This guy is such a hard case. He's harder then Ancelotti. He makes a great step forward, then two steps back in the wrong direction.

I never said Seedorf cost us the match, but his role is the most important in our midfield. He has to create! He must not lose the ball, he most not make cheap backward passes, but he must be at the heart of our play the entire team. Sort of like Pirlo always used to be in his rossonero days. But the guy is entirely depleted. He's 35 for f*ck's sake! Just like Gattuso, just like Ambrosini and just like Inzaghi, he cannot play at high levels anymore. Age is an irrevocable thing. Everyone would like to play till they're 50, but it's not possible. There are plenty of players out there who can do better than Seedorf, namely Montolivo, Ganso, Eriksen and even Aquilani. For the next game, I want Aquilani as LCM and El Shaarawy as AM. No more jogging around like a bunch of puppets.

Totally agreed. No one's doubting Seedorf's talents, and his effectiveness when holding up the ball, but when it comes to creating and attacking, he is the biggest liability in the team. And it will keep on showing in the big matches, the matches that matter. We really should not have renewed with him, shook hands and moved forward. The way he was falling down and losing the ball, instead of playing up and creating (which he used to do quite well), I have no words for it.

There is no chance that a midfield #10 of his type can play on till the wrong side of 30. Few, if any do at this level.

In a sense, incurable. You learn from your mistakes, not make them again and again and expect a different result. On paper, our team was still better than Napoli's (player-for-player, that is). The way we were playing was plain stupid. Even if the squad arrived in the stadium in an ambulance, these are not the tactics and thinking that are to be applied.

It almost looked like Napoli were champions, and Milan just got promoted from Serie B. It was a show of brute strength, instead of intelligent tactics. Napoli's coach had a good plan, his team stuck to it, and it paid them plenty well. While we gave the other sides in the league an open manual on how to unlock our team.

Unless the coach evolves and plans each game on its merits. Which doesn't seem to be case with Mr. Stubborn.

But how do tactics effect this game? I don't think it was allegri's fault. I just don't think we are good enough.


We need depth in our squad and currently due to injuries we just don't have any. The senators can't play back to back games 90 minutes each.

But they did. If you have injuries to key players, and both your experienced creators are not good enough anymore for a match-up of this sorts (I'm looking at you Seedorf and Cassano), then you sit back, relax, and ask the opposing team to come at you. Not become a cowboy and try to out-muscle your way to victory.

Allegri tried exactly the opposite of what was required and not only made a fool of himself and his team, but like I said, give the other teams in the league the book on how to unlock us. We gain possession, attack, run out of ideas in Napoli's half and they hit us on the counter - just like Cesena pulled a number on us last year. This game was exactly the same. Sure the players played a level or two below their capacity, but the coach looked like he did not learn from his past mistakes too. And well, the game plan that our coach went in with also had an effect on our defense (more pressure on them), and they gave away three goals.

18th place in the league it is, but no reason to ring the alarm bells just yet. Allegri is famous for his slow starts!

It would be very embarracing if we had sat back and let napoli run the show. I don't think the players would accept that from Allegri. With barca its a different story but with Napoli we are expected to attack, regardless of whose on the pitch.

+1000

Nocerino, considering no one was moving around him did a great job IMO. He made more passes forward then seedorf, won balls, even showed a bit of skill out there. The team as a whole sucked, we can all agree but he had alot of pressure with abate going to the corner flag every time he got the ball and slowly jog back, Nocerino played the game as a RB technically and was our best mid IMO. I refuse to believe that he still needs to prove himself to the Milan faithful that he is above Rino.

Also outside of maybe swapping Aquilani with seedorf (which only I seemed to think plausible) or start antonini over bonnera (which didn't work against Lazio), how different could your starting XI been with all the injuries?


Really? I'd have to read the game thread but i'm pretty sure most members (including you IIRC) agreed no changes were absolutely obviously needed after the break. El Shaarawy came in on the 60th i think. So i guess you can argue that allegri is a colossal moron for not subbing him at...the 50th?, 55th?


He may not have cost us the match but what did he do? You came out calling out Aquilani who scored a goal, got in position for another and would come back to retrieve the ball very deep to relaunch the attack. You said he disappeared for 20 minutes IIRC. I believe that to be a false equivalency. Allegri purposely placed a CB at LB so that seedorf's only aim would be to create. He didn't want his LCM to be stuck covering like Aquilani did against Lazio. This is, as X-off said, where Allegri places his "creators". I saw seedorf, lose balls (most players struggled with control as well though), slow our counters down, run backwards in dangerous positions, play countless back passes.


+ all the cookies

They did run the show, eventually. Or should I say stole it. Losing after conceding 3 goals is bad enough, let one player score all three is embarrassing, man. And when I say sit back and let Napoli dictate terms, I do not mean playing scared. Just that let you opponents play their cards - and you play the game at your tempo.

See what they have to offer, and then hit them. But hey, at least one team did that and laughed all the way!

I've been seeing that for the past two years at least, and wryly smiling every time. It's quiet charming actually, but the club suffers as a whole. When was the last time Seedorf turned a match on its head? Or scored a curling free-kick? He used to do that, remember. And his recent corner to Silva was after many a days of idiotic short 4-yard corners.

I used to maintain that we have the worst #10 in pretty much all the big European clubs. After today, I still do!

First of all the post was partly tongue-in-cheek...i.e. I wasn't quite serious about being THAT mad at Allegri for not giving him more time because I have no idea how good the kid is.

Secondly El Shaarawy came in on the 77th minute. barely over ten minutes to go....hardly enough time for ANY impact sub to help you back from two goals down.

Thirdly that was my first post for the match because I was illegally streaming it on work and posted when I got home.

Allegri's small team mentality and tactics are now getting in our way. doesn't take a rocket scientist to see. But I'm not coming down too hard as yet because he has built up a lot of credit with me thus far and has proven to be very resourceful at dealing with injuries.

However I would also like to commend him on allowing Pato more freedom to try to penetrate on his own. Yeah it was a hot mess today but I see very promising signs. Now that he's reverting into the Ancelotti era Pato,he needs to increase the flair incrementally IMHO. I was really happy to see him dribble past three napoli defenders in the latter stages. But the attempted volley gone wrong was a risk we didn't need. With his shooting ability he'd have been far better off if he simply brought the ball down and then unleashed hell

Pato's problem is inconsistency. I've never doubted his talent and potential. take the same Napoli for example, last season Pato was the star of the show when we r@ped them at San Siro. last night he was flop of the show! it's not that he can't play top teams or anything, he has both shined and flopped against every opponent you could possibly think of. it's just... consistency that he needs to work on.

Btw, I don't remember this going past defenders that you're talking about...


He's been hugely disappointing over the last two games...


I thought it was only me that disagreed with these two ratings...

Nocerino did a better job than Cassano. I'm really happy with him. he's like an upgraded version of Rino without the unnecessary huffs and puffs. I've only seen him with us twice, but there's been a lot of times that he went and apologized to a player he brought down roughly. Rino would go bend over them and shout in their faces!

Cassano provided the assist. Nocerino was fair, and yes, he isn't the monster Rino is. But he misses energy and the determination Rino had.

Definitely was a game where we missed Ringo/Ambro and KPB ... We needed freshness and a lion's heart in the middle of the park. We failed by using Aquilani & Nocerino .. Who are good, but showed a lack of chemistry with the team.

Seedorf was the reference point to our midfield last night, yet he was exhausted. And who could blame him, after playing for 90 mins in an intense Barca game. At 35, what more can you expect from him? Oh yes, he is lazy and useless

Nesta can NOT be blamed as well, at his age, he should have been rested. It was him against the best player in the world only a couple of nights ago.

However, there are improvements in the squad; Nocerino did very well, as did Abate. Then you have Cassano, who created our only goal ... But can not carry the team all by himself through a very organized Napoli that defended in numbers.

Pato must have forgotten his goalscoring boats in Barcelona ... And if you were to blame Seedorf at 35, then how on earth are you not going to blame Pato at such a tender age?


Aquilani scored the consolation goal .. Otherwise, he was average at best. He showed glimpses of a good performance, but didn't do enough for the team ... He just went missing for the majority of the fixture.


With the above in mind, sure Napoli had a tough game in Manchester as well ... But they are not in an injury crisis. And they had a full squad ready to take up the challenge.

In closing, I did not expect us to loose and concede 3 goals, as we have arguably the best defensive pairing. However, the Scudetto is a marathon and these 3 points are not crucial, as much as regaining our momentum of last season .. At the same time regaining our injured.

Just beaten on the day by a team who got their tactics spot on while we lacked the cutting edge up front.

Sometimes you're just beaten - it doesn't have to mean your club's in crisis or it's time to panic.

It is slightly concerning that we've haven't won yet this season, but none of our games have been close to easy.

Admittedly champions would expect to have won at least one of their opening matches, but I'm not pressing the hissy fit button quite yet.

It was around the time El Sharaawy came on. Cassano is SUCH a downgrade from Ronaldinho OMG!!

They're both lazy and inconsistent. Salaries aside I'd prefer the more brilliant player. Cassano's passing was off too.

To me the ENTIRE team other than Aqua and Nocerino was crap (looking at you Silva and Nesta)

The best part is Nesta flooring Gargano

All in all we need to get behind our team and end disingenious statements like if player X was here we would have won. Even if you have a Fifa 12 all players rated 99 you're bound to have a couple off games

So the general consensus is it was an off game and we made a slow start like last year?

Hmh,...

1) Point is, the injury crisis isn't getting better; in fact, the number of players out for some weeks or even months is rising and rising. This was not the chase last year.

2) This years Serie A is stronger. Inter may have lost Eto'o and not replaced him with Tevez, but in general speaking, they have a deeper bench now. Almost every other team made major reinforcements. Look out for Juventus especially!

3) We conceded a total of 7 goals in 3 matches. One of the worst starts we made for the last couple of years.

Solution for next game: take Seedorf to a trip in the Caribbean, play Taiwo and El Shaarawy from the start, give a good yelling at the team to run and press for the whole 90 minutes. Who slacks off, substitute him with a primavera kid. We need to play as a unit, and we can't do that by just walking around cluelessly.

Why not send you to the Caribbean instead

Because I'm not the one with a big bum slacking off on the pitch.

In that case, Siberia will be a good place for you

But honestly why wasn't Taiwo played yesterday?

Not fit, I suppose.

I'm personally not going to panic because this is looking like a mirror image of last season, but instead we've lost points against out rivals for the title, not Catania and Cesena. That is the most worrying aspect.

Last season we started slow as well. We didn't really shift from neutral until mid November IIRC, and even then most game were won because of some Ibra miracle goal. The team just doesn have the cohesion of last season yet, that's what boggles me mostly, where has all the work we did last season on the defensive issues gone? We're seeing the exact same goals we saw last season against Cesena, Catania, etc. Stupid counter attacks that the team worked hard to stop from happening last season and now it looks like we're starting back from scratch.

We're missing 5 starting players, that's no joke, so add that to the usual slow start and this is the result we get. I just wish that the schedule favoured us more, instead we've started with the hardest fixture list around. Udine coming up next Wednesday ain't no joke either.

1 thing that really worries me aside from the injuries, is the attitude from the players. We're losing 3-1 and they're still passing it aound the back 4 with no intention of turning the tempo up in the hope of scoring. Diving, pushing players to the ground. This is not what I want to see, and Allegri better turn things round fast, because we have a lot of hot heads and strong personalities in the team, and things going wrong could lead to disrupt within the dressing room.

As for Napoli and Juve, I wouldn't jump onto the bandwagen just yet. Juve have faced Parma and Siena, 2 of the weakest sides in Serie A, while Napoli faced Cesena and us, and we never really got out of the traps yesterday to challenge, while they seem to have started on fire, but I can see that fire fizzling out fast, with the CL they won't last long. Injuries will hit them at some point or another, can you see them withstanding an injury situation of the same proportion as the one we're facing? Highly unlikely. While Juve are a farce imo, and will go down fast. I still say the title is between us and Inter, Gasp will most likely not last until christmas and then they'll pick back up. They have the team for the title, while i don't see that in Juve and Napoli.

Btw, can someone open the Udine match thread since my luck from last season seems to have run out...

I'm sold....where do I sign?

The mentality of the players reflects the mentality of the coach. Allegri has still that small club mentality from last season. He said he'd sign for a draw against Barcelona. That is something a Milan coach should never say. He should claim we're going for the 3 points, even though such thing might be quite the impossible task. Allegri is someone who takes things slowly, doesn't care too much about a loss or a draw, and his laid-back attitude has infected our players as well. Not to mention his tactics are sometimes questionable. I don't think he has what it takes to become the next great Milan coach.

Oh, and one other thing. It's funny when we beat Napoli last season at San Siro, the media was putting more emphasis on Napoli being crap rather than us being too good for them. Whilst today, everyone is praising Napoli the Great and nobody cares to mention that Milan last night was absolutely inexistent. And I've noticed this happen quite a few times, really. When we win, it's the others fault. When we lose, it's the others merit. Professional journalism served.

I don't think there's a thing, a thing such as "professional journalism". At least not anymore. I think it got dissolved into something called "professional commercialism". Heck, people have a hard time maintaining standards of accounting, accurate and unbiased reporting is stuff of years gone by.

Naah, IMO people don't need journalists any more.

Anyone up to opening the Udine thread? The game is tomorrow...

I would, if I could.

Quite. Mike REALLY needs to sort this.

Why is han, one of the few posters who can open a match thread, asking us to open the Udinese thread?

Because we have bad luck when he opens a match thread, I think.

It's kind of a tradition.