LET'S DO THISSS

So much time being wasted here

Leao down...

If he's injured and this is not just cramps we're f@cked

Theo..

Theo....

Wtf are they doing. Shot ourselves in the foot all night FFS.

Let's see if this is the beginning of our slide.

Speechless...

Never seen such a horrendous collection of brainfarts in a single game. Tata, Gabbia, Tonali, Theo. All massive errors that should never happen.

This match was doomed since yesterday with Rebic's injury, today Tomori, then the festival of errors.

Unforgivable. WTF is it with Theo and his little turns so close to the goal??? You never do that! They teach it to kids when they're learning about football. It's elementary.

Gabbia is a terrible defender. His positioning in their third goal was Serie B level.

Really I don't know what to say. This was such an easy game and we just squandered it.

Oh, and subbing Messias for Brahim was an idiotic move. Messias is completely out of shape.

4-3? Really? How did we throw this...

It was a shock move. Not that Diaz was doing good or was useful today.

By losing our first team players while playing crappy players like Tata and Gabbia.

Why wasn't Romagnoli used? Surely must have been a late injury or fitness problems, I doubt that Pioli would have selected Gabbia out of the blue for no reason.

He was still a danger. Diaz is useful because he's always running, always pressing, always involved. He "glues" midfield and attack with his omnipresence.

Messias looked like he hadn't played football in a year.

Theo has that in him sadly, it's the price you pay for what we get at he other end

I'm not even angry today, just disheartened. These injuries are going to cost us another season, simple as that really

Today we made a couple of f@ck ups and got punished on each one of them, sometimes it happens.

I still don't understand how you start Gabbia when Romagnoli is called up. I'm sorry, but we'd have avoided 2 goals had Romagnoli been on the pitch instead. Or at least play Kalulu in the middle and just put in Florenzi on the right. Makes absolutely no sense to play Gabbia who has barely played against the best striker in the league. Pioli f@cked up on that one.

Each time Gabbia came up against Vlahovic he was in trouble.

It should have been an easy game, but this is what happens when you don't have continuity and your best players are consistently in and out of the side. At some point you're going to suffer for it.

We need to punt that A. Madrid game on Wednesday. Play the reserves and primavera, I do not care. We need to get Tomori fit again, we need to make sure Leao isn't out as well now, because if that's the case we're f@cked

Messias just doesn't look good enough, he looks like a Crotone player we picked up at the last minute.


Brahim hasn't looked good since returning from Covid either, let's be honest.

I think the Sky people said Romangoli wasn't in top shape.

Anyway, too many mistakes man. Too many. And this was a shitty Fiorentina side. Imagine being so careless against stronger teams. We lack concentration. But yes, also too many crappy players like Tata and Gabbia as you said.

Romagnoli was on the bench though.

Even Kalulu would have made far more sense since he has better speed and physicality than Gabbia

Pioli dropped the ball here. Gabbia vs Vlahovic was never going to end well

We conceded 4 goals today, sad to say but those are not title contender numbers.

Let's just all play that Tomori and Leao don't have anything serious.

Because we've done well enough so far to allow ourselves to recover from this without much damage being done to our position, but we cannot have another game like today.

All goals coming from easily avoidable errors aside from the Saponara one. Tonali should have done better with the clearance but it's not as terrible as the other 3 f ups

Let's hope for a draw tomorrow between Napoli and Inter

If Pioli kept Alessio on the bench because of that Atletico game I'll blow a gasket...

Romagnoli on the pitch and we win this.

You can concede 4 goals and still win the title. Milan 4-4 Udinese in 2011, for example. Or you can have a terrible match even though you're a great squad. Villa 7-2 Liverpool last season, or Gladbach 5-0 Bayern a couple of weeks ago.

I'm not worried about the loss, precisely because it came from easily avoidable errors and lack of concentration. This was an easy win, you could see it from a mile away in the first half, yet we f*cked up by conceding those mistakes and by wasting so many scoring opportunities.

If we had played badly and had been dominated by Fiorentina, that would have been another matter.

But this season we're making way too many individual mistakes. We have to fix it.

We also have to avoid playing duds like Tatarusanu, Gabbia, Krunic etc. who are not Milan level.

I'm not worried about the performance in general either, because we were better, scored 3 goals and should have won this.

But, my main worry is that Tatarusanu isn't going anywhere until January, the injuries keep coming which will force us to play players who have barely played all season, which will make them error prone as we saw with Gabbia today who was all over the place. Krunic is a different matter imo. He's a good squad player, the problems come when you're forced to rely on these players regularly

Individual errors by players like Theo and Kessie is also hugely worrying as these are supposed to be the pillars of the team

Theo loves doing that turn, and I understand why he does it because it usually releases him into an open space to sprint through, but when it goes wrong on the rare occasion it's always fatal.

I'm sure we'll bounce back for the next one. Can't wait to tget that Atletico game out of the way so we can concentrate on the league

Best case scenario now is Inter and Napoli draw tonight. If one has to win, I'd prefer Napoli to win it. I'd rather keep Inter at -7 personally because they'll be the one still there down the line imo.

I think Napoli are going to fall off.

Plus Napoli have Lazio next while Inter have Venezia

Losses like last night are really irritating, though. Because it's a game you know we could easily won, so it was just 3 points thrown away.

Sans their second goal, which still came from a poor clearance from Tonali, all their other goals were due to individual mistakes. Gabbia is completely clueless. His overall positioning is terrible and all over the place. Vlahovic would have never scored that first goal had Tomori been there.

These injuries, man. I really don't know what's going wrong. I read that Tomori might be back for Atletico, but not Rebic (hamstring lesion), so he'll probably be out for another 2-3 weeks.



Agreed. Either draw or Napoli win for me. Inter are the real threat, so best to keep them away.

Anyway, we really have to work on our concentration. Our players have this tendency to switch off and lose stupid, stupid balls. Hopefully this game served as a wake up call for many.

Yep, the injuries...

We have a real chance to win this Scudetto. Inter are not as good as last year, Napoli will drop off as they have a great first 11 but not a great squad. Juve are just toiling.

Inter are our biggest threat ad they rarely have injury troubles.

I don't understand why the management does not look into the fitness team. A proper staff would avoid 50% of the injuries we get every season without a doubt.

Inter won tonight so that's a worry. They have an easy fixture list coming up with only Roma being halfway decent.

We need to be perfect going into the winter break. And make sure to keep that gap. Sassuolo will probaly be our trickiest fixture before the Napoli game


Agreed.

Too many individual errors have cost us this season. Kessie on that play against Inter, than Ballo Toure (which wasn't punished), and then the cherry on top yesterday with 3 huge f ups in the same game...

Or Bennacer against Porto. Or Kessie against Atletico. Or Theo against Roma. So many brainfart moments I can't even...

Sportmediaset claiming Maignan could return against Sassuolo this Sunday, or more probably, against Genoa next week. He's been training regularly and his operated wrist doesn't hurt anymore.

Link

I hope we're not rushing him because of Tata's brain fart

I'd rather endure another 2 few games with Tata than risk Maignan

Sure, we're still title contenders but we need to fix some serious problems.

Firstly, we really lack Hakan's mastery with the dead ball. Last season we were lethal in that department and scored a dozen of these easy goals after corners or free kicks. Diaz and Tonali (and Bennacer) are not doing it quite as good this season (in league terms) and this is visible.

Next is our crucial AM position. I think it's safe to say that Brahim Diaz is inadequate and not as good as we hoped he would be. He's too much of a lightweight, but whats more, he lacks the finesse and precision with the final touch. Therefore his movement usually ends up with a completely harmless shot or a foul for us (and again, we are harmless from dead ball situations). Just take a look at the game yesterday.

Finally, we lack more concrete and elaborated attacking scenarios. Our forwards do not shoot as much as last season, and about 85% of our shots from outside are completely harmless for the opposition. Our ration inside the box is terrific, because our strikers use almost every opportunity to be clinical. But these numbers (I can give you concrete stats if you like) will drop at some point because they are way above the average, and we will face problems.

Yes, we do miss the Hakan set-piece. I think Tonali is the best alternative, Theo is also very good on free-kicks, but with him it's a toss up as you also want him in the box as well since he's dangerous in those situations. I don't think Diaz ever takes set-pieces... And it's not like we haven't scored from set-pieces, our numbers have dropped a bit becase Hakan was excellent on them. The only flawless part of his game imo

As for the AM position. I completely disagree re Diaz. Look at his performances pre Covid. He was immense. He just needs some time to et back into shape. We know that it usually takes players anywhere from 2 weeks to a months to get back match fitness after covid, especially if they symptomatic as Diaz was. It's not like Hakan was the epitome of finess and precision. The amount of bumbling he did in crucial moments is proof of this. Zlatan cursing him out last season was the cherry on top.

I agree that we have an abnormal chance to goal ratio and this could be a problem down the line. But one thing that sort of balances this out is that we have a large number of different goal scorers. We're not relying on one player to do all the goal scoring, which was the case last season with Ibra at the start where he was practically scoring 2 goals per game

Hakan scored 4 goals and made 10 assists with us last season, and 6 of those assists came from set pieces. So, his in-action assist came down to a measly 4. The guy can take set pieces, yes, but if that's your predominant quality, then you're plain mediocre. Which he is.

Brahim's performance against Atletico was praised by many. He got very positive ratings. Just to quote the first one I stumbled upon (Eurosport):


And speaking of Zlatan, I was looking at his numbers in Serie A earlier:

19/20 - 10 goals in 18 appearances
20/21 - 15 goals in 19 appearances
21/22 - 5 goals in 7 appearances

I know I give him sh*t from time to time, but those are truly incredible numbers for someone of his age.

Pioli: "Maignan is ready and will start tomorrow. Tomori feels better but he's not ready yet, should return for the Wednesday match."

Probable line-up: Maignan; Florenzi, Kjaer, Romagnoli, Theo; Kessie, Bennacer; Alexis, Brahim, Leao; Zlatan.

Great to have Maignan back!

Why not Kalulu at RB? He's been great so far.

Florenzi I'm interested to see how he'll do though, plus he's much better in the attacking phase than Kalulu

I guess to rotate them. Calabria will probably be out till January.

It's not like Kalulu is tired though.

Anyway, let's see how Florenzi does.



Btw, anyone watched that Juve All or Nothing series? If we ever have the opportunity to do one, I hope we have the good sense to do a completely English production. The narration should be done in English and it should have English voice over. It makes no sense to do something that big for an international audience in Italian. What a lost opportunity. And to do it during such a season with Pirlo as coach and no supporters in the stadiums was also a big mistake. Should have delayed it. They come off looking terrible from it

And it comes out during the same week they're being investigated for false accounting, plus now they lose to Atalanta. Terrible week for Juve.

Bonucci comes off looking like a grade A @sshole as well.

Plus the 4-0 defeat to Chelsea. Let's see how this investigation goes. I think it's going to be a serious matter, because unlike other teams, Juve are listed in the stock exchange, and thereby the grade of liability takes a whole new, very serious level.

And Bonucci IS a grade A asshole. One of the pettiest, most disgusting people in football.

As expected, Inter win. Hakan finally scores an open play goal.

Must win tomorrow. Make sure to keep it at -4 until they have Roma. I'm sure Mou will be itching to get one over on them

Well, they had an easy peasy match. Venezia are terrible. Couldn't create jackshit for the life of it.

Btw, completely off topic, but did anyone see what happened in the Belenenses-Benfica match in Portugal? Apparently Belenenses had a Covid outbreak and most of their players got infected, but the league didn't postpone the game so they had to start and play the game with only 9 players, including some Under-23 kids and two GK's!

Never in my life I've seen at these levels a game to be played 11 v 9. I didn't even know it was allowed.

Its still early in the season, Milan must reinforce this winter. There are clearly areas of the field to be addressed, especially the AM department and wings.

This gap with inter will fluctuate all season and maybe even be in their favor in Jan/Feb. It is a marathon and not a sprint. But Milan have done surprisingly well so far.

Easy peasy and they could have easily squandered it, only to get a ridiculous penalty at the end.

I don't see anyone complaining about how many penalties Inter are getting this season, which is something like 8 already, but everyone was crying foul last season when we got something like 13 over the course of the entire season, at this rate they'll have surpassed that number by the winter break

And yeah saw that. I don't understand how the league can allow for such a game to go forward.


You know, I keep hearing and reading everywhere about how Inter have a deeper squad and that they're better than us, but they have not had to deal with a fraction of the problems we have had, and yet we're still ahead of them.

I'd really like to see how they'd cope without Barella and Brozovic for a month or two, see how deep that squad really is. They'd probably drop like a sack of potatoes. But no one seems willing to see this very clear weakness in their squad imo, because once those 2 are out the quality drops waaay down with Gagliardini and Vecino.

I think we have shown that we can cope with emergency situations, Inter have not

My Inter friend keeps telling me we have sh*t players and that we'll crumble by January like we did last season. He's so certain he said he'll get a Milan tattoo if we win the scudetto.

Official line-up: Maignan; Florenzi, Kjaer, Romagnoli, Theo; Bakayoko, Bennacer; Alexis, Brahim, Leao; Zlatan.

Baka starting. Not sure about that decision...

Messin about with the ball in front of our area once again!!

When will they learn FFS???

Bakayoko man! I knew it. This guy shouldn't be starting games.

1-2

Unbelievable...

The f@ck are we doing???

Terrible defending! And we keep giving the ball away

He has to play, in January he's going to be our only option...

Terrible at the back and fluffing our lines at the other end...

Pioli will have to take Bakayoko out at thisrate, he's a huge problem. Which gives me heart burn thinking about January now

Why do we f*ck up so badly with the final pass? Theo and Leao wasting so many good chances.

But the team is not playing anymore. That 1-1 completely blocked us. Can't believe we're losing this.

Need to wake up and fast

The amount of times Theo and Leao have gotten into the Sassuolo area and produced nothing at the end is truely worrying now. Every cross is wrong

Terrible, terrible first half. We're not going anywhere like this.