Easy one here. Kaka was top, Muntari get's flop.

Same

Top - Kaká, though Mexes and De Jong were also really good.
Flop - Robinho. Never should have started.

That's a nearly universal top.

I really hope Allegri goes by winter. Kaká is so class we could actually have a half-decent CL run.

I think Allegri got his tactics wrong a bit. He started a team which he thought would go against the usual Barca, but Barca didn't play the usual way.

Robinho, Kaka was for a starting team that was built to counter on the quick. I'm pretty sure that's why Poli started as well. Unusually Barca this time held back and didn't force themselves on to us. On the other hand they looked to get some joy down the flanks.

Big, pleasant surprise was Urby and Muntari down the left flank. They generally did a good job defensively. I think it's silly at this stage to expect any sort of enterprising creativity from Muntari. That ought to come from Montolivo and Poli.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that if in the beginning someone offered me 'only' a 3-1 defeat with 2 debatable goals, I would have taken it.

Top: Kaka
Flop: NONE.

Really. We are inferior in all ways to Barca. We shouldn't complain when we played to our ability and they to theirs and we end up looking bad.

Muntari top and none flopped.

You're just pulling our legs

Muntari did well to cover space, but everything else was pure nightmare on his part. Taking nearly an entire minute on the ball thinking who to pass it to and getting crowded off of it by 3 Barca players or making the most ridiculous pass attempts known to man

Selecting Muntari as top is an insult to the players who actually gave it their all and showed quality on that pitch. Mexes and Kaka were heads and shoulders above the rest of our players. Monto, Urby, Abate and De Jong were all good or great but the others...

Top - Muntari. Covered space very well, passing was good and a mention has to go to Urby and Mexes because their right hand side was completely ineffectual the entire game. Those 3 and Kaka' deserve praise.

Flop - Abate. Aside from one very good tackle, Abate let Naymar do whatever he wanted all game long. Poli and Robinho none-existant also.

I think he got tactics completely wrong. You don't play such a defensive formation against Barça from minute one. This is Barça, and you are bound to concede sooner or later. Plus, if you really wanna make it work, then you must have a strong and reliable attack so they can really do damage on counterattacks. Robinho and Kaká? Robinho is just not cut out for these games aymore. He's too weak physically, has lost his pace and can be easily overcome in any situation. And Kaká is not the old Kaká, we know that. He can't just take the ball and cut through the opposition's defense like he used to. Allegri could have either played Balo instead of Binho (and we saw that made a difference in the second half), or he could have played a more balanced formation like in the first leg. This 4-4-1-1 bullshit was a complete mess.

Muntari is a Defensive Midfielder. In that capacity, he had a solid performance, was an integral part of the team, and commanded authority.

And Abate had a terrible performance, I don't know how you consider him good or great. Neymar burned him in that first half!

But you know han, its much easier for the both of us to just agree to disagree

Well it wasn't just me who pointed out Abate, Abate did his best with no cover what-so-ever. He had to deal with Neymar and Adriano's runs as well. And aside from a flopping dive on Neymar's part Abate wasn't to blame for any of the goals we conceded and rarely let Neymar get in behind him.

Muntari is no whiz on the ball, I hear that loud and clear, in fact he's an absolute nightmare on the ball. I don't expect him to sweep out passes left and right or make incisive little passes through the centre, but I'd expect a professional footballer getting paid millions to know how to complete a 1 metre pass without sending it straight to an opponent's feet, and I'd also expect him to know that lingering on the ball too long to decide where to pass will also result in him getting pressured off of it. He does these exact same things in the league where no one really presses you off the ball unless you're within range of the penalty area, same thing with the passing and ridiculous, bird brained tackling which usually give the opponents opportunities from set-plays in dangerous areas when we can't defend these situations to save our lives

I started watching the game well into the second half and I saw at least 3 times that Abate got his @ss handed to him on a platter. And these weren't occasions when he was under pressure because of someone else....

I don't remember the exact time stamps, but the first two times Neymar left him behind like a useless football cone and the other time Pedro got past him easily with a dummy and Abate went to the ground like an amateur.

Abate overall is nothing but a decent player. He has amazing speed and he is a very hard worker. But he is SO SO SO f@CKING limited in terms of technique, vision, crossing and overall as a RB that prevents him from being great. Also while his tackling is good, his sense of positioning is most often than not out of whack and doesn't exactly inspire confidence. That said, with his blistering speed it is fun to seem him track back and catch up with players. He also doesn't seem like the most intelligent player out there.

Guys, I seriously find it hard to understand you. I think you're playing with Han.

How can Muntari be the best of our players? You say he's a defensive midfielder, but hey, we conceded 3 goals?? And more importantly, if you see the penalty scene and goal 2, you will see that Muntari's defensive handling of the situation is subpar. I can't understand how someone can tell de Jong was good either - he's directly guilty for the 3rd goal, while at the 2nd goal he didn't cover his marker just like Muntari failed to.

Other then that, what did he do? Why do you guys think Muntari was the best?

On Abate - I also disagree. I think overall he was good. He had a brilliant tackle, he didn't let Neymar do too much. Sure, he let him slip away for one or two occasions, but that's what happens to every fullback who's under so much pressure. For much of the game he wasn't covered by Poli, it was only after his yellow card that Poli comprehended he had to do more defensively.

In which case one could argue that it was Poli who was the flop!

Trust me my vote is better. There was no flop.

Your eyes must be deceiving you, because that's simply not what happened and the stats can back this one up.

You say he tries stupid pass - he only made 2 "long balls" all game.
He can't make short passes, but he had 87% competion, compared to Monto's 80%.
Pressured off the ball? He was dispossessed 1 time compared to Monto's 3.

Against Barca, if you talk bad passes, long balls and losing possession, its a description that more accurately fits Montolivo than Muntari. You shouldn't even need stats to back this one up, it was so easy to see. Even off the ball, Muntari and Urby did a fine job all game with their running and work rate, Monto and Abate didn't know what to do. One criticism I do have of Muntari is that he is usually very poor in terms of being positionally disciplined, but he did a good job with that at the Camp Nou.

I thought Muntari was just about alright. I mean, he didn't f*ck up that much this time, even though he lost balls and possession various time. His defensive work wasn't that bad, either. But to label him as MoM for us? That's just messed up. There were other players who deserved that.

Kaka was excellent but I gave it to De Jong - thought he had a monstrous performance in the middle.

Flop Abate. No contest.

If it's no contest then how come he has only 22.22% of the votes?

No contest in Danny's mind is what he meant.

I'm not sure why. I can understand "none" and Poli getting voted, but Robinho? He only played 45 minutes, Muntari was one of the better players. There's really only Abate that had a bad game, Poli aside. Muntari getting flop in this game is far worse than him getting MotM IMO.

I'm convinced kurt is out to completely make my brain explode with this Muntari talk. The guy is a liability, plain and simple. He did some good covering and helped Urby out a lot more than Poli did on the other side with Abate, but the rest of it was pure sh!t.

Abate had a good game and none of the goals were his fault, the dive from Neymar simply wasn't down to him but the ref wanting to give them a soft penalty. So Danny, how could De Jong be MoM when he was directly responsible for us conceding a goal and Abate was flop? Because what? Neymar got past him 2 or 3 times duing a 90 minute match while he was completely left to defend the wing on his own?

@ Max, in the second half Neymar only got past Abate once but in the same action he also waltzed right around Zapata and Mexes

So which part of what I said wasn't fact? I can't say I'm surprised you're defending Abate, he got completely destroyed.

And yet aside from a complete swan dive from Neymar he wasn't responsible for any of the goals we conceded while others were directly responsible.

It was a foul, you can't pull someone back. Neymar beat him for fun all game aside from 1 occasion.

Define 'destroyed'.

Yeah, really.

I was wondering if it was just me. You see, I have downloaded the full match with two different recordings, but I just have not been able to see the foul correctly. Abate had touched Neymar, then the camera zooms to the fudging referee, the commentator saying it's a penalty, and all that shtick.

It was a stinking dive, something that the Spanish team probably practices twice as much as they do so for actually football. But Abate was dense enough to put his hand up too. Then again, he's always been a 16-bit player, if you know what I mean. Not a 32-bit solid one, and noway near a 64-bit icon.

Point is, I would pay good money to see what they are calling a foul, up close.

And what do you think of his overall performance? Is he MOM material or flop material? Because it seems we're standing in diametrical camps.

He wasn't MOM, but he definitely wasn't Flop either.

The honest truth? It pains me a bit to say is, but there are ulterior agendas at play here. For defense of one philosophy, or notion, people often tend to put unnecessary weight behind other causes. So for Abate, being the 16-bit player he is, he put in a pedestrian 8-bit performance. Made some good interceptions, made a few mistakes.

But really, rarely can be a person's performance swing between a man of the match type and an outright flop, even if this thread calls for it. Because, if it was, it would be a great mystery wrapped in flatbread with a side of curly fries. Abate can do much better if he tried (or wanted to, or worked on it) every single match.

I used to like this guy, when circa Lenoardo era he was improving. Now he thinks he has got it made, and just phones in his performances week in and week out. Sure, in a team of shmucks (not all of our players, by the way), for most it becomes good enough, and for the select few, great. But let's be honest here, people.

Abate would be a pretty ordinary sub in Milan, if this was 2003. Ulterior agendas aside, he's 16-bit technology.

He was beaten more often than not. In reality a good defender shouldn't get beaten much in an entire game, Abate seemed to regularly.

Really? I only recall a few times. But in his defense, he had to fend off both Adriano and Neymar by himself as Poli wasn't helping him that much.

We'll have to agree to disagree, I thought he was the worst Milan player. Only Poli was close.

He didn't pull him back, he touched his shoulder, Neymar fell after Abate had already removed his hand. Had he been pulled you would have seen the pulling action from Abate's hand and Neymar would have fell back rather than forward as he did.

And at the ridiculous exaggeration! Beat him for fun? He got past him something like 3 or 4 times. You make it sound like Neymar literally tore us apart all on his own because Abate kept letting him.