Pato warming up

Pato for Boateng?? In this coach a fucking idiot??

Riverting to the long ball now... I bet no one could see that one coming...

Seriously I'm sooo greatful for iBra atm

Seriously I'm sooo greatful for iBra atm

What has he done now?

What has he done now?

Scored the first goal to get us on track...he's our offensive backbone in sooo many games in the league. Without him Allegri would look FAR worse

So you hate him because he makes Allegri look good?

Nocerino really doing well to erase Rino off the team sheet

Oh! Ibra should have scored that, great save from the keeper though

good save from lazio keeper

No I wasn't talking about Allegri at all I was just greatful for us actually having iBra (my personal feelings aside)

We need to score and we're pasing it around the defence

2-2 FT

FT

Wow this is one biased f*cking ref. Paid forsure!

Nocerino looks solid. Kinda like Gattuso in his early days.

Not good enough unfortunately. I thought everyone was pretty poor today - we just didn't look interested. Away to Barca next and then away to Napoli...

should have won the game but the terrible start in the defence just tok it away from us...

I thought he was awful the whole game.

to be honest i would be more concered about napoli then barca... i hope we dnt get exhausted against barca and then fail at napoli as well.

Who blows the whistle on a corner???? What the crap???


Aside from a moron behind the whistle, not a bad game. Taking Aquilani off was a terrible mistake, I thought he performed extremely well. Crafted a few chances and essentially had 2 assists, I'm pleased. For me, he's a starter but might be better behind the strikers and Boateng in his position as LCM. Maybe.

A draw against Lazio is better than what most teams will do, I believe.

Yep, a horrid schedule up ahead for us.

What got to me was Allegri's decisions, taking off Aquilani and stuffing up the midfield with 3 DMs when we need to score??? Once Aquilani was taken off it was like running into a brick wall.

Ambrosini was none existant, while the entire team showed no urgency in the second half aside from the first 10 minutes of it

it was at san siro... draw in rome would be fine but not at home but then we were 2-0 down thanks to the extreme shaky start

Napoli playing on Wednesday in Manchester vs City. They will tired as well.

Could've been better, but we will definitely improve as the season goes on. Abate is more confident on the ball than usual, Nocerino - perfect replacement for Gattuso, Cassano is getting fitter and more agile and mobile ... I'm starting to worry about Pato to be honest, at this rate he might be behind Cassano and Robinho ...

True that!!! forget about that

Starting that midfield contributed to it. Once VB was on, we had it completely in our hands. Rino was atrocious, while Ambro was invisable all game. I mean is Allegri seriously thinking about starting him against Barca? We'd get creamed.

Antonini was also a huge issue, Aquilani is still not up to speed, he didn't cover Aquilani, and once Lazio went up our left side, it was a sure chance for them.

BTW abate is quite good and important for us

He was good offensively, but he forgets to track back and help Antonini ot too passive in it.

Abate goota learn to cross better.

We drew against them last season when we were in much better shape, Lazio is no soft team. My main problem was the decisions that were taken which contributed to the loss of points

He might have been not fit enough to play 90 minutes. He hasn't played a lot lately.

will be intersting to see what allegri will do if rino is out for long and when seedorf and robinho are available

It's his first game, I think that part of his game will need to get drilled into him, but imo, if we switch him with Boateng, he'll have the potential to get double figures in assists as well as have more opportunities to score.

Boateng will track back better. However, the blame imo, mostly goes down on Antonini, midfielder tracking back or not, he should do better, the pass and cross that contributed to the goals should have been prevented. Say whatever you like About Zambro, he's a smart FB, slow or not, he won't make those kinds of mistakes, we missed him and VB today in the first half

+1

I liked Nocerino

Aquilani behind the strikers is definitely a better idea.With Boateng and Nocerino on each sides of the midfield,we'd have a more stable midfield.

Although,we could have won this match,it's really the start of the season,and Lazio look pretty impressive imo.

We needed him on, 15 more minutes wouldn't have killed him and might have proved the difference for us.

Not even near, but yes, he was solid. He'll be a nice team player.

---

As expected, a hard match. Here are my ratings:

Abbiati - 5.5 - some bad moments in this match, didn't look as confident as last season. Not the first time.

Antonini - 5 - both goals came from his side, his covering and marking is very problematic; wasn't bad upfront.
Nesta - 6 - not the best match for Sandro, but only one major mistake.
Thiago Silva - 6.5 - solid and strong as usual.
Abate - 7 - effortless and fresh, tried to give some options of the flank, also was very solid in defense.

Gattuso - 5 - tackling his own players, all you need to know
Ambrosini - 6 - solid performance
Aquilani - 6.5 - very good in the offensive/creative department, but covered the left side on numerous occasions with too much nonchalance.
Boateng - 6.5 - he tried much, had some good and bad moments, IMO tended to drift too much to the flanks. Not bad start for him.

Cassano - 7.5 - brilliant match; only missed some luck in the second half, but he showed why he's worth for Milan and what potential he still has.
Ibrahimovic - 7.5 - numerous assists, the easy goal, a nice work rate - everything went fine for him.

van Bommel - 6.5 - not as commanding as usual, but added to the defensive stability of Milan.
Nocerino - 6 - worked hard defensively, but when forward, invisible.
Pato - N/A - didn't play that much, though he had to do better with that one chance.

Allegri - 6 - again, like many times before Milan started the match with the wrong mind-setup, which is partly his fault, partly Barcelona. But, the Ambro-Rino-Aqui midfield should never again be used, at least not against teams like Lazio.

Oops, I confused my As

yup aqualani behind stiker is much better suiited as his definsive work rate is low, where as KPB can play the box to box role, he does cover a lot of ground.... ideally nocerino and vb the other 2 midfielders...

Him = ?

Needed or not, some players can't just go and play full game after a long time. I only remember him playing 20 or so minutes for Italy a week ago in this pre season.

Aqui, that's who we were talking about, keep up

He played a full pre season with Liverpool

I think we have the depth to defend Scudetto this season, so, it all depends on injuries and tactics deployed by Allegri to ensure that happens.

Can't. I'm too dumbstruck by Klose scoring a goal against us in his opening match. Thanks, though!

Then,you corrected it and I thought I misread lol.

I think he's a bit unsure of what exactly Allegri expects of him. It's normal I think because it's his first game with us, and the fact he had to help both offensively and defensively left him a bit confused.

No matter what the players said, I don't believe for a second that they didn't have Barca already on their minds, it's like they weren't even going to try to expand any more effort once the 60 minute mark was reached. They just passed it around, and if by any chance an opportunity came by from a hopeful long ball they'd try to take it.

But even with that, my main grudge is still with Allegri.

I don't think Aquilani is cut out for the tireless running though, he'd be much better if he's used as an AM, still if he has a more solid LB behind him, he won't look as bad tracking back. Last season we mostly had Zambro there, who stayed back most of the time, leaving Abate with the wingplay work all to himself. But it was balanced since we had the creator on the left so we really didn't need Zambro bombing forward, Antonini just left us exposed there and his hapless defending did us in