Cagliari form: WWDD
Milan form: LLWL

Note that Cagliari drew with Samp and Roma, plus won against Atalanta, all teams we recently lost from.

And Im sure they'll put in a great performance againts Milan. Its gonna be hard to get a win.

I wouldn't worry if this was away.

Funny...how we have among the best away records in Serie A.


Tough call...really tough call. I hope we can win. I'd love for us to win convincingly by a 3 goal margin. I'd also love for it to rain money.

We have to make up 4 points in 7 games, and we have to play Inter, Juve, Udinese, and Napoli.. with our current form 4th place looks very very doubtful.

We're playing at home, I don't know how this will end. Hopefully we won't be down 2-0 at HT again

Kalac
Oddo Bonera Kaladze Maldini
Gattuso Pirlo Seedorf
Kaka (hopefully)
Pato Palsochi

I don't know... Kaka is supposed to be there but I'm not sure if that'll make much difference... I predict a draw...

if kaka and paloschi are playing then a 0-1 win

kaka will make a lot of difference. When kaka plays seedorf is marked less and then he can do his play making. I hope we go

shite goalie--
-oddo-bonera-kaladze-maldini

gattuso----ambro---seedorf-----

-----------kaka-----------------

pato===========paloschi


Pirlo obviously needs some time to rest and get his head back on his shoulders. He is playing like a serie B midfielder.

1-1.

If we lost points even from Cagliari...

Domo Arigato Milan is ******-to

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YIQsuNMncBo

Hope !

Always!

Gee... I'm really looking forward to this game...

Here's Gazzetta's probable lineup:

Kalac
Oddo Bonera Kaladze Maldini
Gattuso Pirlo Ambrosini
Kakà
Pato Gilardino

Here's their projected bench:
Dida
Digao
Darmian
Simic
Brocchi
Seedorf
Paloschi

The projected lineup will probably change a little in coming days - it almost always does.

I'd rest Pirlo and play Seedorf - Pirlo's exhausted, his form is horrible, and he needs the rest more than the Turtle does. I'd also bench Gila and start Paloschi - he's the one player who's really looked good for Milan over the past horrible spell.

As much as I'd love to see Pirlo sit out a couple of games, when he's gone, our team is cut in half... we have no one that is even close to his level. Oh wait, I meant to say that "we are fine as we are"!

No Nesta, No Oddo for this match.

Nesta will also miss Juve, and Oddo out for the season.

Dont know who'll play in the back-line. We'll probably see more Bonera action in this match (as we'll see till the end of the season)

Hope at least Cafu returns ASAP.

Hrm. Maybe it's time to let a Primavera player have a shot? It's not like we've got a lot of choice at this point.

^^
haven't seen Primavera that much, but I doubt there's someone who could be introduced to first team at this point of the season.

It seems that Galliani and co. not doing their job has come back to kick us in the *** yet again. How much more of this are we going to have to take.

Kalac
Bonera Kaladze Maldini Favalli
Gattuso Pirlo Seedorf
Kaka
Gilardino Pato

that backline...

Starting with Paloschi is a must. Kaka can and probably will be the difference in this game in my opinion.

Hrm. Slightly encouraging news from today's training.

Kaka and Pippo trained with the group including the 11 on 11 practice game at the end.

Pirlo and CAFU took part in training except for the 11 on 11 game.

So it looks like Cafu may be available.

Tomorrow will be a double training, in the morning and the afternoon.

When was the last time we played with a midfield of Rino, Pirlo and Seedorf with Kaka sitting behind two strikers? We always looked dangerous when we lined up like that - maybe a little suspect at the back - but this isn't the time to start thinking about playing it safe.

my thoughts exactly.

i can remember napoli game when ka-pa-ro thing started

You're right - we played with Seedorf, Pirlo and Ambro in that game, with Kaka behind Pato and Ronaldo. It ended 5-2. We need to go back to playing this way for the remaining 7 games - let's go down fighting at least.

and we absolutely slaughtered napoli like sheep.

The end is not near, my friends. It's here. If we somehow manage to screw up this game, fourth place is a goner. It doesn't matter whether we draw, or Fiorentina lose, we absolutely have to win this game. Losing is not an option for the remaining seven games, and this includes Inter and Juve. I'd go in with 1-0 for this one, though 2-1 doesn't sound to unrealistic either.

And oh, we won 5-2 against Napoli, because we had a fully oiled up midfield and Ronaldo. Pato and Paloschi combined are still not Ronaldo. The reason: experience. They both have heart and skills, but they are under 20s nonetheless. We have to give them time.

i just saw how nesta got suspended for 2 games for his mouthin off to the reff against atalanta....and i just remembered how we face the zebras next week....shame on nestas behalf....then again...juve is prolly payin off the reffs again...who get suspended for 2 games for talkin back to a reff? like comeone....somethings fishy here

macherano got 3 games so its not unusual i guess. The FA has become tough on players for misconduct.

The FA is in England.

I'm not sure what Nesta said to Brighi (the ref), but it's uncharacteristic of him to do something like that. I would imagine it was probably pretty bad.

at San Siro is very hard for us this season and i don't know why?.
in the recent history San Siro was our strength

See our record this season:
at home: 4-7-4 (24 pts)
on the road: 9-3-4 (30 pts) (Best of Serie A)

Pfft, Terry wannabe.

you know what i mean, i dont know what its called in italian. the football associan in italy or whatever. I"ll just use fifa from now on.

i have no idea man, its such a weird thing. There is no logical explanation for them. Maybe the grass or something makes them uncomfortable.

CONI

Fans?

no i dont thinkso.

There must be a reason, though. Maybe the players are hiding something from us (about the management), and when they go in front of the fans, their performance drops. Maybe the other teams come for a draw, and play a closed game? Extremely far fetched, yes. But there is no explanation for the shows they've put up in San Siro this season. Even at the end of 2007, we struggled to win at San Siro. And now we've started losing matches.

Doesn't matter much, though, I've still got hope. What's the worse that could happen, huh?

In my oppinion i personally think the players feel alot of pressure infront of our own fans. When they are away they can play relaxed and not worry about boos or laughter from the fans. At home they have to play a very good game in order to please the 40k taht shows up and that can i guess add to the already ever growing stress they have.

Also at home carlo can't really run his nice counter attack stragety.

Yes, I think it's a combination of both. Either way it's hurt us real bad. If we take our away record this season, and couple that with our home record last season, we'd be on the right side of Inter. Imagine, four losses (12 points), seven draws (14 points) - this alone equals 75 points up till now.


Nesta is the second-last person I'd think of who'd be badmouthing the referees (Paolo's the first). Ambro I can understand, and he gets a yellow every now and then. But Nesta! We sure as hell needed him for Juve.

Signature of the year right there.

We easily conceded two goals but there were no worries as our attack was on fire that night. what a game that was...

There will be 2 training sessions today.

In the morning session, there was a lot of personalized work: sprints, work in the sand pit, technical exercises, and in some cases, work in the gym.

The afternoon session will be in just over an hour from now.

Why, thank you! I usually have a constant avatar, and update signatures when something significant happens. But I plan on using this until the end of season - at the very least.

By the same topic love both your new signature and avatar! And Kalac's lucky phase has run longer than I initially thought it would. He's made some great and vital saves, but he's been letting in goals (in bundles of two) quite regularly now. Time for a little rest, maybe?

Ah, that was our best game of the season. By far. I was so confident with our offense, that even if Napoli had scored seven goals, I was dead sure we'd get eight. Oh, how time passes. Oh, KaPaRo, where art tho?

Nice one

So, afternoon training has taken place. More of the same, with ball possession and offensive phase drills.

Pippo and Cafu trained with the group. Kaka, Janku, and Il Capitano did specific work in the gym.

There's also a nice, but brief, interview with Bonera. Sounds like he's ready to play.

The declarations of Bonera:

"Personally I'm doing fine, already on Sunday I was available, that's the important thing. I'm ready to eventually substitute an important player like Oddo and I have to give my contribution to the team to reach the fourth place in the table.

Unfortunately in the game against Atalanta we were unable to earn points for our objective. We played a bad first half, then fortunately in the second half we were more determined.
Away from home we've always done well because we wanted it from the first minute, while at home we often gave away the first 45 minutes of the game several times.

I think a solution could be to start strongly from the first minutes of the match and letting the opponent understand that it's us who is playing at home, trying to play close together, and trying to score early, which we haven't managed to do often so far.

Saturday we are playing against Cagliari who are doing well right now. They've managed to get many points against several teams and they're almost outside the relegation zone. Certainly they will come here to try and get points for the relegation battle and they are playing good football."