I don't understand why you said that?Sorry, didn't watch the match . But, I know that he didn't score xD.

Oh yes, Muntari really looked like Pirlo back there.

C'mon R7, you're smarter than that.

Are you serious with this?

Muntari spraying passes? Yeah, more like to the second row in the side stand. Every pass he tried to make to widen the play ended up outside the field. Even Abate and DS were switching play better FFS. Muntari was the biggest liability on that pitch. And his back passes! Don't get me started on those tavisties. At one point he nearly put Paloschi through on goal FFS!

Ambro was good in his defensive game, but everything else was one huge mess. It's like he's not capable of making a forward pass anymore. Him and Muntari were soooo slow that everytime we had any space they ruined that because they took so long to make the pass all the Chievo players were able to get behind the ball and back to their shape again.

If we play like this against Fiorentina then we can be in for a rude awakening

Excellent victory - not the hardest place to go and win but we still had to do it.

Decent all round display and truthfully should have scored more.

Balo is a monster and has been a superb signing.

I can't really complain much about such a result in tricky conditions in what was more a swimming pool than a football pitch.

Pity about Torino's epic loss to Napoli which could have seen us in second place, but we're still banging on the door for that second auto CL spot.

April the 14th is now basically our match of all matches domestically this season.

Beyond must win.

Han & X-off, you guys can keep criticizing, but that is what I saw from the DM duo. Heck, even their ratings were good. Maybe its your bias that has blinded you in assessing? But that is not for me to say. Just that they did a good job on the field, containing that midfield.

Ambro's a DM, defensively he was solid, so there shouldn't really be an issue. I went to look at stats to back it up and he had 7 tackles (most in the game) and didn't make a foul. That's some fine DM work.

Blinded?

I CLEARLY said, Ambro's defensive work was good.

Muntari? He's a disgrace to this shirt. Saying that he did a good job on the field when everything he touched turned to cr@p to me is the blinded assesment of his performance


And as I said above, his defensive work was very good. But a DM also needs to be able to transition the play after winning it and Ambro was really holding us back in that aspect

Agreed. Can't be bothered debating it any more.

Happy with the overall display and result.

Generally speaking, a DMs job offensively is to just keep it simple. Give it to the players who can make that pass. I do agree with you about Muntari, I don't think he played well at all.

Ambro had a good game, although when he's on the ball he's as clueless as an amateur player. The only thing he can manage is make the simple, short passes. As for Muntari, yes, he had yet another terrible performance.

R7, there's nothing that's blinding our assessment here. If you ask Zed, a few months ago I was one of the fiercest critics of De Sciglio, saying he's nowhere near ready to be starting games, and Abate should be the obvious choice. However, he's greatly improved since then and now I consider him an important asset in our team. Was I blinded by my disapproval for De Sciglio? No, because he proved me wrong all the way. Danny might also remember that I was very critic of Boateng in the beginning of the season, but after he improved his game I took my words back and started praising him. I'm not one-sided when I give my opinion about players. I don't care about being right, I care about my team winning. If Muntari was to prove me wrong as well, then I'd gladly take it. However, that's not going to happen because Muntari is an all-around awful player then doesn't belong anywhere near the starting eleven, especially when players like Flamini and Nocerino are on the bench.

That is the point of a DM. I can't think of a single true DM who is truly exceptional at using the ball in a creative sense.

Clean it up and give the ball to someone else (preferably within 5 ft). It's what they do.

Ambro is woeful on the ball, but then, he's not being selected for his ability to distribute. Never was.

+∞ Besides, I'd wager good money De Sciglio always behaves like a human being during airplane flights.

can someone please tell us why Allegri isn't using nocerino since the 1st half of the season................its really strange seeing muntari being used ahead of him.

You agree that Muntari was good FFS??

I seriously think that the only two blindly assessing things are you two.

With Ambro I praised aspects and criticised others. But with Muntari there is nothing redeeming about this guy. His terrible footballing skills can't even be covered by determination because the guy is always the laziest one on the pitch. Even the much older Ambro expanded more energy on that pitch.

And let's not even get started on his terrible passing which constantly put us in sticky situations. How can you even THINK about defending him. That's something I'll never understand. At least when we're talking about Pazzini, Ambro, Bonera, Constant and disagreeing about whether they should be playing or not they both offer positives and negatives. Muntari's only positive is that he can hit the sh!t out of a ball. But if you can see that as justification for him being on the pitch then I would envy your very simple view on football


I agree about that, but the problem with Ambro - and it has been there for a while now - is that he's not completing the second part of your job decsription. His clumsiness on the ball looks to have jumped a couple of notches on the scale recently. He takes too much time to just get the ball out from under his feet and then to pass it that we lose the momentum gained when he recovered the ball. That's my entire gripe with Ambro mostly. But like I said, defensively he was solid yesterday


Like I said to kurt above, my problem isn't that he's not creating, I never expect that from one dimensional DMs like Ambro or Rino for example, but my problem is that he's not getting those quick 5 ft passes right. Which really hinders us on the transitions of play.

Probably a lazy *** in training.

Nocerino was one of the first names in the teamsheet last season, that reasoning doesn't make any sense. Muntari is probably the laziest sh!t I've ever seen yet he's on the pitch every week. Explain that

Sometimes players get lazy. Nocerino was one of the first place on the teamsheet last season - he probably knew it coming into this season and slacked in training. Muntari might work his *** off in training to earn his place. It might sound silly to us when we see the games and such, but when a coach sees players for 15 hours a week in training it really is different. They work on tactics and if a player is being lazy or something how can the coach then trust him in the game? Obviously there are going to be exceptions if a player of a far superior quality.

Personally I don't believe for a second that Nocerino slacks around while Muntari works his @ss off. That would only happen in a parallel dimension...

Sometimes it's as simple as a coach preferring one player over another. In this case, Allegri for some ODD reason has always liked and preferred Muntari over MUCH better options.

And the problem is that whatever he does in training that wows () Allegri so much is certainly not happening on the pitch where he barely bothers to jog around, people used to rip Seedorf to shreads for this, yet Muntari is getting the pass?? I mean WTF? Is it simply because some people don't want to admit when Allegri is clearly doing something so ridiculously beyond comprehension that they're closing one eye to this travisty of a player being on the pitch for us every week?

Told you before, I value the opinion of Allegri, Mourinho, Mancini, and Spalletti over yours on Muntari. Mainly because their view happens to be the same as mine. And that of an incredibly strong Ghanian midfield including Prince and Essien for whom Muntari has over 70 caps.

If you want to call me blind that's fine - I don't condone that word by either Rosso or yourself and I think everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I'm not really wanting to continue to defend him because there's absolutely no debating with you on it. We have our own views and as long as we win, my disappointment over your disagreement will be minimal.



I agree. His ball use is poor. But is it really fair to smear a DM who managed 7 successful interceptions and only one foul?

I didn't call you blind but borrowed a term from R7 where, he didn't call us blind either, just that we're making a blind assesment. And imo, this is what you're doing in Muntari's case. You can mention god with that list and you still wouldn't be able to convince me that Muntari is not a liability on that pitch for us. (Btw, what does Spalletti have to do with it? Did he coach Muntari at any point?)

Also, Mourinho and Mancini used him as a rotation/squad player NOT as a starter in their midfield, and Ghana are a decent team but you can also notice that he's not even called up for that team anymore either, but making a decent amount of appearances for Ghana doesn't really say anything. It's not like he's playing for Spain or Italy here.

I don't get why you're backing out of this. I seriously do not understand what you see in him that would make you feel like you have to justify Allegri's decision to play him constantly. Especially when we've had enough of Allegri's decisions blowing in our faces on a consistant basis. Your reasoning makes it seem like Allegri is infallible () in his decisions


Smear? Talk about exaggerating a bit...

I'm talking about making improvements and what will be needed in the coming games to get max points out of what will be a very difficuilt fixture list. And I'm sorry, but Ambro needing to take a whole minute to decide who to pass to or Muntari passing either directly to the opponent/outside of play, is not how we'll be able to achieve that

At this point our midfield is seriously weak compared to our other areas. The only quality we have is Monto. Muntari is a huge liability while Ambro can only usually pull out a decent performance every other month. And I'm sorry but that's not good enough when coming up against the best the league has to offer over the next couple of weeks. And when you have better options then this on the bench then you seriously have to question the decisions the coach is making

Yep, that's it. It's way too obvious, otherwise no sane person on earth would praise a dud like Muntari.

Udinese days.
And convincing you honestly ain't that important to me Han.



Given we've lost one of our last 18 matches to an insane Barca side, he nearly is right now.

Constantly? What crap! He's played 8 matches for us this season!

This is why I feel debate with you is not feasible - you live on an impossible planet where one defeat in 18 including a win over Barcelona simply isn't good enough.



Last time we played the best the league has to offer we won. With the likes of Robinho in our team.

I'm genuinely bewildered at the complaints I really am.

Convince was the wrong word. Make me see what you see at least. Highlight the positive (if you can) not just tell me he was good and when I contradict that tell me that you won't talk about it anymore. That's just childish


And why did we start FINALLY seeing improvements? Because he stopped with the utter ridiculous choices of Yepes, Bonera, Urby, the list can go on and on. And in all fairness our luck has turned a lot, where before if we played bad we'd get punished severely ala the drubbings received from Lazio, Fiorentina, etc, while now we're scraping the result. And now we also have a crutch we can fall back on when things aren't working out by punting it up to Balo like we did with Ibra.

Also don't forget the floor scraping we received from a terrible Roma side.

He's been a permanent fixture in the squad from the moment he was available after managing to get injured while on holiday.

And why I can't debate with you because you're looking at the small picture and ignoring the rest as if that's enough. As if watching us trudge along is good enough. Especially when we have the tools to be better. Tools which are being wasted to accomodate the likes of Muntari and Niang. You act like it's a crime for a fan to expect better then what we're currently getting


And Muntari wasn't on the pitch. What a shocker there...

We'll see if we'll pull that off when he's making the assist for Cavani or Vucinic with some ridiculous back pass that an ametour wouldn't even attempt to make

Han, I've already highlighted what I considered good in a previous match and you nearly told me I was lying!

So why would I bother wasting my time again?

You have your (very strong) opinion and you won't listen to anyone who disagrees with you.



2-2 V Napoli - all down to attitude. We fought back for the first time this season and thereon in it's been nearly exceptional. November 17th.



I didn't.



Yeah ok, winning every match is trudging along. Being third and the top side in Italy right now on form isn't good enough.

I realise that you are simply NEVER happy with Milan. The only exception in all the time I can remember was beating Barca.

btw Niang didn't play yesterday.



Did my eyes deceive me or did he play V Barcelona?

Could not resist the temptation ...

I never was a big fan of Muntari. I believe he was normally used as a late sub by Mou, typically when Inter was winning and he wanted to shut down the other team (and the way he played, I always had the impression that Mou's instructions to Muntari's were to break a leg or two). However, I have seen Muntari rated rated reasonably highly in Italian press.

Unfortunately, I did not see this last game. The article cited by Jack Bauer rates Muntari as a 6, stating something to the effect of him "floating" through the game, "without either infamy or praise". Goal.com has him as a 3 (out of 5). Going through various Italian sites, Corriere has him as a 5, Gazzetta and Tuttosport a 6. Going back in time, Goal.com has Muntari as a 2.5 against Palermo and Genoa, a 3 against Inter, a 4 against Barca (at the San Siro), and a 2.5 against Parma.

Bottom line, I would not call him great, but I am not sure the intense criticism is fully justified either. (And, as a Milan fan, I would like to think that we could do better.)

FWIW, Ambro was rated a 6.5 against Chievo ("These are his battles, in the mud, tackle to tackle, with attempted pressing and stolen balls. Good job, captain."). Goal.com has him as a 3.5 (of 5), Corriere a 7, Gazzetta and Tutttosport a 6.5. In other words, not that bad, despite his age.

Ratings mean nothing. De Sciglio was also rated 6 by Gazzetta, but he had a much better game than Muntari.

How has Nocerino been this season?

Started badly then he gave some really good performances..then was expelled by allegri

Then why are people upset he's being benched?

Read his post again. Started badly then he gave some really good performances. He was never properly given the chance to regain his last season's form, though. And to provide a further answer to you question, because frigging Muntari is being played instead!

saved me some typing hu!

Because they see him so dedicated in training, and that Allegri is on a mission to cripple Nocerino's career? But maybe

I love the disgusting arrogance of ... actually just X Off. Even Han will listen to opposition views and debate reasonably with people.

X Off labels people he disagrees with as 'mentally ill' and 'insane'.

I utterly retract that vote for best poster. He's the worst, most arrogant and most ridiculous poster on here and his stubborn refusal to debate with dignity is an embarrassment to himself and the forum.

Sorry, you cannot change your vote now.

On a more serious note, you gotta tone it down with the personal insults. I know you can't stand me and all, but try to act like a grown-up and keep your calm.

Well, I wonder how well they were, and how many. I haven't seen those games, but earlier in the season he was so awful to me that I can understand he's not playing anymore.

The problem here is that both Nocerino and Bojan have been completely forgotten by Allegri, whilst players like Muntari and Niang have had their great share of minutes despite offering nothing but dreadful performances. Maybe Nocerino's previous season was a one-hit wonder, maybe he'll never regain that form again, but even so I'm dead positive that he can offer more to our game than Muntari, cos he's simply a better player overall.

I don't know what the deal with Nocerino is. maybe he wants to leave or something? I like him but I'd love to exchange him with Insigne. (The Beard wanted Napoli, right?)

As for Bojan, I'm personally sure that Allegri does understand that he's more effective than the likes of Niang and Robinho. there's another reason why the kids isn't played much. I guarantee if we sign him permanently he'll get his chances. we're acting like a cheap club in this particular case. signing a talented player on loan and then refusing to give him chances to shine so his market value drops. it's 2+2 really. at least in my eyes.

Bojan was my other least favourite player during first half of the season. He was not only average at most, but also too selfish at times. Not a good combination.

What? You call him average and selfish? And you think Niang is better? Or Robinho? Seriously?

I can't get you guys. Why are you so fiercely trying to invent stuff? Why are we debating Nocerino's laziness in training? How on earth can we know who's doing good and giving his best and who's slipping behind? Yet we make these shots in the dark while ignoring certain facts we already established.

Like for example that Allegri is a awful man-manager and that his skills in terms of motivating certain players are on Serie C level. We know that a bunch of senators whom I respect a great deal more then Allegri have spoken against him: Nesta, Gattuso, Inzaghi. We know that some players who failed even in the slightest possible way never ever managed to regain their faith with the coach: Sokratis, Taiwo, Ronaldinho, Pirlo, etc. We know that some players made grave mistakes, yet managed not to be eliminated even after repeating their mistakes.

And you guys seriously speak about training issues? You think it's worth pressing for Allegri and covering him? For what? I expect a coach to make the best out of what he's handed. But Allegri discards some of his players much to easily. And that is a bad sign. Ancelotti, Capello or Sacchi wouldn't have done the same thing, not in this fashion.

And don't start me on that 18 matches with just 1 lost. Are you really satisfied with Milan? You guys think this is the best we can play and get?

Oh and yes, here's the new poll

Brilliant post!!

I give up with some people. We talk about Muntari as if he's Iniesta and Niang as if he's f@cking Messi. What's the point!

Football is very simple. As a coach you put a team out that will win you games. The start of the season was truly awful and Nocerino was particularly shocking. Since Muntari has came into the side we've been a much better team, there's no denying that results with Muntari > results with Nocerino. This isn't fantasy footbaoo, you don't just pick 11 players and win, they have to play well together. Do you think the likes of Barry, Hargreaves, etc. are better than Gerrard or Lampard? They aren't even close, but the fact is with Barry alongside one of them, it worked far better than when they played together. Sometimes the best players don't make the best team.

I'd rather we play Nocerino. But we rarely ever lose, so I don't care who plays. Allegri is getting it right.

@Fillipo. I couldn't note reply to this. You say people are making stuff up to fit an arguement and you mention Gattuso against Allegri when he literally confirmed it's not true and he had no problems with him just the other day.

No, Gattuso said he never left because of Allegri explicitly and he never had a fight. Yet he also said:



So unless France Football invented this whole interview, my interpretations stands.

He doesn't mentioned Allegri.

You're joking, right?

This argument you make about one player effecting the results is probably the cheapest one you've ever made and you also used it to justify why Yepes should be playng ahead of Zapata as well. It's just a ridiculous argument to even attempt to make.

We're getting results first and foremost because Allegri stopped messing around with every formation in the book and stuck to a core group of players instead of switching said formation and 11 players each week. At one point he was changing the starting CB pairing each week, which is probably the biggest idiotic move you can make, especially when you're struggling. We're also doing better because our important players are performing when at the start of the season they simply weren't. We also have Balo now. And sometimes it simply falls back on stupid luck. Sometimes it's against you and sometimes things go your way and you cannot deny that luck hasn't turned our way in these last 4 months or so, where as at the beginning things weren't happening for us at all.

Muntari? We're achieving the results DESPITE having him muck around in midfield, barely bothering to jog and cover spaces, passing directly to opponents, putting us under pressure, etc. The point is we can be better in that midfield if Flamini or Nocerino play instead of him. At this point Muntari or Nocerino, we'd still most likely win most games against the Chievos of this league. But the point is we'd do that a lot better withou having to carry his dead weight along for the ride. It's just terrible to watch him in our shirt, f@cking everything up while Allegri gives him a free pass to enjoy the ride. It just grates on my nerves, watching him play p!sses me off because he's that bad a player and Allegri has the luxury of better options but decides to close an eye to them

I've never used it to justify anything. I'm just stating a fact and while that fact continues I'm not going to complain.

But the fact doesn't make any sense in terms of the argument, just like when you used it to justify the choice of playing the horrible Yepes over Zapata or even Mexes (when Bonera was still the undisputed starter)

Can't you for once just say that Allegri is making a wrong decision by playing Muntari constantly when he's been terrible in basically every game he's played? Had it been Carlo or Leo you would have no trouble criticising the sh!t out of them, yet with Allegri you try to justify every decision by whipping out some ridiculous fact as if winning hinges on playing Muntari ( ), no matter how terrible that decision is, whether that's Urby behind the strikers, starting Yepes over much better options, same with Muntari, same with Niang and the list goes on.