Taking the plunge by opening the first match thread of the season.

I think Balo will be ready for this one according to what's being said but there are doubts over Robinho, DS and Abate

Mexes is suspended

A new theater of war is about to begin. And we have nary a warrior in the team, love it, love it!

We're playing against some lower league team right now. Line-up: Abbiati; Abate, Mexes, Silvestre, Constant; Montolivo, De Jong, Nocerino; Boateng, Balotelli, El Shaarawy.

Yep, and it's a 4-3-3

Pretty sure this is exactly how we'll line-up against PSV, maybe Muntari instead of Nocerino

And obviously Zapata instead of Mexes.

DS is definitely still out, same with Robinho

Currently 4-0 SES just scored a good goal, nice to see him actually being able to dribble past people

Gazzetta has either Poli or Nocerino on the left, not Muntari.

We'll see, personally I can't see him playing both Poli and Monto in the same line-up even if their game is very different

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jusbza-LbIoT This is how Serie D team looks like.

Niang against LA Galaxy had glimpses and today he showed them again, just flashes and I know today's opposition is most likely even worse than our Primavera side, but it's still good to see

I think that if we do manage to get Ljajic he should really be sent on loan (Genoa and Samp are very interested) he's such a frustrating player but I think he can be pretty good if he does mature, but imo, that won't happen at Milan where he's too worried about imitating/competing with Mario and won't get regular time.

What do you mean, we're awesome.

I knew someone will take the bait.

Mexes is not suspended and will play.

Really? Well that's finally a good peace of news

Peace you say?

Yes, it's very peaceful to know that such news exists

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM3hl_B80ks

They rested some starters ...and still looked terrifyingly efficient in the final third

That Bakkali kid is just top notch. They have some great talent on the team no doubt. But they're all very inexperienced and their league is just completely defensively inept.

And we still have by far the better team which will only be missing De Sciglio (most likely). Not making it through against them would still be a huge failure on our part imo

Though I believe we have a stronger chance of progression (for obvious reasons) .. PSV are no pushovers, they can do great damage. Especially against Milan. They need no motivation for this game, the fixture alone is enough, let alone being a 'crucial' CL qualification.

I wont put any money on any team, as these fixtures are what worry me the most.

Same here, but as I said, in theory we SHOULD be able to qualify, not easily, but without too much trouble.

But like usual, I'm anticipating the usual nail biter game where we play like we couldn't care less for 80 or so minutes and then start to play in the last 10

Your theory han is what most, if not all, Milanfans would consider in the back of their heads ... I know my impluses and they lean towards Milan doing well. But come kickoff and Milan could very well be underseige.

The last time we played PSV, we had such a strong team, yet barely pushed through. Dont know what to expect from Montolivo and co this time around

Well by that conclusion you can also say that PSV had a pretty great team then as well, Cocu, Van Bommel, Farfan, Park, Vogel, it was a very strong team, not to mention they were coaced by Hiddink.

Things are very different for both teams now, but we still have big players in the side, top international players who have played some huge matches, while their team is mostly youth, exceptionally talented youth, but still inexperienced at this level. And you really can't compare the Eredivisie teams they faced so far to us

PSV had a good team, not great but good team. They had players that were inferior to Milan, the Milan that reached the Istanbul final and they made us choke.

Fine, PSV dont have Balotelli or Abiatti .. what they have is hunger to beat Milan. That in itself is what I am worried about.

I think we'll struggle A LOT to qualify. I'd put our chances at 60% max.

Plus, we need to consider that they started the season much earlier and already played 5 official matches while we only had few friendly games. We are favorites but not by much.

Same.

You're probably about right. Gambling lines I've seen have us only as a slight favorite to win this first leg. Not sure about odds for the whole tie.

Milan probably had the best squad in Europe at that point, so yes it was an inferior team, but it was a very strong team still. They were very difficult to beat.

They have hunger sure, but their inexperience will show imo, and our players know that these 2 games make or break their season so complacency here isn't really an option. But as I said above, our team has a habit of making life extraordinarily difficult for themselves, let's not forget how we got to this point by the skin of our teeth last season, we were 10 minutes away from blowing it.

So yeah, you're right on that account, my only other major worry is the fitness levels of the team


I'd put them at about 75% over the 2 legs


Yeah, this is my major worry as I said above. We'll just have to see how they start out. This is why we can't afford to have a Muntari in the line-up because him giving the ball away every time he tries to pass will mean having to work twice as hard.

This is a first leg so I'm not expecting some gung-ho performance, I think best solution would be to try to keep the ball, play it simple, we don't need to score (technically speaking), silence the crowd and if an opportunity comes we hope that it's Balo at the end of it. But get caught out on the counter or playing an open game against PSV would spell trouble for us


Well we don't need to win the first leg, A score draw will be considered a good result for us

ha, I think you're forgetting how utterly crap we played last season, and having made almost zero improvements to the team, I can see that carrying on this season as well, starting from these two games. Remember how we almost f*cked up at Siena?

Yeah, I mentioned that.

I sort of feel the same way but on the other hand I'm hoping to see at least some improvement from the horror of last season because I honestly don't think we can play worse than we did then.

Of course, I'm 90% sure that Allegri will start with a 4-3-3 again, play Prince as a winger, start Muntari/Nocerinio instead of Poli and the usual BS tactics of hitting it long for Balo when we get stuck (which is usually 10 minutes into it)

Squad: Abbiati, Amelia, Coppola; Abate, Constant, Mexes, Silvestre, Zaccardo, Zapata; Boateng, Cristante, De Jong, Emanuelson, Montolivo, Muntari, Nocerino, Poli; Balotelli, El Shaarawy, Niang, Petagna

Note that Antonini and Traore were not called up. I think these next few days can be crucial for sealing their moves to Turkey and Belgium respectively

Allegri: "I need to decide who to start between Nocerino/Muntari & Constant/Emanuelson."

Poli and Emmanuelson.

Right now it seems like Muntari and Constant.

Did anyone expect anything else from Allegri? Let's be honest here

We're in for another season of terrible football and even worse decisions from our "coach"

Muntari might play because he's suspended for the league.

Any excuse to play him I see

He can play either Poli or Nocerino and then alternate in the league, but he starts Muntari...

We're in for another season of watching him jogging lazily, going into stupid tackles and shooting into row z

to be fair to poor Sulley, he has actually stepped it up in pre-season, he looks awful doing it, but he has gotten 2goals and 1 assist IiRC (which, for him, is shocking...)

That being said



Not that Boatang could ever be on the bench or anything (i think he deserves a little sample of reality...his performances have been awful and in constant decline...)

To be honest this pre-season Muntari has been looking far better than Nocerino, even though Poli would be a better choice than both of them.

Why would he play Nocerino over Muntari? Muntari is bad, but very few are worse than Nocerino based on last season.

+1 it even pains me to say it too because being good looks like it just doesn't suit his style

No way with Niang. The kid did half decent against Galaxy but he's a chocker, add to that he's just not good enough to start here. His terrible dribbling wayward soothing, brutal crossing and petulance is not needed in such a huge game

Prince might have been terrible lately but he steps up when it counts. So I'd start him any day over Niang.


Which games are you talking about exactly where he's looked good?

And pre-season games don't count much in assessing performances. He's just a terrible player and on top of that he's terribly lazy. PSV will be hitting us on counters, do you really want to see him jogging around and giving the ball away through bad passing and shooting?


I'd play Nocerino over Muntari any day of the week, yes Nocerino was plain old bad last season but does that automatically mean that Muntari was good for you?

At least when Nocerino is playing badly he tends to blend in and just do simple things, when Muntari is playing badly (99% of the time) he's a huge liability for us

Muntari was better than Nocerino last season, it wasn't even close.

Looking at our team, it's just sad how poor we really are. To think we're arguing who should be starting out of Muntari/Nocerino and that De Jong is considered an automatic 1st choice now. They're all terrible.

You're weird.

As long as it's in line with Allegri's decision making kurt is happy

And lol @ your Muntari was so much better than Noce last season it wasn't even close kurt. They were both terrible, no matter how you spin it in Muntari's favour

In what way am I going in line with Allegri here? In fact I'm saying I want the exact opposite. in that I want none of the 3 of them in the team, 3 players he picks regularly when fit.

With the players we have who would you choose for the midfield 3?

De Jong has been one of the most in shape players in pre-season, he along with Monto are the only quality players in our midfield. Your personal dislike for him shouldn't cloud your judgment.

Second of all, you've been defending Allegri's decision to constantly play Muntari ever since he came here, no matter who the better alternative is, you've even went as far as to provide some terrible stats on Muntari's part to defend your stance.

Ideally neither of them would start, you're right there, but you didn't say that. You went into Muntari's defence and didn't say who you'd want to start instead of him

I agree that de Jong is a good player, but you are contradicting yourself here when just a few posts ago you said: "And pre-season games don't count much in assessing performances."