So this is a critical match.

We need to see if we have the maturity to temper our euphoria and possible overconfidence after the Juve win to take home the points.

Genoa is a game that on current form, we should be able to pull off a win, but they're a good team.

Rumours are we might have some changes to the lineup, because Montella wants to rotate and keep things fresh.

Probable XI:

---------------Gigio--------------------
Poli----Paletta---Romagnoli-----De Sciglio
-------Kucka---Locatelli---Jack-----------
----Honda-----Bacca-------Niang


Poli at RB is a surprise but with Vangioni, Calabria and Antonelli out we are short of options. Suso hasn't been that awesome the past two games and could possibly use rest. I'm surprised to see Niang start. I thought he had an ankle problem.

C'mon Honda!! You phenomenon.

Expected lineups for Genoa vs Milan according to Gazzetta dello Sport. https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0...amp;oe=5894B303

Sky Italia: Probable Xl vs. Genoa. https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0...amp;oe=5898A071

The Milan squad called up by Montella for Genoa vs Milan. Zapata is back! https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0...amp;oe=589B15AE

Okay with the experimental lineup. Let's give it a try.

Hopefully we win this one. Because the next few games are "easy" games on paper: Genoa, Pescara and Palermo. Then the derby with Inter. So we have to put as much distance as possible before the meeting with Inter.

Thanks for opening jack, cam back from the Milan-Juve game yesterday at 1 in the morning so I didn't have the time, plus we had a 10 hour delay because of that French aircraft that crashed on the runway here in Malta (if anyone heard about that)

btw, if we lose we can blame jack for ruining my streak

Tonight De Sciglio will wear the captains armband.

#ACMilan XI vs Genoa: Donnarumma; Poli, Paletta, Romagnoli, De Sciglio; Kucka, Locatelli, Bonaventura; Honda, Bacca, Niang

So we essentially only have 1 FB available out of 5...

Bench:
Gabriel, Plizzari, Ely, Gomez, Zapata, Abate, Pasalic, Sosa, Suso, Lapadula, L.Adriano

Abate has a knock, that's why he won't start and will not be risked because we'd be in trouble if he's out long term

Honda and Poli on that side is going to be a big problem, 1-0 for Genoa...

Who lost his man at the far post there? Poli or Paletta?

We're going to ruin our chance of reaching 1st, for at least a couple of hours that is

So typical of us to get into a great position and then ruin it

Niang has been p!ss poor, and not just today, he needs a reality check, thinks he's better than he is.

Honda was invisible, don't know what was the point of starting with him when he's barely played all season. And I think he needs to bring Abate on as well, that right side is just dead

We were so poor in the first half. Poli, Honda and Locatelli were lost tonight. I hope to see Suso instead of Honda in the second half. Also I wouldnt mind Sosa too.

Sosa and Abate in/Poli and Locatelli out if you ask me.

I think Montella has to make these early changes. He usually waits to make changes, but tonight a couple of players imply have to come off

If I recall well it was Honda who kept Genoas players onside when they scored.

https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0...amp;oe=58AC171F

Paletta is such an idiot sometimes!!!

F- stupid.

Well there goes any chance of getting back into this game. What a **** challenge by Paletta.

Lets not forget that Poli f-ed things up by sleeping and loosing that ball there.

The changes Montella just made make absolutely zero sense

Every minute Poli plays I keep loosing respect for Montella.

Maybe Paletta remembered Nestas tackle on Messi and thought he can pull it off

2-0

I am sorry to say but Locatelli think of himself that he is Pirlo while he is a Gattusso when it comes to passing - at least tonight. Simply as that.

Maybe.

But these are the kind of matches that make me doubt Montella profoundly.

Disastrous.

We still dont want to sell Romanogli for 60m ?

Well that was expected. We are our own worst enemies at times.

Certain players might produce sporadic good even great performances at times, but they're prone to making bad errors.

Paletta is one of those players

Playing Poli at RB was a big mistake, should have just put Gomez there, at least he'd get the basics of defending correct. Same goes with starting Honda who has barely seen the pitch all season

I hope this game isn't a downward spiral of sorts where we see us quickly plummet back to where we were last season.

Paletta f@cked us over badly today though, wtf was he thinking when he lunged in 2 footed like that??? He ruined any shot of getting at least a draw, and Montella's changes after the break continued to compound on the mistakes he made in his initial selection.

Kucka got that own goal, not Romagnoli (If that's what you're talking about that is)

That he is Nesta.

Nope, the one he got Boatenged by Pavoletti.

Anyway, this is just one to forget, we've bounced back after losses against Napoli and Udine so I hope we bounce back from this just as quickly

We're going to be 3rd after this (most likely), so it's not all bad.

What p!sses me off the most is that we could win against Juve but manage to shoot ourselves in the foot in a game that we should have won.

At least this will be a reality check to someone like Galliani who has been tooting his own horn a bit too much. No this team is not good enough to fight for top positions, and over achieving for a couple of weeks doesn't make that a fact either.

We need to invest heavily in this team if we truly want to compete. Guys like Paletta, Kucka, Poli (especially out of position) and Honda should not be starting for us. And kids like Locatelli (who I think was pretty good today, I noticed d'Arc complaining about him, but I thought he was very confident today, connected a lot of his passes and made smart ones as well) should be on the bench as well and being eased in an not shoved into games and expected to turn things around for us on their own

Overall I think we still showed signs of good play at times, so it's not all doom and gloom, we were just playing with a man down for too long and committed too many bodies forward which cost us, just like it did against Napoli.

I don't think I can even recall Nesta ever lunging in 2 footed like that.

The one you mentioned previously about the tackle on Messi was one of the most perfect sliding tackles I've ever witnessed, it's a crime to compare the 2

For me the worst players tonight were Poli, Paletta (cos of his red card) and Honda. Actually I am not sure if I can call Poli a player at all. He was dead tonight. Right next to them stands Locatelli.

As for the mediocre ones I can name Romagnoli, Bacca, Niang and De Sciglio while Bonaventura and Suso were the decent ones.

A game to forget, but we must take much lesson.

I think some of you are totally blowing this out of the waters.

I think this game still showed what makes us strong. Defensive solidarity and playing from the back. The big problem was that we conceeded early. I don't know who broke that offside trap, but it was certainly not our CB pairing.

Other than that, we showed heart which I liked a lot. Anyone who is trying to say anything about Romagnoli seriously needs to reconsider. The guy fought like a hero and worked his *** off when we were 10 men down. All he gets is my respect.

The other part of the problem, I believe, is the changes that Montella made to the starting lineup. Do I think that he shouldn't have made those changes? Yes. But, in the end, he is the one training the team. So, maybe we might as well trust his decisions more when it comes to who was fit and who wasn't. He was basically forced to play Poli. With Honda, I'm not so sure.

We have a small injury crisis, and it happens to all teams. But, I truly believe some players needs to leave because they are more hurtful to the team..they remind me of the Milan of the last two years..so I think they should leave.

I still rate the team the same way as I saw it before.

I agree!

Exactly..Can't agree more again.

I don't think we need to invest so heavily. Just get me a top class CB and CM, and I would be satisfied for now.

Locatelli is the least of our worries for this one. At least he is competent at doing his job. Poli is the most frustrating player for me, even against Juve he was terrible. I thought for a minute early in the season that he was improving but he is the same useless player. Doesn't have any feel for what the game needs just runs like a chicken with no head. But it goes on Montella playing at rb, he has never played well there in all of the time it has been tried. Paletta as well doesn't deserve to start. One game he is immense and the then he makes a ridiculous challenge when Rigoni wasn't even threatening. Just put the ball out absolutely no need to slide in like that.

I don't know why people are so quick to jump on Romag and Locatelli. They are kids, I would rather see them play than the washed up Zapata and Sosa no matter how many errors they make. If you expect an 18-year-old kid to be Pirlo you are crazy, Pirlo wasn't Pirlo at 18. Romagnoli as well has played with Paletta who hung him out to dry today and Gomez who is an unnecessarily aggressive player and extremely green. Niang as well has been arguably our best player this year, he isn't a finished product but look at our bench it becomes very clear that this squad is stretched thin. Our bench is terrible. We don't have one player who can come off the bench and provide a spark.

I'm not pissed about that Han. I think it's a minor detail; you label it as typical, but this team never ever even reached 2nd place and it's quite normal to pay prize for youth, inexperience and lack of winning mentality.

What makes me worried on the other hand is Montella. He seems to lack a basic sense of order. Sometimes he makes random insertions like Adriano and Honda. Whatever was he thinking with the two? Honda barely played a few minutes this season, yet he decided to start with him, whereas Sosa or Poli (in midfield) would have been the obvious picks. Also, why ramping up Lapadula if you decide (completely randomly) to take off Bacca and insert Adriano??

But it goes much beyond just decisions. I think he's stubbornly clinging to this 4-3-2-1 formation even though it mostly does not work and we don't have the right players. I think he makes questionable decisions regarding line-up and rotation, has a certainly lack for the game (taking off Bacca at several occasions, making strange subs) and likes to experiment a lot (inserting Gomez as 5th defender for a few times this season). I'm not ready to label or judge him, but all this makes me very uneasy and worried.

Agreed. Glad that someone feels the same about this. We have some players who are poisonous and need to leave.

I think the game overall will be a good dose of reality for the players who might have been getting a bit too over confident after the Juve game and the one against Sassuolo as well, it will serve as a good reality check for them imo. As long as they don't let themselves go into free-fall that is, because the confidence of the team is very fragile at this state and can easily be shattered completely

As for Locatelli, I actually thought - for the first time - that he could actually be a special player. He was cool and calm when under pressure with the ball, I'd like to see his pass completion stats because he looked like he was getting a lot right. He showed vision and confidence to execute more than just a typical sideways or backward pass. I'd have to say that someone like Kucka was more the problem in midfield as he was invisible and just not pulling his weight in there which game Locatelli and Bona even more work to do.

For me, the worst of the lot were Poli, Paletta, Kucka, Niang and Honda. Paletta made an idiotic mistake that basically cost us whatever points we could have gotten out of this while the others were MIA for the entirety of the game, and I know Poli is not a RB but he even goes missing in games where he's in midfield, he does a lot of aimless running, huffing and puffing with no actual output. Kucka was also very absent throughout the game and committed errors which were detrimental to us. Niang was his usual clumsy, frustrating self, If anyone offers us anywhere close to 20m for this guy we should take it and run. And Honda just looked as he usually does only extra rusty

I think the rest had okay games, but weren't helped out by the previously mentioned group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUUn_FLzVuA

I said he thought he was Nesta, no one else did. If he didnt try to pull a tackle similar to Nestas then I dont know what he was doing.



He was being played as a deep playermaker, which means that he should know much more about positioning, ball control and passing. Dont get me wrong, I am one of his biggest fans, but tonight he was off. I read in an interview that his favorite player was Pirlo and that he likes to play like him, but he doesnt even have the body to play like him. If you were careful in observing his passes, then you will notice that he made some grave mistakes while trying to make a simple pass. I think that he got too much weight over his shoulders, since Honda wasnt doing his job well (which was playing as a wide playmaker). So when someone has to bear that responsibility it should not go to Locatelli or otherwise he will scerw up like he did in many occasions tonight. I dont think he should be benched, I think Montella should NOT* tell him that he is a playmaker when he is not and he shouldnt think of himself that he is a good passer.

I was joking about what Pavoletti did to him, it happened to better defenders than him (ex. Boateng). But I wasnt joking about exchanging him for 60m though

Can you please explain me what was his job ?

No, come on, we have to keep him, no matter what. (I already mentioned my arguments about this before)

I dont know man, from where I come 60m is a lot, even for Romagnoli. Just remember we sold Kaka for 64m and Silva for 40m

We're not using a 4-3-2-1 but a 4-3-3, but aside from that, he switched to a 4-4-2 after we conceded the first goal, and he did the same against Juve, so I guess he first wanted to instil a playing style using the 4-3-3 and now he's working on variations of it

As for decisions, look, we're never going to always agree with the coach's picks. Sometimes he gets it right, sometimes not, and this usually happens even with the best coaches.

I guess he used Poli because he's played at RB before while Gomez hasn't. I personally don't like that he did so and think it was a bad mistake, but had we managed to turn it around had Paletta not f@cked us over that would just be a minor detail. Same goes with Honda, I don't understand why he started him but I'm sure he had his reasons for sitting Suso on the bench and starting him and it's obvious he's barely considering Sosa at this point, just goes to show how great Galliani's planning is there, such a waste of money to once again bring in a player that is not wanted by the coach

Listen, I think Montella is a good coach, he did great things with Fiorentina and he has a style which I appreciate. But he wasn't given the right players to work with, and he's not going to do a Miha and try to sacrifice his philosophy to grind out a couple of results. He's so far surpassed what we expected of him, he's had a couple of hickups, but he seems to learn quickly from the mistakes he makes and does his best to correct them. Obviously he's not always going to get it right and we're always going to complain that player A shouldn't be starting instead of player B or vice versa.

But I think we've done very well so far, and I do believe we'll bounce back quickly from this, and that there will be other games which are similar. But that's the nature of the beast, we don't have a top class coach or top class players, so we'll have to ride these things out

I agree. I think we are doing better than I expected (given team quality), and in general I am happy with what Montella has accomplished so far. Much depends on what happens this transfer window, and until then we need to stay reasonably close to the top.