

On Ambro vs Flamini, Flamini was not spactacular yesterday, but he did his job without and fuss or making any scenes. Why Ambro is criticised? Because he tends to act irrationally and he's the most player likely to get sent off on our team. He dwells on the ball too much and ends up losing it, a player with his abilities should do things always simple, he doesn't have the technique required to do the things he tries to do. I remember you omplaining about Yoann doing this exact same thing, but I guess it's ok since it's Ambro and he's not some French kid trying to look cool . See Jack it's not just us that point the gun at players for misplacing a foot... And I personally never wanted Rino to go, even after last season when he was linked with Bayern and Man U. Rino is Milan and imo should be the one to take the armband after Paolo.

I predict a Torino 0 - 3 Milan Seedorf , Pato and Sheva on the score sheet

Can't see Sheva playing in this one

Forza han.

Enough said.

See you on 27 November 2008 versus Portsmouth! Don't quote me on this though.

+1 to what Jack said. (except restricting myself to the hot girls thread).

Crisis? What Crisis?

Oh, come on! Referees, luck, fluke goals?! We are a far better team than last year and we are just one point behind Inter! It's a great achievment actually. If you want shows every game, chose another team. If you've become a Milan fan because of Van Basten and Gullit - sorry, you'll never see a production like that again. Carlo's a defensive coach. He doesn't want to get our players more tired than they already are. Injuries, tired players, strange rotations and at some point, we have to use the Primavera. I also wish we could beat our opponents with two attackers and still be solid in defence and midfield, but obviously it doesn't happen at training. Nesta, Malidin, Ambro and Pirlo are some of our most important players and it seems Carlo didn't give a damn about our opponent's low class and made sure everything will be okay. And when you think about it, Chievo never had a real chance of scoring. At least one mission is completed. Pirlo is our best counterattack player and I don't recall any counterattacks yesterday. We tend to keep the ball until the opponent gets nervous and decides to go forward more often. Not very brave, but I sure do appreciate the fact that Carlo has strenghten the defence and even with alternative defensive formation, we still do well.

As for Toro - they're quite dangerous at home although the Top 4 always beats them. It should be another 1:0. We'll play the X-mas tree again, but this time, it will be Pato. Kaka should rest, but Ancelotti is not aware of that fact. If Pirlo is ready, Seedorf will be benched while Zambro and Paolo should be ready to get Abbiati another clean sheet.

I'm more than optimistic. It will be easier than Chievo, trust me.

There are two milan players on this photo. The're so young here. Guess