Allegri's gotten a lot of support that Carlo didn't. I will disagree with you if you say otherwise. This is exactly the kind of team Max wanted and it's in his image...but he needs to wake up and see the massive limitations his footballing philosophy has. And he needs to plug it ASAP.

Ancelotti's team was very defensive. He just had the fortune of having Pippo, Sheva, Rui, Kaka', etc. in attack. Allegri only has 1 player he can rely on going forwards. If the club aren't going to spend the money, there's nothing he can do about it. No change of philosophy is going to matter when you don't have the players.

Ancelotti's team was very defensive.

Ancelotti's team was very defensive. He just had the fortune of having Pippo, Sheva, Rui, Kaka', etc. in attack. Allegri only has 1 player he can rely on going forwards. If the club aren't going to spend the money, there's nothing he can do about it. No change of philosophy is going to matter when you don't have the players.

Ancelotti and this guy should never be mentioned in the same sentence. With Ancelotti there were a lot of faults but Allegri has well and truly turned us to the Inter of old where the ALL attacking ideas were basically centred around iBra and to a lesser extent Robinho

Phase two or how to turn a big club into a small team of muscles and blood

I've seen this happen to Milan once, some 15 (bit less) years ago, but today it is happening with even more vehemence.

1) Milan's strategy and midfield are non-existent. Like the time when we relied on Bierhoff, a good cross and squeezed out the last drop of creativity out of Boban and Leonardo, we are now doing the same. We field Nocerino and van Bommel, the displace Boateng so his negative sides end up being even more amplified, while our only creative source is a 35 year old Seedorf, who's been played match after match, without rest, without even being subbed off. At least Zaccheroni had the decency to rotate with Boban and Leo and rationally use them. There is no connection with the attack, there is no link-up. Not so long ago Milan had not 1 or 2, but 3 sources for creation. But no, nowadays it's only blood and sweat - bringing us to tears.

2) Allegri is absolutely incapable of learning. The exact same thing happened to Zaccheroni - stubbornly insisting on Helveg making the runs while Boban being played displaced and Albertini wrongly pushed to often to cover sides. But Allegri goes beyond. Good coaches can be stubborn - Carletto and Capello for examples. But they got plans, that usually work or worked, and don't won't the world coming into their way. Allegri on the other hand makes stubborn decisions without any plan. How many times did we see Milan start with the wrong mindset? How many times did he start with a cautious, yet wrongly played formation? How many times did he solve the build-up problem? How many times did he make the right subs and showed he has a feeling for the game, the "strategy"? How many times did his decisions change the course of the game for better? All these answers, and many more go directly against the coach.

3) In the end, the stupid small-club mentality reached Milan. I've seen Maldini and Billy doing stuff you wouldn't believe they did under Zaccheroni. Now I'm seeing the same with Nesta, even Thiago. Boateng's and Ibra's negative sides are only being amplified. We're taking corner kicks with idiotic tricks, Cassano is falling down on every occasion, we're stealing time whenever we can, Ibra and Boateng ruthlessly fouling around.

4) Stats: 5 matches, 8 goals conceded - 4 scored. The injury crisis speaks why we scored so little, yet, there is no justification for Milan's 8 conceded goals + the 2 in the CL and 1 in the Supercup. Makes 8 matches and 11 goals in total. Milan has 5 points out of 5 matches, we're limping while the opposition makes the distance. The way we play - we're one of the top fouling teams in Europe - makes me feel very sad.

Allegri is definitely to blame for the mistakes. But the tiredness of this depleated squad also factored in.

Since the first 30 mins, I saw this game going against Milan. The lads were too tired, you could see the body cant do what the mind tells it. Van Bommel and Seedorf were not their usual selves .. That coupled with Juve's 4-1-4-1 pressuring our back line wide and narrow, while containing Milan's attempt to counter more than I can remember. Ibra couldnt do it himself.

Allegri should have gone all out attack with Inzaghi, Ibra and Cassano .. Rest Seedorf, play Aquilani (sub: KPB) ... That might have added something, instead of just going on the pitch with the same skeleton that has been playing consequent games since the season started.


On a side note, this game is worth 3 points, just as the one against Siena. And Milan is 6 points behind .. We go into a break now. Allegri has time to get the team back on track.

One last thing on Allegri, didn't he say KPB couldnt play a whole match? And what's his problem with Inzaghi?? ... And I really wouldnt expect much from Aquilani, but what's Allegri's problem really?? Urby? The kid who set up zebra's 2nd

Playing Bonera and Seedorf really killed our chances of success for tonight. We all know Zambrotta barely pushes forward anymore (and when he does, he usually screws up), but having someone like Bonera as well meant absolutely no game on the wings. Then you put Seedorf, someone who's been playing 90 minutes every three days, whilst a fresh and motivated Aquilani warms the bench for the entire game. What exactly was Allegri thinking? Didn't he see we were powerless in the first half? Why didn't he make some changes at half-time? Why be so stubborn on your choices when even a fool can see they are not working, at all. I want to fill this guy with punches right now, seriously!

I'll never understand the Emanuelson for Cassano change. Not only Emanuelson offers nothing to our game, but Allegri subbed the only capable player of creating something out of nothing. Because that's what we were tonight, a huge NOTHING!

But beyond that, I've noticed two correlated flaws within our system that could really, really hurt us badly. First, we are too vulnerable to counterattacks. If we try to keep the ball and dictate the game, every time we're countered, we're caught completely off-guard. Think of Lazio, Napoli, Udinese and Plzen. How many times did luck save our butts in those games? We lose the ball and we are absolutely clueless at stopping the opponent. Lazio and Napoli punished us hard, whilst Udinese and Plzen were simply unlucky. It's a very hard fact to swallow that our glorious defending of last season seems to have vanished into thin air and we're back to square one again.

Second, and most importantly, if we're pressured in midfield, we completely lose it. That's all it takes to pull us down on our knees. Think of Barcelona and Juventus. These teams put great pressure on our midfielders when we had the ball. Result? We can't make more than two passes in a row. Moreover, we don't press them back when they have the ball. We simply get struck in our own half, absolutely clueless of how to counter-react. Why? Because we have no plan! We play by the individuals. We're not a collective. Our game is not fluid. Our forwards are completely isolated from the rest of the team. Our midfield is our weakest point. No quality whatsoever! Too many overaged players and no champions to lead the way. There's no logic to our playing style anymore.

And all of this is the fault of no-one other but Allegri. That's right! He's been our coach for more than a year now, and look what we have to deal with. Forget about last season's scudetto. It was nothing but a strike of luck. Inter had their worst season since Calciopoli. Juventus were completely absent. Roma were struggling with their ownership problems. Only Napoli posed a somewhat credible threat, but even they couldn't manage to keep up in the long run. It was an open door and Allegri simply waltzed into it. After all, we all agreed that our win last season was not due to Allegri, but despite Allegri!

Well I've been saying this ever since we got him but you know geniuses aren't always appreciated in their time and all

The thing is that it's not that he's a BAD coach but I fear that he's just a limited coach. He strikes me as the type of coach that would do well for average mid table teams to keep them always in the hunt. The problem is that his mentality doesn't often coincide with Milan's ambitions. The majority of his moves can be seen as "playing it safe" instead of going for glory...and BIG teams generally always go for the win.

Bringing on Ambro at the death was sending a signal to Juve that we're actually happy with a goal less draw and they smelled blood. Not man-marking Pirlo was tactically idiotic and in keeping with his stubborn character. He didn't rate Pirlo so to him Pirlo must be completely worthless. He did the same with the league's leading assist maker Ronaldinho.

A guy like Ancelotti/Capello/Ferguson would have understood what players like that offer even if they didn't want them in their squad. For instance, Capello booted out Ronaldo from Real but also conceded that he was the most talented striker he had ever seen.

I'm not being dogmatic about the things stated in this post. It's just some ideas that I'm throwing out but again..they would explain why he likes the like of Prince and how he could conceivably replace a sloth like Cassano with a "willing o run all game" Urby.

I actually think Jack is spot-on on this. If you think about it, Allegri has been constantly planning our signing campaign along with Galliani. Not only that, but his ideas perfectly match our cheap behavior in signings. The fact that we have many muscle players and very few creative ones tells the big picture. Not to mention it's only due to Allegri that a depleted player like Gattuso is still playing for us. He got rid of Pirlo, and now we have a mid-level player like Aquilani whom he doesn't even play. When Gattuso gets back, he'll re-take his spot and once again we'll have a midfield full of 35-y-o's. It's quite pathetic, really. Think of top clubs like Barça, Madrid, United, Bayern etc. How many defensive midfielders do they employ? Mostly one. We play Van Bommel, Gattuso and Boateng in a midfield of four. Don't you see the fallacy in this? Allegri's footballing philosophy is so limited and outdated, he's turned us into a horrid, clueless, defensive team.

Even in his last years, when the team started to degrade and Berlusconi stopped spending money, he still deployed an offensive team with only one more defensive midfielder (Ambrosini) to cover up our limitations. Carlo's mentality was far from being a defensive team.

That's the Inter who won league after league, right?

Nothing wrong with having one player your team relies on - RM do it with Ronaldo, Barca do it with Messi, Man U do it with Rooney.

I was talking about our last years and we didn't play with 1 DM. The fact that in 07-08 Ambro, Rino, Emerson and Brocchi played over 100 league games between them says it all. You can't do that with 1 DM. Couple that with the fact that Pirlo plays deep, it was far from attacking.

I don't presume to be a better tactician than ANY coach but I can't see any logical explanations for the above

+1.

I wanted to punch the screen when Seedorf gave that I-don't-five-a-**** look. yes you can forgive him for a crappy game because he's old and overused, but this behavior from someone with the effing armband cannot be justified.

Ancelotti's team was very defensive. He just had the fortune of having Pippo, Sheva, Rui, Kaka', etc. in attack. Allegri only has 1 player he can rely on going forwards. If the club aren't going to spend the money, there's nothing he can do about it. No change of philosophy is going to matter when you don't have the players.

I was talking about our last years and we didn't play with 1 DM. The fact that in 07-08 Ambro, Rino, Emerson and Brocchi played over 100 league games between them says it all. You can't do that with 1 DM. Couple that with the fact that Pirlo plays deep, it was far from attacking.

The fact that one of our best forward players is Kevin Prince Boateng says it all. Galliani needs to realise that this isn't the year 2000 anymore and sign some wingers. Max did a great job with the squad he had winning the title, but to expect him to do it again with this squad? Fergie and Mourinho couldn't win 2 in a row with this team.

No, playing with wingers makes no sense.

Glad i wasn't the only person to see that.

Hmm, well I guess that's what happens when you don't sign players.

i think we should go 4-2-3-1 because with the lack of midfield speed our mid 3 would get destroyed. That's why i think we should have 5 in midfield to choke and press for everywhere without relying on speed.

Hmm, well I guess that's what happens when you don't sign players.

Hmm, well I guess that's what happens when you don't sign players.

Again the sheer squandering of Ronaldinho and more recently the inability to harness Cassano's creativity which was just spilling everywhere in this particular game.

Can't agree about Cassano. Allegri has managed to use him at full capacity in these last few games, and he's been one of our major forces. Of course, substituting him for Emanuelson against Juve was a completely asinine thing to do.