QUOTE (han2503 @ May 7 2012, 09:03 PM) 
I think you failed to read my earlier posts.
Did I ever in any way compare him to those players in terms of quality or how good he is? Clearly not. I said that even top class players like those mentioned make the occasional mistake. Abate has made the occasional mistake this season, I never said otherwise, just like the rest of our players on this team.
And give me one other instance aside from the 3 I mentioned above where Abate made a mistake. I can give you 3 Nesta made, 3 of Thiago's mistakes and so on. It's pointless to want Abate out. His improvement over these 2 seasons is enough for me to trust that he'll continue to improve. The real issue is not at RB. Why we're focusing on Abate because he gave away a soft penalty is beyond me. Our problem is at LB, where Allegri for some reason put Bonera in who, btw, was the culprit for the first goal.
Did I ever in any way compare him to those players in terms of quality or how good he is? Clearly not. I said that even top class players like those mentioned make the occasional mistake. Abate has made the occasional mistake this season, I never said otherwise, just like the rest of our players on this team.
And give me one other instance aside from the 3 I mentioned above where Abate made a mistake. I can give you 3 Nesta made, 3 of Thiago's mistakes and so on. It's pointless to want Abate out. His improvement over these 2 seasons is enough for me to trust that he'll continue to improve. The real issue is not at RB. Why we're focusing on Abate because he gave away a soft penalty is beyond me. Our problem is at LB, where Allegri for some reason put Bonera in who, btw, was the culprit for the first goal.
No, I forgot them, but you honestly think he only made 3 mistakes this season? And it's pointless to number out Thiago's or Nesta's mistakes > Abate made 3 mistakes of which 2 were in crucial matches and resulted for us a blow. While Nesta's penalty came in a moment we've already lost it, Abate managed to get the penalty in a crucial moment, when we had the lead and could have choked up Inter.
Problem is, we need a quality fullback that can do everything, just like Cafu. And it's easier to find a right-sided fullback for that then a left-sided one. Abate is sheer determination and will, no talent at all. Soon the guy will be 26 and I think his improvement will stop here. Comparing to last season he hasn't improved.
My bottom line is - we find it hard to find a good LB, we've tried a few out of which every turned out to be bad. Now maybe let's shift on the RB and sign a prospect who can attack a little bit. Try him out occasionally, with De Sciglio also on the left. Let's see what it brings. For now Abate is our sure starter, but if we wanna become a great squad again, we'll have to make a change on the RB position as well.
QUOTE
What? Against Chievo? There is a reason why I thought he'd ammount to nothing after I saw that game. He was shocking in that game. And granted, I did make my assesment in a gung-ho fashion and already admitted I was wrong. And IIRC the post you quoted clearly shows that I praised him on his performance against Inter, so why are you saying that I won't give him the credit he deserves? I clearly said in a later post that he did very well against Inter and proved me wrong of what I first thought after that game against Chievo. I'm just choosing not to buy into it yet, we always get sucked into this with younger players, and usually we're let down once they go into the loaning system we seem to employ.
Naah, it just stunned me how quickly you judged the poor guy. He wasn't shocking in the game, how can you manage to miss the context? Milan was shocking, much bigger players were also shocking! I just want you to give him some little faith. Obviously I don't expect you to say he's a 21st century Tassotti, but give him more credit, skepticism has to end somewhere
