Haha.. yep.

we REALLY did need pippo. we made some nice crosses into the box but no one was there to finish it. we might as well had played without Ibra. Pato wasnt bad. In fact he did well. If only casssano was able to play instead of robinho, he would have created very nice scoring chances.

IMO our mid field played well. Seedorf was excellent. too bad he cant play consistently like that anymore.

I would include extending the contract of Van Bommel and buying Prince Boateng to that list .

it's lonely at the top

Congratulations. Though it's a shame you spoiled a great night by immediately singing about Arsenal. Inferiority complex much?


I fail to see how I was being childish but fine.


Agreed on both counts. Bashing Allegri for this is just bashing him for the sake of it.

There's a few positives to take. A very good performance considering the injuries and we can now 100% focus on the Scudetto (though I would like to win the Coppa even though nobody else likes it! ).

Hopefully this creates a distraction for Spurs and they go out in humiliating fashion in the next round and don't get 4th place so they won't be in it again next season either.

Last bit of Allegri hate for the night...some simple questions will help us put things into perspective?

1. Have we beaten any quality opposition?
2. Do we REALLY need a squad of superstars to beat Tottenham?
3. If we do....do we need a squad full of super stars to score a single goal? Can you name the goalscorers from Wolves?
4. Has our squad and depth improved dramatically improved this year?
5. Is it conceivable that Ronaldinho might have been of assistance vs such a tight defensive team?
6. What exactly is our attacking strategy other than mindlessly pressing?
7. Pato doesn't play well he rides the bench...what about iBra?
8. Have we ever come back to win ANYTHING from a goal down?

Inter? Napoli?

How many quality teams have we played exactly?


They finished 4th in the EPL and are in the last 8 of the CL. Does this not suggest they're a pretty good team? They play long ball all game long which can be quite difficult to cope with since Crouch fouls all game.


Wolves didn't beat Spurs. One goal was a penalty, 2 were Gomes making a mistake. I fail to see how which players we have makes a difference on their defenders giving away a penalty/keeper making a mistake.


Yes. But then most of that depth and quality was injured/unable to play last night.


You can never know,, but he'd have been more of a negative slowing the game down in attacking positions.


I don't even get this question.


We have players who can replace Pato. Who's replacing Ibra?

An under strength Inter and an overrated Napoli *cough*cough*Villareal's b!tch anyone?

Real, Juve (when they weren't CRAP), Roma (see Juve comment) and Spurs
OMG 4th in the EPL?? Wow. Scary
Didn't say they beat Spurs only that they scored THREE (3) goals more than we could manage. The reason for asking the goal scorers is that there's NO way the Wolves team could EVER be superior to Milan....but this n00b coach has us playing with this small team mentality where Milan fans are actually scared of any decent opposition.
LOLZ a team with the players that played last night needed Emmanuelson, Cassano and Van Bommel....yeah sure!!
What we needed more than anything was a supply to the forwards and he's still the best....nobody slowed the game down more than iBra last night
its not your fault you're in the wrong forum anyway
Just imagine...a strategy that doesn't involve using iBra...sounds crazy doesn't it?
Well Allegri seems to think so anyway....so we'll keep using him till he can't walk....no matter he'll still be screaming at everyone who doesn't play the way he wants

What kurt said.

While Ibra provides a tactical outlet that Pato or Cassano or Robinho doesn't. He's the ONLY forward we've got who doesn't require the ball to be played to his feet to do something with it.

We had lots of attacking strategy. The fullbacks putting in crosses..Boateng's power. Midfield making runs etc. But tell me what exactly you define by attacking strategy.

We needed to play a perfect game, but we didn't. We failed to take our chances. If Robinho had played instead of his lousy twin Canfinishinho( thanks Z.. ) we wouldn't be complaining.

Will Ronaldinho have been of assistance, was the only non-Allegri/Ibra-hate based question you've truly asked and the answer is BOTH.

He'd have made passes and runs that Boateng can only jerk off to in his dreams. Seedorf would have had an amazing outlet for creativity.

But we would have gotten prison-F@cked down the left flank with Lennon running wild...coz the Boa and Janku really pulled a number on that side. Something R80 wouldn't have done.

It's fast becoming my belief that modern football cannot have more than 2 players who do absolutely no tracking back.


As for depth, if we had Pirlo back....we'd be in the QFs. Enough said. Did you see that bench?? What depth were you talking about?

As for the comebacks, Udinese crosses my mind first.

Can't belive we're making now Leonardo better then Allegri. Gee, the man lead us to two of the most humiliating moments of our entire modern history!

No...it simply cannot fall on the sholders of Allegri.

Oh puhleeze. Last night was not on Allegri. It was just not having the players ready.

So are Spurs quality or not, make your mind up.

Though I'm beginning to see why you've been banned on another forum lately.

Nah! R&B is a weird place.

He has very strong unpopular opinions, but in general dru doesn't flout too many guidelines. I know worse. Myself included.

However I believe in R&B having strong unpopular opinion warrants you get banned. At least from Miz's and dru's experience.

lolz who's job is it to get the players ready?
Oh and whoever mentioned Udinese as one of the teams we came from behind to defeat....that game ended 4-4 so to date we still haven't come from behind to beat ANYONE. I'm really surprised at how strongly this guy is being defended. Clearly I'm missing something. And I'm not being sarcastic in any way about it it's just from my standpoint I think he's massively overrated and under performing.....just like iBra.

It's easy....in one light Spurs are NOT quality opposition in terms of
1)prestige
2)overall caliber of players ("the team on paper")
3)team ranking in the league

However to us they stood in the way of qualifying for progression in the CL so they are an important (hence my wrongly chosen choice of the word "quality") opponent.

Yeah I know you have your friends on R&B....really I think you guys should get your own forum instead of flooding yet another Milan forum with your EPL propaganda. All I can say is that it's truly a sad day when iBra is called "king iBra" in a team with someone like Nesta. Enjoy your protected life on R&B...who knows maybe you can incite the mods here against me too

By blaming Pato for Robinho's big miss!

No one else here seems to agree with you on that since they all mentioned Robinho's poor finishing.

Anyway...

None of this makes any sense.

1) I hate Harry Redknapp more than anyone on here.
2) I hate Tottenham more than anyone on here, with the exception of Locke.
3) I've never been on R&B in my life.

You either have me mistaken for someone else or you're being very paranoid.

@Zed. I'm not getting into this again. You think it was a good pass from Pato, I don't. That's it. I don't think having a different opinion than you makes me childish, regardless.

My bad. Mistook you for a Villa fan I crossed swords with a couple times at R&B. You sound exactly like him and I'm thinking what are the odds that different Villa fans live on various Milan forums. My apologies.

Fair enough, no worries.

I think it was a big miss from Robinho. that's it.

dru has a point, one that I agree with mostly. The biggest blame (not all of it, though) must fall on Allegri's shoulders. The guy has overworked Ibra, went in with the wrong players/formation, and generally seems to not have a plan to unlock very tight defenses. In other words he did most of the stuff right, but never once did the guy made a tactical masterstroke to really stamp his authority as a coach. You can call it vanilla-tactics if you want, when we needed strawberry or mango flavored ones.

Playing all three (Ibra, Robinho and Pato) up front, with not a creative soul behind them? Yeah. Who's gonna pass to the guys who are gonna score. Maybe hold Ibra up for the second half with the tired defenses, give Robinho (the forward who doesn't want to score goals) a more laid back role behind the strikers. Try something different for Pete's sake, disrupt the opposition's plans.

And did I mention the absolutely stupid last ten or so minutes in the first leg when he should just have closed shop instead of inviting a lethal counter attack? With the slow CB pairing? Against a fast, fast team? For all it's worth the tie was pretty much 90% over in the first leg. This is not a Milan of 2006-07 or before that, when even giving away two goals at home, one would expect to turn the deficit into something positive away.

It's moments like this when all the chips are down that a coach is require to step up. When everything is going your way, the players take the steering, but in situations like these (with players missing or ineligible, 1 away goal to the worse, and all that) should a coach take the reins, do something out of the ordinary to surprise the other team. And never underestimate the power of fresh legs taking on tiring ones after the 60 minutes. That's a surprising factor right there, one of the oldest tricks in the book.

Allegri tried to play it safe and hoped for the best. It rarely works this way in crucial knockout CL games.

I think you mean 1) Our most important player yet again choked in a big game

I think we (and Italian sides in general) are finding it harder and harder to play EPL and Spanish teams, especially the former. Carlo's team lost to Arsenal. Leo's lost to Man U. Allegri's lost to Spurs. anyone sees the pattern?

Italian teams need to change their playing style and adapt something similar to what all the other leagues (France, Spain, Germany, England) play. less slower/defensive, and more faster/free-floating football. it may sound stupid but I really think that's where the problem lies especially since as I mentioned before, problem with the Italian sides is NOT the lack of quality players.

I can't see how possibly Italian football can change its style, though. future looks dark. we've already lost our 4th CL spot (deservedly so) and are getting worse every season in Europe.

Fast and free flowing football? Over 180 mins of footbal and hardly a shot on goal by both English teams! It seems they've taken catanaccio to new levels. Ironically had Milan adopted such tactics we'd be labelled as typical Italians with negative, boring tactics. Spurs and Arsenal though, are praised for stout defensive work

And don't forget, it was only a couple of years ago when we humiliated Manu(twice I believe), and it was only under Leo that Manu got their first win in San Siro in over 20 years or something! The problems we have are 1) Allegri is still a rookie coach with a lot to learn and 2) our team needs strengthening. We have some very good players but some of our 'big' name players choke in the big games. We need to get some quality players in the summer if we want to progress next year.

Though when we lost to Arsenal and even more against United, we were an inferior team... only this time against the Spurs we can say we were the better team but then you have to show it on the field and we did not and I did not see a problem with our style, I think it was lack of effort.

I don't think Italian clubs need to change anything regarding their game. The only thing they need to change is their attitude because for some reason those that qualify for the Europa League (and the UEFA Cup before) think they're too good for it and seem to not care... It's a problem of snobbish attitude in my view and not one of playing style.


First win they ever got and first goals they ever scored in San Siro... it was going to happen at some point in history and it was bound to happen last season because ours was a bad team and I don't think it was Leo's fault. I do blame him for the way we lost and the score but I believe we were too bad to not lose.

Played well, dominated the entire game, midfield controlled the middle of the pitch, attack fared decently but it just wasn't our night.

Yeah, Ibra had another of his legendary quiet games in a big match, but does it matter? He never really had a single good chance to bury.

Spurs got lucky, they were poor and we didn't take what chances we got. Scudetto, for me, remains #1 so as disappointed as I am by last night, it's not the end of the world.

At the end of the day if we went through, there is about 1 team I'd have fancied us against (if all the big boys go through). As someone said a few days ago we weren't ever going to really win it. Sure, we had to try but I'm not that disappointed that we are out of it, especially in the manner we went out.

It was extremely refreshing to see praise put on Milan from the English media for last night's performance. And I think they were taken a back when we bought a 19 year old on instead of a 39 year old!

We will be back stronger next season, remember we were missing about 5 key players last night from injury and being cup-tied etc that we have available normally in the league. I'll be really surprised if this Ganso plays consistently better than KPB he is top-notch. What a signing.

Where did you see this praise? So far all I seem to have read is backhanded compliments saying we were better last night but our absence will hardly be a loss to the tournament! But a team that plays catenaccio at home will be a gain for the tournament?????? God give me strength!!

I agree completely. As for Boateng and Ganso, I believe they're totally different players and imo we need both next season.

@ dru, you know I'm a no fan of Allegri, but last night he went into the game with the best possible formation at his disposal, and n general terms without looking at finishing we played a perfect game, we controlled it from start to finish, never let their runners get in behind the defense, won the ball quickly etc, aside from the final pass it reminded me of Barca's performance the other night, obviously we're a lot slower and don't have Xavi or Iniesta, but in terms of how we controlled the game, you really cannot ask for more. Did Allegri ask Robinho to miss 2/3 clear cut chances? NO.

Anyways, had Pirlo, Cassano and VB been available we would have steam rolled Tottenham, I am 100% sure of this, they were just that bad and our finishing/lasck of creativity let them off the hook.

Next season with 3 or so more quality sugnings I truely believe that we'll do well in the CL. Before yesterday's performance I was certain that Allegri will come out short in the CL once again, but we played the perfect away game, had this been the first leg it would have been a great result. What we need next season is an easier group, we've been really suffering because of the tuff groups we've had both this season and last. Hopefully we'll be Italian Champions come next season's CL, that in itself will give the players a great boost and a lot more confidence

btw, Filippo can you open the Serie A match thread, you're giving us some great luck in the league

This was 0-0. So technically I didn't lose

Oh well, this is what 3 goals in 24 knockout games in the CL for Ibra? Pathetic. More so when once considers what kind of a man-eater he is in the league, scores goals for pleasure when on song. But in the CL, a one-legged Kaka is better than this guy (when it comes to the bigger stage).

Maybe he should really play as an attacking midfielder next time around. Set up goals, if he can't score them.

We didn't win either did we?






@acid Ibra hasn't been a man eater in the league either, so it's a mute point imo, he wasn't doing well when we played the first leg either. He hasn't been the real Ibra since before christams, and this is something that could be truely pinpointed back to Allegi, who hasn't given him a full match's rest the entire season, he's not a robot, and I won't condemn him becuse he's physically shut down recently.

We have 4 world class options in attack, Ibra can be rested no problem, next Sunday I don't want to see him anywhere near the pitch against Bari unless it's absolutely necassary

Did you know that Tottenham Hotspur's captain last night MICHAEL DAWSON is an anagram of SHOWED AC MILAN.

They're different players, Ganso is a true attacking midfielder while Boateng is a box-to-box midfielder. I think they can play together too. Let's see if we're really going to sign this kid anyway.

and maybe Robinho can put some effort on something for once and talk to this kid if he's good since they played together at Santos.

Haha, yeah, I was thinking about that. All in all, I wasn't too hopeful about this match anyway - not after giving away an away goal (pun always intended) in the first leg, and more importantly how we have been playing since the New Year. Oh well, now we can focus on the league, and maybe even the cup.


True. I meant before the New Year (or Christams, as you put it yourself) really, he was pretty good then. But 200% agreed, Ibra is a man burned-out, thanks to the coach (who practically does not even sub him out after the hour mark in matches). The guy has played the most matches, touching almost 40 up till now in all competitions. Even more than Abbiati. Both Ibra and Cavani have been overworked by their respective coaches, and both have broken down it seems.

Still, my biggest gripe with last night's match was the lack of urgency on display from Milan. We were playing like we were 3-0 up, but still looking for that 4th goal. As in, we wanted to score the goal, tried even, but the heart or speed was just not there in the build ups and attacks. I still think either of Ibra or Robinho should have come from the bench, with Pato (or best finisher, in fact only finisher with Inzaghi out) the lone man upfront, at least during the first half. Our biggest problem was service. Service from the middle. All Seedorf did (and he did it well) was just pass the ball around when it came to him. Lack of a true AM really became our demise, among other things.

Well said, Mr. Harry Redknapp. Totally agreed!

Did you know we don't care? And do you know you're a small club? Why? Because big club's fans don't troll on forums of fans of the team they beat... when Arsenal beat us, no Arsenal fan came here to celebrate... yeah, Arsenal are bigger than you, learn to like it!

Nice.

Did you know the team you played last night is AC MILAN it's an anagram of 7 EUROPEAN CUPS.

Bravo han, I totally agree with you.



Well said my friend, well said.

Allegri soundbites:


What does that make us?



So I guess scoring two goals was impossible

Give it a rest, will ya pal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK9XGwrS7As...player_embedded

I think going by this it could be his last champions league with Milan , would be tragic if it is hope he stays on for next season where we will be more competitive !!

He's going to leave, that is certain. He shouldn't be sad though. He's won more Champions Leagues than Inter in 105 years of history. Clarence legend!

hahah.. well said!

I'm wondering if Seedorf will be our manager one day...

I should imagine so. He seems a very intelligent guy who would do well in management.

Probably our best player last night, which is quite remarkable given his poor form this season.

I won't cry when Pirlo leaves. I will cry when Clarence does. F@CK!!!!! Don't leave Clarence. You can be the next Leonardo for us...stay!!!