Problem is, I don't see who could deliver the finish.

Yep, i am scared about it, but i do think Pippo has to come on, we need to score.

Cassano so close!!! What a save from Handanovic though

We're getting lured into the same thing we did at Napoli... They're going to hit us on the counter, I can feel it

This is hard to watch. Allegri do something!

SHAAARRRAAWWYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

EL SHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! woo hooo

WOW !

el sha 1-1

Get the **** in!!!

Star in the making right there!

That came out of nothing. Cassano again with the assist. Yeah, yeah,..he ain't no good.

I have just stopped bouncing around the room

Get in!!! EL Sha!!!!!! ya beauty

Nocerino needs to control himself.

He needs to put Pippo on, Nocerino would be the best choice to take off

Why the f**** is Allegri not playing Pippo?

What a poor shot by Emo.

Careless shot by Urby.

Oh lucky there, Pinzi hits the post

Nocerino must get out, he's making one mistake after another. Why doesn't Allegri put Pippo in?

That was a penalty on Pippo

FT...

Still no win. Looks like kurt predicted this perfectly

At least Juve drew and Napoli lost so they won't break away too much early.

no depth = the situation we see right now

Still no win... we need to win against cesena hopefully some players will be back...

Disappointing....again!

Allegri's inability to change his tactics/playing mentality depending on opposition/situation coming to the fore again.

Gonna be a long season.

One bright spot!!! El Sha!!! Nice goal, great enthusiasm!!!! Give him more play time.

We've had some pretty crap luck lately. Good for El Farone, wish he coulda had a brace.

Most of them won't, Boateng might.

Ibra also rumored to be back

No, he's scheduled to return near the Pilsen game.

We played a good game given our capabilities. There wasn't much we could do. In the last 25 minutes, when we should have pushed even further, fatigue got the best of us. At least Abbiati managed to save his face with those two fantastic saves in the end. According to Sky, Pato's injury isn't that serious. He was seen smiling alongside Robinho on the stadium stands. We need Ibra back.

Story ran this morning that he could be back ahead of schedule.

I have two issues to clear with Allegri:

1) Why doesn't he trust Taiwo? He decided to put Emanuelson as a LB rather then Taiwo. As said, to me Emanuelson can play and do awfully lot of things, but isn't Milan-good for any of those. Taiwo would have easily done the same, better even.

2) Why Pippo so late? The guy clearly wants to play and show himself. It's a pitty, Pilsen could have been the perfect match for Pippo to shine again.

1) That's starting to scare me. Does Allegri think we'll be playing with Zambrotta/Antonini/Bonera on the left for the rest of the season?

2) True, he should have come in much sooner.

I think he's afraid of counters - like against Napoli. So Zambrotta was the good choice - Taiwo and Abate should only be played against weak teams or against opposition that does not play as often counters as do Udinese or Napoli. Abate and Taiwo are too offensive. What I don't get is why is he preferring Emanuelson when attacking?

Pretty much as expected. Though it wasn't quite 'late' when we equalised.

So we're 3 points down on the same fixtures last season. But Napoli look far stronger (despite tonights result) so that's not too horrible. At least all of the other top sides have dropped points.

Urby was the second sub and initially came in to play in midfield. We had just one more sub left, so later when needed to go more atacking, was logical to do what Max did.

Taiwo will get his chance, maybe in the next match. He wasn't brough to sit on the bench, was just unlucky to be injured so early.

Yeah, but why didn't he pick Pippo for Aquilani/Nocerino and then put in Taiwo as well? It would have made more sense if Pippo came on earlier.

You mean to not put Urby at all? I guess he initially wanted more pace to the midfield.
I don't know how many minutes could Pippo play after returning to training just the other day. But maybe he was afraid to play with 3 strikers for too many minutes in order not to be exposed too much for Udinese counters. Who knows.

Cant wait till Ibrahimovic returns for the cesena game ... really dissappointed with tonight, but i guess allegri has a point with the players he had at his disposal.

We ll have to be satisfied with the point, it could have been 0 had it not been for the post and some abbiati saves(albeit that would have been harsh)

Sorry, but, does that mean he doesn't count Pippo in at all or what? I know Pippo cannot play a full match, but regardless, no striker means no striker.

Really depressed/ worried about this game.
I was really sure that this would be where we bounced back and played like the Champions we are....Pato injured $h!tlegri being his consummate n00b self etc.....thank goodness for the Pharaoh's goal

As others mentioned I wonder why no Taiwo??


Thus far our injury list iBra, Robinho, Pato ( ), Gattuso, Flams, Ambro, Prince....sheesh that's almost a world class team right there!!!!

Anywaaaay we have SUPER Pippo but how much magic does he have left?
Why does Allegri continue to play in much the same way as if it was iBra and the gang out there? He dealt with injuries so well last term I really am (extra) disappointed.

The next game isn't vs anybody special Cesena BUT they are going to defend like their lives depended on it....are we going to do the same?

ATM Super defensive football is our only hope...and we have to take extra care of Dorf (Dorf if you're reading this atm get your @$$ to bed ) for the slightest sniff of an opportunity to dish to our Forward(s)

Finally cASSano did send El Sharaawy the ball that led to the goal but I'm not (ever) expecting anything out of him....f**king disappointing piece of Inter

Like I had said earlier, it was going to be similar to the Napoli game and it was. We got dominated and we were lucky to walk away with a draw.

The difference in quality between Cassano and Pato to Robinho and Ibra is much different. Its just another class above.

We will struggle without Robinho and Ibra in every game we play this season, it doesnt matter who it is. Our game plan is based on them.


We use Ibra as our target man, he recieves the ball and buys our midfield time to push up. When Robinho plays beside Ibra it adds the counter attacking scheme to our game, where Ibra recieves the ball and sends either pato or Robinho through.

Ibra is fundamental to our build up and Robinho is fundamental to our counters.


Our Ideal line up where we do the most damage is this:

-Boateng-Van Bommel-Seedorf

-----------Cassano-------
-----Ibra---------Robinho


Robinho's movement off the ball and his ability to create space plus Ibra's ability to create something out of nothing won us the championship last year. How many games did we play awful and win due the pure class of our strikers?

We got dominated??? What on earth are you talking about? Sometimes I question your logic regarding football. We outplayed Udinese, especially in the second half. We had the initiative and we had the ball possession. Udinese lived solely on counterattacks. Unlike Napoli's game, we showed grit and determination, and despite all the injuries and fatigue accumulated, we still managed to perform decently. It was the maximum we can do in our current condition.

Saw the first half. Heart went out to Seedorf. He's in the defensive third covering and tackling..he takes the ball to the final third , and he also has to create something for our strikers.


Cannot tell you how irritated I was at the 'quality' shown by Aquilani and Nocerino. If Zee and RIno had played like those two this forum would be a battleground. (Ok..that sounds like I'm trying to accuse people of something..not the intention...)

This basically confirms it for me...we cannot rely on players just because their job description fills in a need. Aquilani's says Creative Mid and Nocerino's says Defensive Mid. Aquilani just about keeps the ball rolling in mid-field. And Nocerino has been hanging Abate out to dry on the right side in a way Rino in his worst days wouldn't have done.

This doesn't mean we should sell them or anything...just that they cannot be relied upon to win us anything like say an Ibra or a Seedorf or a Nesta.

I agree completely with Jack. We've been hammering Seedorf match after match, but fact is, yesterday everything went through him, he did an immense job; nevermind the last 15-20 minutes - who wouldn't be tired?

But Aquilani showed yesterday exactly why Juve wasn't eager to get him back - his position is hard to find: as AM he feels uncomfortable and leaves the team hanging disappearing and not moving properly. He simply did not do the job. I'm not sure he can play the left side as well - so there we are, bound to try him on the Pirlo position in the heart.

Nocerino? Yes, exactly, he was like Rino - only that one cross was quality - but almost everything else went down the toilet. No energy, no rhythm, n motion. The last 30 minutes his concentration dropped and he made one error after another.

I guess...Aquilani, Nocerino even Montolivo...these are players who can make a squad with a good mid-field even better.

But we have a rather poor mid-field now and need to make it good. We have different requirements.

Possession means nothing. I look at the number of chances we had in the game and Udinese had far more chances than us.

Even look at the highlights, abbiati saved our *** from humiliation.


Grit and determination? Its not enough if you want to be the champion. You have to have the whole package.

You get credit for winning and you get criticized for losing, thats how the footballing world works. If people got praise and credit for how you play, wenger and arsenal would be one of the best in the world.


Mourinho:

"In the end, it is the points which count," he told reporters at a press conference. "And we have lost five points on the road. It is worrying, yes.

Huh, I thought Nocerino was the most consistent one last night. He played a really tidy game, no mistakes or foolish outbursts. I really didn't see the errors Fillipo is talking about. I'd play him every time if he plays like last night.

As for Aquilani, yes, he was poor and I believe he will continue struggling until he finds a suitable position in midfield. We all know he's no trequartista, so don't be surprised if he doesn't perform there. However, he had a very good first half against Lazio as LCM and I think Allegri should insist on playing him there until he finally jells with our system.



Having more chances means dominate? Most of the game was played in Udinese's own half, especially in the second half they were struck in there and those saves by Abbiati you mentioned came only as a result of counterattacks. We were lucky to get a draw only because of our current situation regarding injuries. If we had everyone available and we played like we did last night, we would have crushed Udinese.

All in all, if you compare this to last season without matchday 1, we have the exact amount of points as we did last season in these 3 fixtures (without the first matchday of last season)

Only last season we blew these points away against Catania, Cesena and Lazio. We still drew against Udine and Lazio during last season as well.

Take all that in consideration with the fact that we have half the squad out injured, then it's not that bad a situation, sure we could have probably taken full points in this one, and especially against Lazi while doing better against Napoli, but this is how it turned out. Hopefully some players return this weekend.

As for Nocerino and Aquilani. Aquilani had a terrible game yesterday, he was very good against Lazio but struggled against Napoli and Udine, it's obvious he's not very comfortable in the position, he's played a more advanced role before but playing in the hole behind the strikers is something new to him so he's obviously finding it difficuilt, LCM suites him better, the defensive aspect he'll have to work on but having Zambro behind him is completely different to having Antonini. I think allegri should switch him and Seedorf around, I know, I know, Seedorf is slow, bla bla bla, but he's adapt to playing the position and is comfortable playing it.

Nocerino, I personally don't get the criticism going his way, no he's not in your face like Rino is, and doesn't give that high energy Rino does either. But he's a very tidy player, he wins balls cleanly and makes the simple pass. What worried me mostly is his advanced position, and we saw this happening with Rino as well, he runs into these great positions in the box and receives the ball, he's not the guy we want in those situations simply because his final ball is lacking a lot. This is why I think Boateng on the right would make more sense...