Agreed

Don't forget that Pato will not drop down as deep as Robinho would, not to mention the fact that Pato must be very rusty on the ball as we saw against Juve this season, he might be physically in great condition, but that does not mean that he'll do great in a match where you have to make every ounze of possession count

So I say we push him in during the second half, try to catch Barca out when the game is opening up a bit

How do you know the game will be opening up in the second half? we could concede 2 goals in the 1st half and the tie will be all but over.

We should go for it from minute 1. it's Barca (at home) we're talking about not Juventus.

Wise words. Treat it as a final. If we can't win or draw against Barcelona in a single match, then most probably we don't deserve to go through, simple as that. Play a good 90 minutes, and match them blow for blow.

Can't agree. Knocking out Barcelona for us would be something extraordinary. If we can't manage it, it would only be normal and expected.

Which is kind of what I said. We shouldn't be expecting to progress if we go out now, after holding them in our fort 0-0. I wouldn't call it extraordinary, but it would be a good deal satisfying. But like I said earlier (when we beat Arsenal) that my minimum objective for the CL this season has been fulfilled.

If we go further, jolly good, but this far isn't bad. Not much difference between quarter or semi if you aren't going to win the darn thing. But what I meant above was, if we can't do a scoring draw against Barca now, then we shouldn't be complaining at the end of the upcoming match. It'll be a good journey regardless.

Let's see if Ibra will have the game of his life or just another lackluster CL night.

I'd bet on the latter

Link: http://football-italia.net/17312/just-one-...-hurdle-cassano

So Pato, Cassano, Abate, Seedorf, Aquilani and hopefully VB next week all back. Great news for the season run in

Cassano will be available only for the last three Serie A games. He needs at least a month's work to regain match fitness, and lose those 2-3 kilos he's gained from inactivity.

I read somewhere that he'll be ready for the Fiorentina game...

And I watched today StudioSport on Italia 1 that said what I wrote above. Him available for Fiorentina would have been impossible. I mean, has he even started training regularly yet?

Yes he has been training regularly for these past few days, which is what brought the Fiorentina rumours about me thinks

I don't know about that, but whoever brought those rumors didn't consider things thoroughly.

... (Cassano thread)

Hey, I didn't claim that. I just posted what the article mentioned.

Fair enough, understood.

Something tells me it'll be a slow, overweight and totally unfit version of him though.

Well, he did light training and runs for a while now. I don't think he will be too much overweight.

He played in the training game vs the primavera today.

Can't wait to see him back in the game.

This season has been cursed for us. Besides the injury plague, what happened with Cassano and Pato was a major blow. We lost half of our attacking strength. Can't imagine how things would have been if they'd been available for most of the season, especially Cassano.

Cassano is still on the top half of the assists charts now when the season is about to end. Says enough.

We've managed without Pato because Zlatan has had an immense season not to mention our mids contributing a lot of goals. Last season the goals from our strikers were the most crucial while this season it's been a different case

And Pato had 14 while still being injured for close to 40% or even half the season. Ibra and Robinho played much more than him last year. Not that I am discriminating between the contribution of our three forwards in last season's Scudetto win. Just saying.

Pato is the best finisher we have while Robinho and Ibra are better in build-up and movement.

Exactly, and that's why I believe he should be played upfront, with both Ibra and Robinho back. Boateng further down in the midfield where he can do the running along with Nocerino. And a quality AM if we can find right between the eyes. Of course, you are free to swap Robinho with Tevez anytime you like, but that's that.

I don't like us playing with three forwards. It's never been in our DNA. When we applied that formula under Leo it was a disastrous season. Even when we did it this season (first half vs Lecce and against Arsenal) we played like crap and conceded a lot. No, what we need is a quality AM to play behind the two strikers, a strong and creative DM, and two quality runners on the sides, which we already have in Boateng and Nocerino.

Not that I don't like the 4-3-3 system but I agree with X-Off in that we should play 4-3-1-2. however, finding an AM who can pull it off as good as Kaka did is like mission impossible.

Well I'm not rigid in favor of the 4-3-3, particularly against the top sides. As long as (a fit) Pato is at the very far end of the field, practically in the box if he have to to finish chances, I'm alright. Sure, it may hurt his overall development as an attacker, but at least, he'll score in bundles and buckets.

Edit: wrong topic...

That's when your argument became invalid.

I still believe. For now, at least.

How come when you quote a post you don't include the emoticons in it? I've noticed this for some time now.

Oh, that's been the case with me since the beginning. I used to quote posts as is back in the earliest of days, but then it just gets too overcrowded in my case, what with the amount of emoticons/smilies I used in my replies. And no one wants that, now, would they. So I just take a second to edit them out from the quoted posts.

Anyway, now that you've mentioned emoticons, I just wrote a two-page article for it for the magazine, detailing the history and evolution of these little characters. It's an interesting enough read, I'll post it here for you guys once it's finally laid out as magazine pages.

Cassano and Flamini did the entire session with the rest of the team.
Antonini did some running before returning to the gym. Nesta, Mexes, Seedorf and Van Bommel are followed personalized training programs.

http://www.acmilan.com/en/news/show/140398

Allegri: "I hope to recover Boateng for Chievo, Antonini and Seedorf should make it. Van Bommel feels better".

That means he won't be ready

I'm f@cking sick of this BS!!

Now let's watch him play that air-head Muntari in front of the defence since Ambro is suspended. We lost all of our shape when he went off today.

And if Nesta is not ready we're absolutely f@cked

We miss Silva and Pato the most. Silva the most of the two. Our two most talented players.

Feel funny asking, but how is Rino doing?

^ No idea.

Van Bommel and Nesta trained regularly with the rest of the team today and should be recovered for Chievo, along with Antonini and Seedorf. Nothing to do for Boateng who only made some jogging.

Link

Great news about van Bommel, I hope it's true. However, what is wrong with Boateng? He's becoming another Pato case. And to think this implies Emanuelson as AM again is even worse.

Frankly, at this point in time I don't care. At all. Let's get the season over with, first or second position. This year has been plagued with not just player injuries, but the rise of mediocrity in more than one positions in the team. Players who shouldn't be anywhere near the team cemented their places, whether by luck or otherwise.

It feels like ages since I've seen a full strength first XI play for one match, let alone a stretch of few. Pathetic!

This season is long gone. I just hope we won't be seeing anything of the sorts from next season onwards.

Hope is eternal. Sadly, so is MilanLab.

VB and Nesta are the most important, we can survive without Boateng as we've been doing all season. But we need security in that defence.

And with no Ambro now because of his suspension it's critical that we have VB for our next matches. We do not know how to play without an anchor, we completely fell apart when Ambro had to come off. We were playing with Aqui in that position FFS

Van Bommel & Thiago Silva could not have picked worse times to get injured!

Indeed.

And Prince as well.

Prince hasn't had a run of 4 games where he's fit this season. And people talk about Pato's injuries as if they were the only really huge injury issue. Boateng has been as much of a problem as Pato this season

Boateng has been as much of a problem as Pato this season - or at least he started to be. This is alarming, if our management doesn't find the roots to this plague...well...I don't see us evolving soon.

I wouldn't say as much of a problem, I remember seeing him in a fair few games. But yeah, if there is one serially injured player after Pato, it's Boateng. Really out of this world, if you ask me, compared to last season, at least. I can't even begin to imagine how much we have missed out on because of these pathetic injuries!

Abate has calf problems. He will be evaluated by the medical stuff tomorrow.

This sentence is starting to get on my nerves.