PATO!!!!

Seedorf has been playing solidly.

Cassano is certainly having difficulties playing so deep; he has been awful.

Nesta - SOLID game thus far.

Thiago Silva, no real complaints.

Abiati been good as well.

Abate been solid in my opinion. That assist across the 6 yard box from Messi was very close and very difficult to stop.

Nocerino has been having a good CL debut.

Van Bommel has been good as usual; unsure what he got a card for.

Boateng was doing okay; unsure what made he pull up out of the game tho.

Ambrosini....


FORZA MILAN!!! - Lets get something from this!!

I don't care for ball possession all that much, I've seen games where Barca haven't done much in an attacking sense and had over 70% numerous times. It's potentially a misleading stat, though unfortunately it isn't that misleading in this game.

Nesta playing excellent, good to see.

And Pato showing why I liked him so much for this match and not Zlatan. Barça play with DM's in central defense, and it's showing, Pato is showing it. Expected Pato to troll the **** out of them. Shame the good start now has ended in a 1-1 draw with Prince being out. A bit less optimistic for the 2nd half now I am.

Yep, we're basically letting them have free reign. I don't know why this is, I think as someone said above, it could be purposeful, trying to keep a decent score in the first half without wasting tons of energy on pressing them so much, then the 2nd half we shift gears and give them something unexpected.

At least this is what I'm hoping for.

Cassano really needs to be taken out though.

Agreed. I barely noticed him, and when I did, not in a positive way. Now Boateng is out, I would consider Emanuelson, even though Aquilani is the better player, but if Boateng and Cassano are out, then we should not isolate Pato and therefore Emanuelson (also liking his pace, surely now we don't have Prince's pace anymore).

Still not pressing them

Sometimes I think HT is wasted on Allegri

Ambro is useless these days

I would. Every heard of this movie: Run Lola Run. Heck, Seedorf is doing much better in the electricity department, running and hustling more than Cassano. You say waste of space, I say waste of a player. He should be up to 100% now or close to it. Unfortunately, he is less than half there, it seems:

GET CASSANO OUT! The only two times he has come back defensively he has given away bad fouls.

Quality from Villa, absolutely quality.

Slow claps for Cassano, what a great challenge...

Inevitable when you sit back against Barca ... 2-1 ... More to come.

Game set match...

Nocerino shows more composure then the "experianced" Ambro

What the F**** are they doing?? Totally lost their heads now

Barca are like a blanket thrown over us ... their passing is like a net encompassing everything we do, either attempt to attack or what we have been doing for the past 50 mins

Allegri, I know the midfield at your disposal is not at par with the world's best ... But your tactical prowess is growing thin as the minutes tick on ... Too predictable.

Amazing stuff from Nesta

If not for Nesta we'd be down two more. We need new ideas here.

Another FK coming up could be 3

This is getting ridiculous!! MAKE THE CHANGE FFS!!!

I expected our midfield to pose a little bit of a challenge for the ball. You know, at least make Barca sweat for it.

Our defense can only do so much when constantly under attack like this.

Least Villa didn't take that one.

Lol and Allegri said it would be suicidal to come here and defend from the start! Glad to see he doesn't take his own advice

No change could make this game any different. Our mentality is what stinks. We're playing like a novice club, defending 100% of the time even after conceding two. So disappointed by our guys.

The mindset of the team reflects that of the coach

Useless guy off ( ) Emanuelson on.

Not that it matters now though, damage limitation, that's it now.

Why Urby? He's not going to help anything!

Really??

5 mids in there and I'm still not seeing any form of pressing from out players! Ridiculous

Ohh it's 31% possession for us now. We're doing better!! Clap clap

I'm not sure what's funnier. Thinking changes will make a difference, or thinking the way we're playing is the reason we're losing.

They're just far better than us. Defending and hitting them on the counter is just about all you can do.

We can't be too harsh, we are playing Barca at the Nou Camp this is how far we are behind that's all.

I don't believe that (not the part where they're better then us) We can do a lot better then this. We just came here to sit in our own area, that is the only gameplan we seemingly have. Instead of trying to press them a bit and make them make some sort of mistake when on the ball we're basically letting them do whatever they want

Thing is you press them and you leave gaps, then they start playing that tikka tikka crap or whatever it's called.

Oh, and it's pretty funny watching members drop, just because we're losing

Because in the second half Abidal was more and more going to the middle in order to free Busquets to help Barca build play and we didn't have anyone who can exploit it. Though now that Puyol is in it doesn't matter.

When you press them, they make mistakes, if we manage to keep the ball for longer then a second then they'll leave spaces. But all we're doing with it is punting it away. That will only invite them onto us more

I just realized that i have 126 emails to sort out till 5 tomorrow

Dani Alves is an SOB

Just wasteful. When we have posession in their half we gotta keep it. It's rare that situation occurs so just launching it into the box is a complete waste. Our players just have zero patience.

When we start playing this way against BATE and Plzen I'll start worrying. Until then I'll just accept this is Barca and we are nowhere near them, with or without injuries, we don't have Zlatan/Robinho but they are missing people too. If we lose by the odd goal I'm not too bothered I just don't want another repeat of what happened at OT a few years back.

Well so far what seperates us is a free-kick...

Since most were expecting a hammering, I'll take this as a positive...

Aquaman in for Van Bommel. I hope he is responsible defensively. VB has been doing really well defensively for us.

Take the tinted glasses off for a second, they've been all over us, bar the Pato surge in the first minute and the half chance if his touch was right around the 25 minute mark.

The scoreline is close, but the game hasn't been.

Barca are missing their 2 CBs, aside from that it's their best line-up. Also note that Puyol was missing for the majority of last season and they won it without him without too much trouble...

Sanchez? Iniesta being ill?

But the fact is that a free-kick is what seperates us. And that is the fact of the matter

Sure they were all over us from minute one, but at the end of the day the result is what matters.

I'm far from wearing any tinted glasses. In fact I'm very disappointed and believe that we should do better then this. Certainly show more energy and use the ball better

Does that really matter when you have Villa and Cesc coming on?

Aside from Cesc it's basically the same team that started the final last season, Pique is the only real hit for them

I really can't be bothered to defend an opposing team... especially one called Barcelona.

Think what you like

Nice!

Nesta has been brilliant tonight, top-notch.

What seperates us is Montolivo

My GOD! Can Ambro do anything other than hack people down? He's so reckless.