How much injury time has been added?

Just to make a slight excuse for Mesbah, the pitch is a mess FFS. Our players have slipped more than they've passed probably.

3

Thanks

Ambrosini was arguably man of the match.Antonini was amazing as well!!Two grreat blocks!


0-0,who will we have at the next leg?

Much better 2nd half. Think Antonini, Bonera, Seedorf and Ambro all played very well despite the pre-game worries about them.

Well I'll take that no complaints

If only we could somehow manage the result of the group stange away leg...

Now I'm mostly worried about the 3 injured players that were forced off for us.

FT 0-0 i will take this... antonini had his best game and bonera is having his best season for us... ambro had a excellent game while nesta again shows his class

For me Nesta was MoM no doubt about it. The class he shows is just unbelievable, the way he can just simply keep up with the like of Messi and Co is incredible, just read everything they threw at him.

He walked back on the pitch at the end, so hopefully it's nothing serious.

If Mesbah is involved for more than 30 seconds in the 2nd leg we're in big trouble.

When Iniesta went off,man I believed we couldd have had them,they look beatable,but Allegri took off Boateng!!

Lol, agreed

I think we can count on Abate and VB stepping in again. Have to say Ambro shut me up in the second half. If I were Allegri I'd be tempted to play a 4-4-1-1 in the second leg with VB and Ambro gaurding the back line.

Well, considering all the missing player, we had a good game. Not many teams can keep Barca goalless. Most thought we are gonna lose or even embarrassed.

i think nesta coming off was due to yellow card and tirdeness obviously

He was limping..

Nesta surely was MOM again against Barcelona. But Ambrosini, Seedorf, Antonini and Bonera played excellent and surpassed my expectations. If only Ibra and Binho could have scored...

But in no way did we embarrass ourselves.

Maybe he had a problem? Story of the season for him, comes back for one game, get injured for a month.

Or maybe he just wasn't fit to play the entire 90, this was a very demanding game.

Well Iniesta had to have had a problem to have come off like that, so here's to hoping he won't play the second leg as they look a lot less organised without him. Xavi for me is just spectacular though. I think he had comething like a 92% pass completion rate with 90 passes completed

I'm so happy for this result. I was rather surprised how good Bonera and Antonini played today.

Sorry DP...

Boateng went off with muscular problems. He wasn't up to the whole 90 minutes. But I don't think that him staying would have brought the special difference.

Yet, it sure would help. Emanuelson was mostly invisible, with one clumsy mistake and that chance he somehow neutralized.

Nesta holy...

To be fair and honest, Bonera is very good to excellent all season long. Not one of his usual howlers.

Or Emanuelsonized.

+1 i have really considered bonera as a liability but he has been excellent this season

And Nesta was his usual majestic self. Everyone kinda forgot about Thiago Silva.

Agreed



He was limping man. Don't know, it didn't look bad when he came back on the pitch at the end, maybe it was pre-cautionary seeing as Thiago is out for a while


Agreed, on all counts

Seedorf, as always showed up for this kind of game, Ambro although he had a worrying first half completely redeemed himself in the second, while Antonini and Bonera have been having great seasons.

Bu tno matter how dependable Bonera has been I'll be on my knees praying for Nesta before I go to bed every night (no joke)

nice

I think this game showed why Milan are the Italian Champions and we deserve to win the Scudetto again this season. If we can play like this in the second-leg and actually go through, then at that point we can start thinking about winning the Champions League. I just hope that they take the Fiorentina game seriously.

That was a damn honourable draw. Proud of the coach and the boys for pulling it off. We didn't take it to them...but ee sure didn't roll over. We got lucky but we were also wasteful...so

All in all...a good evening's work. Now you boys must excuse me...I'm a little drunk and I have work tomorrow.

Such a good result. One goal in Camp Nou would put us in a very favorable position. Bonera, Antonini and Ambrosini were impressive tonight. In fact, the whole backline did great, even though our attitude kind of stank. Emanuelson and El Shaarawy brought nothing to the table, and don't let me get started on Mesbah. One of the most pathetic players to have worn the Milan jersey in the last few years.

I thought you acknowledged Allegri for a second,then I read that.

How do you guys think we should play them in the second leg?

They were basically playing in our half most of the match,and in Camp Nou,they'll make that count,specially those one two's between Xavi and Messi.

I say we either play with 3 CBs and Antonini and Abate as wingbacks with Nocerino, VB, Ambro/Urby just in front of the defence or play 4-4-1-1

It depends really, Barca were very narrow today, I expected them to stretch us on the wings a lot more, which is why their chances were limited (aside from some heart stopping moments)

The important thing is to counter attack them well, what we did today is not counter attacking, we just passed the ball forward and hoped it pinged onto the right person.

If I were Max I'd play Maxi next to Ibra, he's the only one who can really play with his back to goal for us, and he will bring Ibra into the game more. Plus I trust him more with finishing than Robinho who made a mess of that chance. Ibra's was a lot more difficuilt but Robs was wide open, all he had to do was place that

Alan Shearer: "all the teams think about is how to stop Messi, and Milan did exactly that."

OK, I had hoped we'd play this the Italian way and we did... fairly.

The important thing was not to concede and I'm still in shock that we managed to do that, given Barca's chances. they say you need a certain amount of luck in these games and we got our share of it. I hope in the away game instead of relying on more luck, we actually play to progress, because we probably won't be getting any more luck.

"Why don't we try pressing more??" I was asking myself this all game long. every time we had the ball, one Barca player would systematically run at our player who had the ball and they'd misplace their pass or give it away as a result, but most of the times when they had it, we'd just stand and let them do whatever they want with it. zero effort to close up spaces. I mean, every time we actually tried to press we managed to get the ball away from them, why not do it more? we need to stop being so static and just run for 90 minutes each game if we want to survive these big games. all Italian league teams need to.

As for the players, Ambro was great and IMO our MVP, simply rolled back the years. very proud of him tonight.

Bonera, again, was decent. I completely prefer him to Abate at this moment and I want to see him start the away game as well.

Antonins was very good (can't believe I'm actually saying it). he too should start in the away game.

Seedorf wasn't as bad as I'd imagined him to be but still not as good as those mentioned above. especially in the second half he started to wear out.

Mesbah is fucking bad. absolutely horrible. he wasn't like this in his first few games but the tougher the situation gets for him the more he shows he true colors. not Milan caliber. not even good enough for our bench.

Mexes is the new Silva! I love how consistently well he's playing. (hope I didn't jinx him)

Robinho... that miss. *facepalm* I'm sure he will be shown the exit door before we decide anything on Pato because I believe the management are not retarded. compare this to his Arsenal performance. unbelievably inconsistent, he needs to be cashed in on and be replaced with Tevez. end of.



I'm convinced the San Siro pitch sucks sh1te even when it looks OK from our TV screens. everyone from both sides was slipping all over the place. embarrassing for a club like Milan to play on this awful, **** pitch.

Agreed with the majority of what you said, as for the pressing bit, the worry will always be at the back of your head that if you push up too much to press them then they'll get in behind you.

You could see those possibilities opening up whenever we pressed them too high up the pitch and there were spaces for them to run into, and we were lucky that the bounce of the ball went our way in those moments when the ball was ping ponging around.

The only thing I regret aside from the missed chances is that we didn't fight for corners, even just taking the ball to the corner flag and hitting it at their leg to get something from it. We all know that that's where we have the edge on them, when the ball was in the air we almost always won it. We need to make these situations happen at the Camp Nou, because scoring from open play in Spain will be virtually impossible, especially if we have Robinho and Ibra missing chances out there.


It's definately sh!t, I guess the Barca players stayed on their feet better because they had control of the ball while our players kept slipping around when having to change direction quickly.

I think Max has tried a lot of combinations with Barca in these 3 games, no doubt this was a great result considering it's a KO tie. The gung-ho style of the group stage match at the San Siro showed that we can score on them and put them under pressure but that it could compromise us at the back. We still need to find a balance between that and what we did today. I think the handling of their 3 main creators (Messi, Xavi and Iniesta) was spot on

“I had to make three substitutions due to physical problems. Hopefully some can start to recover for the second leg and others can find better form.”

Hope we won't lose any of them for long term. Enough is enough

http://youtu.be/_L0_c3GKXjc

No, not necessarily high up the pitch but in our own half. a lot of time to think what to do with that ball is what we must not allow Barca's midfielders. it just requires a lot of effort and sacrifice. I'm talking about the way Ambro played. I didn't see that from Boa, Ibra, Nocerino, El Sha and of worst of all, Robinho. too static.


Hadn't thought about it. very good point. but then again there's a lot of things we need to do in the next game if we want to progress...

Seriously? Is it his fault he's 35, came back from a nasty injury and hasn't got room for a whole 90? Yet he played with almost surgical precision, almost every smart attack came through him. Defensively he also done very good. I'd say it was the dream performance - only the assist missed.

Surgical precision? he made quite a few mistakes in the second half.

Is it his fault that he's 35? why do you ask me? I'm just judging his performance which I thought was good, but no "dream performance".

Exactly. No-one is saying to attack them like a bunch of morons leaving wide spaces behind, but to cleverly pressure their midfielders so they don't have enough time to think. Tonight, we simply parked the bus and waited for them too attack. It was embarrassing for a club like Milan. Even Berlusconi was pissed off, click here.

By the way, what's happened to Aquilani? He's been fit for weeks now, but Allegri barely plays him anymore. Some say he's got a bit chubby. Is that enough to lose Allegri's trust?

Thoughts? I'd say the first one was a clear penalty. The second, too, if Puyol had dived after being pulled. Speaking of which, what the f@ck is Mesbah doing there? Did he lose his mind? Even more, in front of the ref. Jeez!

The first is a penalty. The second should be, but you rarely see them given for some reason. Third was just Mesbah being stronger than Messi.

No more mesbah please

+1

He played for only like 15-20 minutes, but was disastrous nevertheless. I'd take Zambrotta over this weasel any day of the week. One of the worst players to wear the Milan jersey in the last few years.

he's decent against mid table and lower clubs but let's just keep it to that.

At this point, LB is antonini's place to lose. Mesbah has been simply retarded when facing european teams... I'd rather Inzaghi be our 2nd LB..

While I hate Barcelona, I used to have respect for Guardiola. Until his comments...



Basically he's blaming his side's inability to breach our magnificent defence on the playing surface.

Absolute nonsense!

He's right about the pitch. and what better excuse to make at a moment like this when your mighty, Best Team In The World Barca has just failed to beat a Milan side playing without half of their first team players? if they manage to put 3 goals past us in the away game, they'll say the first leg was just because of the San Siro pitch. like Arsenal and Wenger did.

Bottom line is, you can't expect your opponents to keep quite after having to play on such a god-awful pitch. they're used to playing on better pitches.