This is so untrue and exaggerated it's laughable.

1. WHAT???

2. And Maldini, Kaladze and Inzaghi can?

and yet he made Ronaldo look like a child

Gattuso is a DMC - Defensive midfielder

A defensive midfielder or a holding midfielder is a central midfielder who is stationed in front of the back defenders for defensive reasons, thus "holding back" the freedom of the opponents to attack.

Gattuso can't tackle you must be joking dude come on , He can't shoot big deal , Pirlo and Kaka' can Gattuso isnt known for shooting no taking set pieces , if he had no pace how can he take players like Ronaldo who is meant to be one of the fastest players in the world. im gunna say it but do you have somthing against him because all ure points are just not backed up at all

+100000000000000000000000000000000 its just out of this world from another planet its just comical it belongs in the comedy thread

Oh, Kurt just made a exaggerated post to answer the exaggerated criticism on Ambrosini. I don't get why everyone's so upset?

As all the original posts were made within two minutes of eachother I think we didn't notice there were others reacting as well...I'm still on Kurt's side on the Ambrosini vs Gattuso issue though.

i'm not upset im just saying my opionion but he has said this before i remember it.

I think we are all forgetting Nesta !!!!!!!!!!!!! when he comes back from his injuries i think he should be captain !!!

I'm not sure about that. Lazio legend, not the most senior player in the team and above all, awfully injury-prone.

I'd be shocked if he managed to play a full season ever again.

I think he could play one whole season. He had a really bad injury, but that nothing that happens to often, and if he gets back to 100% he could play enough games...

No it isn't untru, notice, the only passes that meet their target are the really short ones, and even then he sometimes can't even make those. I'm not exxagerating, his touch and passing are a constant source of frustation for me, because when I see him playing and he tries to make some Ronaldinhoesque move and ends up losing the ball I get so frustrated I want to punch something, because a player of his experiance should know better.

His touch is sometimes so awful it makes him look like a sunday league ametour player.

It's not about the passion both players have. I'm just talking on a techincal level, as players, Gattuso is head and shoulders above Ambro.

And yes, not all goal came from set-pieces but more then 3/4 of them have, but it's still not enough reason to say that he should play instead of Rino because he scores a couple of goals a season.

Let me paint a picture for you.

Manchester v Milan
2007 CL semi final

1st half Rino is a monster, he gets assigned the task of handling Ronaldo, while Ambro is on the other side on Giggs. 1st half, Ronaldo barely makes a peep aside from the goal that came from the Dida blunder

2nd hald, Rino has to come off because of injury, Ambro is still there on the pitch yet we somehow manage to let Man U back in because we lost all the defensive stability without Rino. Giggs and Ronaldo came into the match and we lost.

I know this is a fairly basic scenario and that I can't apply it to the general sitaution, but I'm just pointing out how much more influential Rino can be.


Rino can pass far better then Ambro can, he's a DM he's not expected to do what Pirlo does, but he has a far better passing range then Ambro does. As for shooting, no he doesn't have a good shot, but neither does Ambro, and atleast he doesn't waste time and good build up play taking shots at the top stands of the curvas

He can't take set-pieces but then again neither can Ambro, because that is not in the job description for either player.

He can run with the ball far better then Ambro. And has much more pace then Ambro can dream of having, let's not forget that he is the guy that managed to keep up with C.Ron while having to play with a foot injury. Yes he doesn't have a good header, but like I said that's the only thing Ambro has on him

And I could keep going...

Agreed


He'll never be back to what he was, his injury is so serious, that he could relapse at any point in time. If the back problems arise again in summer I wouldn't be surprised if he called it quits.

At this point his back problems have become a chronic problem that cannot be avoided anymore

I didn't know that it is that serious....

I have to agree with han. remember how well Gattuso filled Pirlo's empty place when he was out injured. he dominated the midfield to a point it came as a shock to many of us. I remember how Tennie sometimes jokingly said he'd stolen Pirlo's brain

I believe playing alongside Pirlo for many years both in Milan and in the Azzurri overshadowed his abilities cause all he had to do was making challenge, getting the ball and passing it to Pirlo. but this season in Pirlo's absence he showed he's far more than that. he even made a couple great assists. I'm not saying he's better than Ambro or Ambro is better than him, I just say it's unfair to say Rino can't play football at all.

What han said. and unfortunately it's not just his back injury which is so serious and career threatening as it is. remember how he missed Azzurri's important World Cup games due to thigh injury...

Jeah I remember that, he didn't even manage to recover before the final although he got injured quite at the beginning of the WC....
I just thought that he is not that old yet, and Dida also managed to get fit after his back injury, but Nesta's was really much worse than Dida's....
But I still hope, that he'll recover and play some more games.

Exactly.

A few players (namely Maldini, Nesta, Pirlo and Gattuso) are untouchable, and any criticism towards them always seems to make people cry, which is strange since all of them combined have made a handful of good performances in the last few seasons.

Han, funny you mention the CL semi final with United and talk Gattuso up.. any idea who won Man of the Match that game? I'll give you a hint, his last name starts with Ambro.

Ambro is a far more crucial player to us, at least when he plays he will get the odd assist or score a goal, he's also a nice player to have on the field when defending a set-peice. Can somebody please tell me what Gattuso adds to our game as I honestly can't see it myself. He can tackle, sure.. but is that it? I've watched him since his Rangers days and still see nothing more than a headless chicken of a player.

Nesta's practically missed every summer tournament due to injury.

It's like he was cursed

Looking at how great a defender he is, he could have also been remembered as a legend along the likes of Baresi and Maldini but injuries stoped him from achieving that. It's sometimes so sad for me to even think about Nesta

+1; and remember Ambro against PSV. Okay, it was a header goal, but that's unimportant. Beside some Pippo, Costacurta and Maldini memories, that goal was personally to me one of the most passionate and emotional moments of recent Milan history. This is totally my opinion and maybe not objective, but I had to add it.


Remove Pirlo, add Kaka.

It's more along the lines of what Serginho suffered with his back...


They are not untouchable, for me atleast they're not, they're as much open to criticism as the rest of the players. And I personally am not over reacting because one of them is being criticised but we are comparing one DM to another yet for some reason set-piece taking and goal scoring is being considered as a main reason why one is better then the other when that is absolutely NOT the reason why either of them are on the pitch in the first place.

CL semi final. Ambro might have been voted man of the match, but that's a ridiculous thing to analyse one's performance on. Ambro didn't have that great of a game, he barely managed to handle Giggs and lost control of the midfield the moment Rino was taken off. Other times when roles are reversed and it's Rino that's left on the pitch he steps up and handles things, Ambro does not do that, because he does not have the pace, aggression and stamina of Rino, things that are essential for a DM.

I don;t see Ambro as a crucial player for us, in fact I would bet my life that had Rino been fit he would have been the one starting in the DM position ahead of Ambro, simply because he handles the midfield far more better then Ambro does.

What Rino adds? He covers for Pirlo and frees up his space 10 times better then Ambro does, it's no coincedence that Pirlo plays better when Gattuso is next to him and not Ambro. He gives us that fire and drive in midfield that we do not have with Ambro and is something you need when you have 2 slow players like Pirlo and Seedorf/Becks in the midfield. He's our engine, and when he's not playing it's a very obvious loss becuase we lose that something extra from midfield. Again, he's a far batter ball winner then Ambro and knows that making the simple pass is always better then trying some Pirloesque pass that ends up nowhere so he speeds up the play by winning the ball and laying it quickly off to Pirlo.

I could go on, but one thing I really want to mention is the chemistry that him and Pirlo have, it's something that no other midfield pairing have around Europe, it's one of the main reasons the Azzurri won the WC and why Milan's midfield has been so successful throughout the years. That is something that Pirlo does not have with Ambro and it really effects the way we play imo.

And oh come on!! You're only coming down hard on Rino because he's a former Ranger

You had to bring that up didn't you

Look, I know I'm coming off as a grade A a-hole here. Ambro has done his fair share for Milan, he's scored some really important goals, and to me that PSV goal will always be one that sits with the top 10.

But I'm only talking from the technical aspect of his and Rino's game. And to me Rino is better. And I know I'm coming off harsh on Ambro becuase he does sometimes play well, but most of the time I just find him so frustrating it's unbelievable.

But again. I'm only speaking of what I see on the pitch, to me Rino is a better DM then Ambro and a better candidate for the captaincy. But that's just mu oppinion.

Some here like Ambro's style more, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise, just as I know you're not trying to convince me as well.

I just wanted to clarify that this is in no way me attacking Ambro. I'm just not his biggest of fans when it comes to his style of play. Not as a milan player and his cotribution to Milan

Was Ambro voted CL semi final's MotM after all? can anyone find a link? cause Gattuso was the hero that night...

Han, I'm not just saying Ambro's a better player because he scores goals.. that's just something extra he has in his game that Rino doesn't.

Last thing I'll add is this: You talk of Rino helping out Pirlo alot, but Pirlo has been disasterous since the 2006 World Cup! Rino lacks the ariel ability, pace, passing and awareness to be a good DM at all. We'll have to agree to disagree on this, because I don't rate him as a player at this kind of level.

As for his passing.. 30 seconds into this.. in perfect, Rino couldn't hit this if he tried 1,000 times.

It's that Rangers thing again isn't it?

But agreed, we really have to agree to disagree on this one, because I'm reading this and just saying "What??!!!"

That's my reaction to how you feel about Rino.

Personally I feel the same way about Ambro, but that's just how I see it and we're never going to see eye to eye on the issue.

Regarding Pirlo, no he's hasn't been that great since the 06 WC, but some of that comes down to burn out at the sheer ammount of games he plays, both for club and country. But looking at the seasons played since then, and the best of his performances, they came when Rino was next to him. And I still stay by my comment that Rino and Pirlo have great chemistry and play better when they are next to eachother.

Again looking back at the WC, Rino was Pirlo's right hand man and had he not been there to cover Pirlo, Pirlo would not have been as influential.

that's not Ambro!!

Are you talking about the headed goal or the pass, becuase I'm pretty sure Pirlo was the one that made that long diagonal pass out to the right wing??

Oh and regarding the pace, surely you don't believe that Ambro is faster then Rino do you?

That's definately Pirlo...

I would say Rino is very slow in comparison to other modern footballers. I'd be interested to find out the sort of speeds they run, I'd say Ambro is quicker by quite a distance.


Yeah, you're right.

It has nothing to him being a former Rangers player, I'm happy for Rangers to have poor players.

We are talking about the same Rino right? The one that has lungs of steel and capable of keeping up with the likes of C.Ronaldo step for step.

To me Ambro is the ultra slow one, he makes Seedorf look like an Olympic runner...


Got you!!!

So it is a Rangers thing.

Or is it the fact that Rino's only goal with the Azzurri came as a 30 yard pile driver of a winner against the Three Lions?

To me Ambrosini's biggest flaw is that he's so inconsistent. On his day he's the best there is, but sometimes he just goes through this periods where he just plays terribly, those periods where he averages a yellow card per game. Anyways Pace, passing, shooting, heading etc. What does that have to do with being a captain ?

I think the biggest flaw with Gattuso regarding being captain is that he is simply to hot-headed. Nobody doubts his passion or his love for the club, but those are just some of the qualities that a captain needs. Gattuso becomes crazy when oponents do hard tackles and stuff like that, and he gets really carried away, we need a captain who can keep the cool. We also need someone that can be an example to the youngsters in the club, and help them adapt to playing at Milan, and Gattuso just doesn't strike me as that.

I think that Ambrosini would probably make a better captain, but his one big problem is that he's not gonna be a guarenteed starter next season. We have Flamini, Gattuso perhaps Seedorf and Gourcuff, already in that position. It would definetly be better to have someone who's always a regular to be the captian.

The other options are Nesta, as mentioned, who has already been the captain in Lazio, but we really don't know where we have him. And Kaka, who Maldini himself said would make a great captain.

No way Rino is as slow as Ambro! I'm not biased towards either of them but Ambro is definitely slower especially when running with the ball.

How can the Rino that was closer to C.Ronaldo than his own shadow be slow?

I'll admit Rino is quicker than Ambro (I'm talking about acceleration here, not how fast he is), but that's because there was always a number of players on Ronaldo, he didn't have the space to really get running. I don't think he's that fast at all, maybe not as slow as Pirlo, but I don't think he's far off!

Although, in reality, this arguement is pretty futile. It doesn't matter if Ambro is the best in the World and Gattuso is the worst, if Gattuso is playing better, he should play. But the fact is, Abro has been one of our best players of the past 2 seasons, at least in midfield, Rino and Pirlo have been very poor and only start because of who they are.

Okay, let's end this discussion. Some of us like Ambro, some of us Rino. My offer would be - let's like both of them.

Rino is not fast but he's not slow either. he's pretty normal...



Gattuso was amazing this season before he got injured, trust me! last season... not much. as for Pirlo, I agree, I know he is loved and respected by many on here but he's become quite an average player. he has one good game in every ~5 games and it's not a one off thing, he hasn't been the same since the WC. Ambro too is inconsistent but nowhere near as inconsistent as Pirlo or even Kaka (of this season).

My biggest problem with Ambro is that most of the time when he receives the ball in midfield, he turns around himself and eventually passes it back to defenders! he's lacks creativity and cannot play forwardly unless given lots of space. that's probably his biggest problem from a technical pov.

Just felt like saying my opinion. I don't want you to reply

This year i havn't been fond of so many players consistency level. If i were to name THE most consistent player this year, with a straight face i would say Ronnie/Inzaghi as far as effort and bringing something to the game as soon as they come on. This is completely unbias, and i wish i could put Kaka's name up there but even he has been a victim of some off days. DON'T MISQUOTE ME, Kaka is capable of being the Undisputed #1 in the world, and he is our next captain post-maldini. I just found Ronnie made such great performances with his runs, but the lack of speed in midfield would often be his undoing as no one was around him to build up the play. I'm not pointing fingers i'm just saying if we wan't to be an offensive powerhouse again, we need more pace/dribbling from our midfield to create mismatches which allows our shooters to shoot. You can all Bash us for going after Dinho n the first place but he brings effort and a contagious attitude that rubs positively on the players. Forza Dinho

^ not suggesting dinho is better then Ricky

why is no one throwing out nesta's name in the discussion?

i did a few posts back

Not anymore he's not, as he's proving that 06-07 is looking more like a fluke. Plus, he hasn't done much to be named captain.

My first choice remains Ambro; he's prone to silly fouls at times but it's not as if Paolo himself was always Gentleman George on the pitch.

But ambro lacks one of the key components required to captain imo. Maldini was an icon, a symbol for our club. After him our symbol is Kaka. Ambrosini is a great player but he lacks that greatness and flair about him that imo is required to be a captain of this club. Kaka is the only player who fits the bill currently after paolo

Actually Kaka was a very good player before the 06-07... I wouldn't call that season a one-off but 'his best season'. because even now in his worst season to date he is irreplaceable, as the result of the games in which he didn't play proves this.

And he has done much to be named captain. if rejecting multimillion offers from Madrid/Chelsea/City year in year out is no sign of loyalty, or bringing so many individual and team honors to the club is not a big deal at all, I don't know what is.

Kaka won't be named captain because there are players ahead of him in terms of seniority. end of the story. no need to ignore everything he has done over 6 seasons.

Undoubtedly in my eyes, it's Gattuso.

You mean you want it to be Gattuso or you think it'll be Gattuso?

+1


-1


+100

My choice - Ambro....or Kaka, who may be our captain for 5-6 years...

Agreed

Kaka is never going to be considered as direct replacement. The choice is clearly between Rino and Ambro, personally I'd want Rino, because like you said I don't see Ambro as having that extra something to be captain.

He lacks the fundementals to making a good captain. It's not just that he lacks the quality, but his leadership skills, the fact that he's reckless and just as much hot headed as Rino. Look at what he did yesterday when that penalty on Zambro was not given, that is not something a future captain would and should do. End of


100% with you

Of course not, but something tells he may be made one of the vice captains.

I want Gattuso to be the next captain. He has not been here for as long as Ambro but he has played more games (so it would not be unfair if he was given the armband ahead of Ambro) and I think he has more captaincy qualities.

Kaka should not get it now. He seems to want it though and some reports even say he's only going to stay if he gets it... well, if that was true and he really threatens his way to it then I'd gladly open the door for him to go! I do not believe this is what's happening but I can see him leaving for Real this summer.

+1


He's always said he wants captain Milan one day, but I don't think he will force his way to it. with a 2-3 year wait he'll most probably get it anyway...

If Kaka is not with us next season it will be down to managment finally caving to the money and selling him. Kaka will not force his way out

I have a feeling Kaka will accept the upcoming offer from Real.