Sky's probable line-up has Hakan and Silva benched...

Honestly, how could you bench those 2? Out of all the players you can think about benching those 2 should be the last in your thought process

There's talk od Borini being used as a RWB as well after the Conti injury. Montella is really trying to do everything to p!ss people off at this point

Official line-up

WTf just happened?

Ahh, they were offside on the goal

KALINIC!


Great play

Our best defender Romagnoli, what an assists !

I really wonder sometimes

WTF were they doing playing around with the ball there? Just pointless

KALINIC!!

These f@ckers took 6 points from us last season, we better not lose any today

We've been good, but the total lack of concentration at times is what's worrying for me atm

I like what I'm seeing, but we need to lose the ball less often.

I agree, but I think that if you're going to play Bona and Suso you have to go 3-4-3 while with Hakan and Silva you go 3-4-1-2.

Bona and Suso are far more effective in wider areas imo

Rodriguez is such a great crosser. This is probably the first game we've been able to see how well he can whip it in (in open play that is)

KALINIC

This VAR thing is getting ridiculous.

And by the way, how the hell was that offside???

Damn VAR, I really think he was on there

On the replay he looked onside.

Don't understand, both of them were level on the grid

Exactly. WTF?!

Kessie back to his usual levels.

Calabria has gotten a lot of flack as of late but he's been really good today

Yeah, he hasn't been bad.

To be honest, I'd rather have offside goals then score, celebrate and then have it disallowed when you think it's done and dusted. It takes a lot of fun out of the game. Now I won't celebrate until the game restarts from the center.

Whenever you get these feelings, just remember Muntaris goal friend.

Yeah, but Kalinic was a handful of millimeters offside. You can't call off these kind of goals as well. It's beyond ridiculous. Only do it for obvious offside like Udinese's disallowed goal.

2-1 FT

I totally agree with VAR and as a team that usually got robbed I think it suits us in long and general terms. This is actually the 1st VAR decision that didnt go our way. All the previous ones (there were 3 or 4) were in our favor.

No game time for Andre Silva. He'll probably start alongside Kalinic against Spal. Happy with the much improved display from Milan.

Gritty win.

Yes, this VAR thing is good in certain aspects but in others it really just sucks the fun out of everything. The huge delay for the decision is also annoying


Goal line technology took care of that, and things have been better with it introduced. But VAR imo is just not working very well so far.


Agreed


Anyway, I think we had an overall positive performance, aside from an individual brain fart we were good. We rode out the small spans of pressure and controlled the game for the majority of the time, should have probably scored a couple more as well.

I also think Montella needs to use different variations to suite the attacking players he chooses. Suso and Bona both looked uncomfortable today imo

We usually got robbed? Let's not exaggerate. Muntari's goal aside, I remember a lot of irregular goals and penalties conceded to us that season.

I agree with VAR as well, but not under extreme conditions. Moreover, as I said, now we don't know when to celebrate anymore, because even regular goals have the risk of being disallowed. It's ridiculous.

Bona played his usual position and looked fine to me. Suso I agree. I guess he needs some time to adapt. Some of his flare is definitely taken away now that he doesn't play on the right wing.

So a drastic improvement of Calabria and Kessie while Bona didn't impress at all. Suso looked uncomfortable playing as AMF while Hakan did more in 20 minutes than Bona did all the game. I also enjoyed Rodriguez and Kalinic while Montella made a mistake introducing Cutrone while benching Silva.

Im not exaggerating, if u remember the Sky articles talking about referee mistakes every season, we usually had 6-9 points less than we should have due to referees mistakes. While Juve were the robbers.

He was very ineffective. It's different when he's playing in the midfield of a 4-3-3 because he still had freedom to drift to a wider area and just attack the spaces and cut in. He's more restricted this way because Rodriguez was already occupying that position, I've noticed this from him when he was used with Italy in a back 3 system

For me it makes more sense to go with a 3-4-3 when you're using Bona and Suso. 3-4-1-2 should be used when Hakan is playing as he's far more effective in central areas.


Yeah, I liked Calabria a lot today, I think the fact that he doesn't have to worry so much about his defensive duties helps a lot. He defended well, but the fact that he has Musacchio covering his side as well makes him look much better, when playing the FB position he just leaves too much space behind him

Kessie is just confusing for me, I don't understand how he can be so bad in one game while a total power house in another

I agree on everything and as for Kessie, I think consistency comes with experience and age, so what I can say about the lad is that the talent is there, in his good days I wouldnt change him with any other midfielder in Serie A, while in his bad days I just cant stand him. So hopefully with time, he will get consistence, get glued more to the team and pair well with Biglia.

Btw, Biglia was also very good today, his distribution of the ball was a joy to watch, and I really think this formation suites him a lot as well, with the WBs creating so much width he really had a lot of opportunities to switch the ball around

I don't remember any of that, sorry.

http://www.goal.com/en/news/10/italian-foo...ng-errors-study

http://www.rossoneriblog.com/2013/11/01/se...penalised-team/

http://run42k.blogspot.com/2009/03/italian...refereeing.html

http://www.calciomercato.com/en/news/exclu...tchday-2-144091

https://forzaitalianfootball.com/2017/05/re...-italian-hobby/

https://twitter.com/planetmilan/status/394745421374836736

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2...uventus-serie-a

Check the dates. None of them refer to the 2011/12 season, the one we were talking about. Only the last article, but that's just about Muntari disallowed goal.

Trust me, there were many instances during that season that we scored irregular goals and received non-penalties.

I was talking in general man. We got robbed most of the seasons. At least more than we got gifted penalties. I wasnt talking about just 1 season. I wanted to settle that we usually in every season got 6-9 less points cos of referee mistakes that is why I brought different seasons. All calculated.

I saw most of the second half. Udine made life tough for a spell but the defence, from what I saw, looked night and day compared with the 4-3-3.

That was a very solid Serie A side at home and we definitely passed that test.

I am a little confused as to Calabria over Abate though.

As for the Kalinic offside goal, it was offside. The rule is it's measured on the foot - and at the moment of Kessie's pass, his foot is fractionally ahead of the last defender. It's tiny, but by the pure law of the game, it was offside.

Match thread for Milan-SPAL?

Will do