Let's face it, we suck. Pure and simple. It doesn't take 3D glasses to see how utterly terrible this Milan squad and team is, and sadly it's not even a CL contender.

Let's look at each position and judge it.

1: GK - ok we got Lopez. We finally have a decent keeper, it's one area we are now decent in.

2: Defence: fullbacks are good, actually good. Abate, MDS and Armero - it's not quite Zabaleta but then we're not quite Man City. It's still pretty good. CH is absolutely abominable though. There is no clear-cut 'best defender:

We have powerful and aerially dominant Mexes but who lets himself down by being a liability.
We have quick and dynamic Zapata whose concentration could be better.
We have composed and positionally decent Rami who isn't especially good in the air and isn't the strongest.
We have aerially decent Bonera who is good at last-ditch tackles and blocks but is slow and gets caught a lot.
And Alex who is hard to really judge at all.

Impossible to pick the best two or a best pair there.

3: Midfield: De Jong is glorious in DM but that's as good as midfield gets. Essien, Muntari, Cristante, Poli - none of these names excites and some downright terrify. Monto out till November but was absolutely terrible last season anyway.

3: Attacking midfield: Niang keeps showing little signs of improvement, Honda's mince, Menez we haven't a clue about and Saponara is mediocrity personified.

4: Forward: SES - destined to be Pato mark 2 IMO, Balotelli - destined to spunk his talent away with a stinking attitude. Pazzo tries but doesn't fit the Pippo system nor has he been in any sort of form for over a year.

Put this utter mess together and if we can scrape the EL qualifying slot in 6th place I'd be overjoyed. Napoli, Roma, Juve, Fiorentina, Inter and even Parma & Torino are all justifiably ahead of us and half of them are utterly rubbish too.

Pippo has his work cut out but it's abundantly clear his hands are tied and he isn't going to succeed. With that squad, how can he?

If the team stays as it is - yes, but I wanna see who we will bring till the end of the transfer window before the final verdict. I'm not very optimsitic, but two good players can change the picture.

Scudetto!!!

On a serious note, I think all our CBs are actually pretty decent. Mexes, Zapata, Rami and Alex would be starters in any other club, not only in Serie A but abroad as well. Let's not forget Alex has been a starter for PSG all this time, Zapata had a very good WC, Rami had a positive second half of the season with us and Mexes, well, you all know that I rate him.

But it's like Danny said, we don't have a clear-cut best defender, a leader figure like Maldini, Nesta and Silva. Even worse, we don't have a fixed pairing. I think Pippo initially will go with Rami and Alex as starters, but Zapata could very well replace Rami just like Mexes could replace Alex. It's quite of a mess in that sense.

Midfield, well, I personally think we have a pretty good starting trio in De Jong, Poli and Honda, but Pippo doesn't seem to view Honda as a CM even though he's played Saponara there ( ). The problem in midfield is the same problem we have in attack, i.e. no depth. If De Jong or Poli, or SES or Menez get injured we have no adequate replacements. That's why a quality CM and a winger are necessary.

Overall, right now the best possible line-up we can field is:



Is it good enough for making the EL? Yes, if the teams plays well. Is it good enough for making the CL? Not really.

I personally think one quality CM and one quality RW will elevate us into the second tier in this league, i.e. behind Roma and Juve but on par with the likes of Napoli, Inter and Fiorentina (who will probably lose Quadrado).

Right now we have a mish mash of individually talented players that haven't really come together to form a proper team unit.

I think Mexes and Rami are probably our best pairing. Zapata is a big liability, we should sell him for some decent cash, especially if Juve want him, recoup some of that cash we gave them for Matri. Alex so far hasn't impressed me in pre-season he's such a slow lumbering player. Abate and DS imo are the best FB pairing in the league

Midfield is where our real issues are, with Monto out probably until December, if not more, only De Jong being good enough to be starting and Pippo seemingly unwilling to try out Honda there, the situation is dire, while our management and coach seem to be obsessed with finding a winger as a flashy signing that we can thank the Presidente for, they're completely ignoring the issue that will make or break our season, that midfield.

Attack I think is pretty good, provided SES and Balo are in good form and Menez or whoever we buy for that RW do well

Once again too much hinges on Balotelli I'm afraid.

For me, 6th place is our bare minimum target this season.

I'm now happy with top 10.

Champions League should be the ambition.

Milan has been destroying itself that much that Juventus has become untouchable, so that leaves Champions League as goal. How can you be satisfied with anything less? Then you can just as well go fully long term, and get rid of everything that's old. Perhaps Milan should be doing that anyway.

Anywho, with this squad, Champions League is not impossible.

Yeah it is.

Central defence and midfield are abysmal. Flanks are average. Up front is off-form permanently. And tactically we're a mess.

I don't think the quality of the squad is as dire as you make it out to be (barring that midfield of course), the tactical mess is what's the real issue with us and what's been our biggest undoing.

We haven't got a coach capable of tactically wrangling these bunch of individuals and making them play as a team. Allegri was absolutely abysmal at it, even when he had the best squad in the league at his disposal it was all about individual brilliance pulling us through. Seedorf and Pippo are just not experienced coaches capable of doing that.

------------Lopez

Abate---f*ck knows--f*ck knows---MDS/Armero

------Poli---De Jong--Muntari

Menez--------Balo---------SES

There are bits and pieces of decency but they're offset by giant mediocrity and worse.

------------Lopez

Abate---f*ck knows--f*ck knows---MDS/Armero

------Poli---De Jong--Muntari

Menez--------Balo---------SES

There are bits and pieces of decency but they're offset by giant mediocrity and worse.

Napoli's CBs are Henrique, Britos, Albiol, Fernandez and Koulibaly. Roma's are Castan, Benatia, Romagnoli and Astori. I can't see how they are any better than what we have. No, it's what Han said, it's all about our tactics not working, as well as the midfield of those two teams being way better than what we have

Maicon was a finished player before joining Roma, suddenly he's a beast. Benatia was Zapata level, now United want him. If we had a capable midfield, things would be much different for us as well.

Making a line-up which is clearly not our strongest, yeah, then I understand your point of view.



Form and tactics are things that can get better. Will it happen? That's another thing.

What would that line-up look like in your view chu?

I'd love to know. Can't think of a single stronger player I've missed out.

I'd replace Muntari with Honda but seems like it's not gonna happen since Pippo didn't try it even once in preseason.

Honda just isn't a CM. He can OCCASIONALLY hit the killer pass and has a mighty free kick as well as shot but I wouldn't trust him to make the right decisions in the middle. He is a trequartisa only, and he is actually ok in that role, but it's not one Milan use now. I didn't put Muntari in there because he was the best option, I included him because the alternatives are Cristante (who is suddenly looking dreadful after a couple of promising appearances last season) or Essien (who is dreadful, period). We have NO ONE else!

It's actually comical how threadbare we are there.

But yeah, CL spot beckons (despite the disgusting defence, miniscule midfield and permanently off-form attack)!

I agree that we MUST buy another good CM and I said it bunch of times already in the trunsfer thread but If we stay as we are I think Honda can fulfill this role better than the alternative. I think he has the characteristics to play there and I think he did it in CSKA for a while. At least we should have tried it in the preseason, we couldn't have done any worse.

Even if we agree on this it still means that we're choosing between Honda, Essien, Muntari or Cristante.

That's absolutely desperate.

It is desperate and I never said what we have is enough for CL place or something like that. But if we are acting in the transfer market like hobos and not gonna strengthen the much needed CM position, then I'd rather be creative than going for something I know for sure won't be enough.

+1

This

Honda and Cristante. Being off form in pre-season doesn't prove anything, and Honda not being a CM should open the door for a different formation. Surely doing so is better than playing with a midfield existing of Muntari, Poli and De Jong. If you're going to field De Jong, you could add Poli, but also Muntari? Really?

De Sciglio should be a definite starter. Not sure what to do with Armero (in defense or midfield?), but playing both Armero and Abate in a four man defense looks too vulnerable defensively. It's good to have options though.

Your selections are tenuous at best and prove my point.

Other people's words don't prove anything, only time will.

When will you guys learn that.

Wasn't a fan of the Honda signing, but 6 months in a new league being played out of position every week is never going to help him anyway. If he gets a chance at a more natural position for him, maybe we'll see improved performances.

I don't completely understand why we decided to do away with the trequartisa concept. What is this obsession with the 4-3-3??

I think Milan's formation has always been the pyramid (4-3-1-2), the modified diamond (4-1-2-1-2) and the X-Mas Tree (4-3-2-1).

This 4-3-3 doesn't suit us.

Any formation with a trequartista behind two strikers is dead in the world of today's football, unless you're going with a 3-man defense formation that allows you to have more push from the wing-backs.

The reason we've changed is because wingers have acquired a very important role nowadays. Every team plays with wingers, be it 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 or 3-5-2. Moreover, going with a 4-3-1-2/Christmas-tree would require a lot of creativity in midfield and spectacular strikers in order to do without the aid that would eventually come from the wings.

That's what I think anyway.

As recently as 2007 it was our system and we had a back 4.

I do think it's a bit outdated though. Width and pace is so important in todays game, so unless you have truly elite full backs to offer that width, playing a narrow 4-3-1-2 is going to be a struggle for the most part.

Even with wingers we still don't attack with any pace as the midfield is as dumb as a door nail. Wingers can give you width and creativity but only if the midfield can get them involved in the game, I personally prefer the diamond for us, we were never a side that made wingers work properly, and I can't see Pippo doing it any time soon either.

As for the season's ambitions, I think Galliani proved where they are today by selling our best player on the cheap, they're basically in the toilet. I personally can't see us further ahead than the top 10 teams this season.

2007 is not recently, it's 7 years ago. That's a long time.

That's perhaps what Milan should do.

Honda, trequarista. Behind the two forwards: El Shaarawy (may come from the left) and Balotell (if staying).
Armero, left wingback. You can have Abate as right wingback. De Sciglio should fit as leftcentral defender.
De Jong and either Cristante or Poli behind Honda. This way no 'need' for Muntari (backup for De Jong).

It seems the only way to have all the (good) players in positions they fit into.

A 3 man defence is very difficult to implement and to coach. I'm not sure our players could handle it.

I believe a 4-3-1-2 is not as bad you're saying. Of course it depends to a large extent on the quality of the mid-field three. Man-Marking one trequartista doesn't shut down that system like you suggested. It only does so, if he is the only quality player you have in that squad.

Anyway, now this primarily puts Pazzo as our main striker. Jackson Martinez, Hernandez, in fact everyone we're linked to are all pure number 9 strikers. Looks like this is what Pippo wants.

Probably Pazzini would play better with Stephan and hypothetically Cerci?

Meanwhile rumours are that the Dzemaili deal will get done for 2.5 to 3 million euros. That's a good price. Much better than the 5 million I heard of initially.

With the current squad, 4-3-1-2 doesn't sound that bad. It depends on who you're going to field.

If you play Armero in the midfield three, you'll create more width by doing so.

I'd be fine with this.