Boom boom, ***-whopping.

Diego Lopez; Abate, Mexes, Paletta, Antonelli; Van Ginkel, Essien, Bonaventura; Cerci, Destro, Menez

Aside from Essien and Paletta that actually looks half decent


Mexes and Paleta worry me together.

Honda to play instead of Cerci as AM according to Mediaset.

Another match, more change, more this that and the next thing.

We're going to get absolutely rogered.

I really don't get what Pippo's trying to do with all these constant changes.

It's very obvious that he has no clear plan or idea in mind. But isn't it coaching 101 that you don't consistently change things around and to try to have a clear 11, even more so a set back 4 and you don't mess about with it unless there are injuries

Never gone into a big Milan match feeling as little expectation as I do now. Or indeed passion. This season is a busted flush and tonight's result (6PM UK btw) is borderline irrelevant.

Doesn't matter how anyone plays, it'll change for the next match.

Till we replace Pippo, this is how it's going to be.

Yep, this season is burnt. Our games mean nothing. We're not getting anywhere. Only watching due to the force of habit.

Same here

Well, sadly.

Anyone have the line-up?

A couple of good plays in the last 10 minutes or so

We're playing half-decently so far.

It's degenerated in these last 15 minutes of this half though. Can barely hold on

I think you're a bit overreacting. Barely holding on would mean Fiorentina creating chances.

Van Ginkel with a nervous but very good overall match.

And one more thing...this Destro guy. Not worth half the money Roma wants. Just an average striker.

They hit the post and had a few other petty good chances in those last few minutes

As I said before we signed Destro, he's a penalty area striker. He's a very good finisher, but he needs top notch service to survive. Look at the goal he just scored, total opportunist goal right there.

And sadly for him this team just does not create half the opportunities he'd need to be prolific with us. I like the guy enough but the reason why I was against signing him and spending big money on him is because I know that he'd struggle with us.

Fiorentina are so poor, but we're letting them hold possession. Need to step up a bit.

Cerci has to come in for Honda. Need to utilize counterattacking efficiently now.

Finally Cerci on for Honda, should have started with him in the first place

At least he learned his lesson after last week and didn't bring on another defensive player

Who didn't see that one coming from a mile away?

Yeah, just couldn't win this..

What are the chances of Pippo getting the sack in case of a draw or loss?

WTF are the doing?!! Playing without a ref on the pitch

Something wrong with Abate?

And there it goes....

Oh, those crosses...

Simply incapable of defending simple crosses

First Abate freezes up and now Menez for some reason marking an attacker in open play.

Well, let's see what happens now. From the looks of Pippo and Galliani, something could indeed change.

From the first game of January till now we have won 2, tied 3 and lost 5. GOOD GOD!

What happened? I closed as soon as it finished


That's relegation form right there

Nothing special. But a real bitter look from Galliani and Pippo looking like he's done.

Very weird match this one.

We actually played the best we have in absolutely ages, for 70 minutes. I'm not saying we looked like Barca, but it was the hardest I've seen the players work for each other in an age, and quite a few had especially good matches.

The problem was once we scored, we just stopped playing. We retreated again. But we still looked quite solid, Fio didn't look like scoring. Not until Honda went off. Gash though he is in an attacking sense, he defended VERY well on both flanks and it made us quite compressed, in a good way.

When Pippo took him off, it was the stupidest, shape-ruining sub I think I've ever seen. No argument with Cerci coming on, to take the siege off the defence, but why not remove Menez who wasn't offering anything up front in the latter stage of the game? No, he took off Honda, our shape crumbled totally and that was that. It's why Pippo isn't the right man - he makes the wrong decisions. Every time.

Ratings:

Lopez: 6 Ordinary display. Opting to punch a lot, found himself in no-man's land a lot, or failing to come off his line at all. A few average saves. Nothing memorable.

Abate: 8 Thought he was excellent. Top class defending and attacking, and showed how much we've missed him. Also proved himself more captain material than I'd ever have guessed. Han may be correct on that one. His only 'error' was not matching the first goalscorer but then he's no aerial titan so that's not a shock. I forgive him that one.

Mexes: 6 Patchy. Some really good robust saving moments but a lot of loose nonsense and careless concessions too.

Paletta: 8 His best display for us. Soaked almost everything up and bailed his partner out a few times. First time he's looked like the defender I expected him to be.

Antonelli: 6 A little flat today - not heavily involved in any sense and probably his most low-key display since joining.

Essien: 7 I thought, one careless moment aside, he played very solidly and didn't do a lot wrong.

Van Ginkel: 6 Game passed him by mostly, wasn't involved enough.

Bona: 6 A quiet night by his standards, didn't have the drive he usually does.

Honda: 6 Hopeless on dead balls, corners, and in attack but defensively he was terrific.

Menez: 6 X Button broken as usual, but he did work hard now and again to track back.

Destro: 7 Feeding on scraps. Took his goal well and is showing how good he could be with a Milan team that creates chances. This one doesn't.

Subs:

Cerci: 4 Barely did a thing.

Pazzo: 3 Did even less.

Bonera: Would like to know why Abate was hooked for this. Seeing him with the captain's armband summed up how the match ended for us.

Pippo: 5

He put out one of his better teams tonight, and for 70 minutes it worked, it really did. But a combination of the team's lack of confidence when leading and his own very accurate shooting in the foot ruined the whole thing.

We need a better coach, pronto.

Totally agree about the Abate and Mexes ratings

Abate was great, and yes he was at fault for the first goal, he seemed to be rooted to the ground there, don't know if it took him by surprise or what but he didn't even jump at all.

As for Mexes, I personally thought he was the better defender in terms of the CB duo, but agree that he had a couple of moments with some loose passing that were not good, which is strange as his on the ball stuff is usually one of his best assets

I guess I find some of your other ratings a bit generous

Menez... what can I say more about this guy, he does something that makes you go "wow!" and then follows that up by some egotistical move like shooting or over dribbling that makes you go "f@ck!!" Also very quiet at times and was forced into positions where he was doing the defending and he struggled a lot there

Though Essien was just plain bad. No there were no big moments that made you want to bash your head into the wall like there usually is with him. But his epic slowness and even more epic slow reactions make him into a real liability

Thought Bonaventura was absent for most of the game and Van Ginkel for me was the best mid out there for us, not saying much I know. He had a couple of iffy moment but that is expected when you don't have any match continuity.

I'm personally giving up on Honda completely. I'd expect so much more from him in certain situations. At the beginning of the season he showed some promise of this, but now it's just gone.

Yes he works hard, tracks back and covers spaces that really help out his FB and midfielder, but the rest is just a big fat zero. Still think Cerci should be starting if we're going to be using a system that requires wingers. Just ridiculous that Pippo wanted him and now he's leaving him to rot on the bench.

He made the sub most people were calling for, i.e. removing a very tired Honda for a counterattacking player. I don't think Honda leaving had anything to do with us conceding twice. Rather, like you said, after we scored we completely bunked into our own half and let Fiorentina have the initiative.

Actually, both time we conceded the ball came from our left, rigth? So Honda has really nothing to do with it.

I think the second goal came from our right? Dunno, I switched off just afterwards, so I don't remember. But their first goal came from our left. Don't know what Antonelli was doing, it was just Joaquin and Bona trying to defend his cross. And the two CBs were nowhere to be seen. Abate wasn't much at fault. He had Babacar behind him as well.

Our shape and discipline fell to pieces the second he went off, that's my point. We played, weirdly, a 4-4-2, despite everyone thinking it was 4-3-1-2. Bona was left wing, Honda was right wing. Destro and Menez up top.

And Honda spent most of his productive time, second half especially, in our half defending. It kep us quite tight, and balanced. When he went off our shape disappeared.

Honestly felt Paletta had a very fine night but to each his own.



Again, my 6 was down to his workrate. In an attacking sense he's astoundingly frustrating.



Didn't see him as being half as slow as you imply. But just be glad he isn't Muntari.



Honestly feel MvG was out of his depth. It was summed up deep in the second half when there was a loose ball to be won near the sideline near the corner. Instead of running in for it he hesitated, started to jog, stopped, and by the time he moved again it was being cleared easily. I hated that indecision, that lack of heart.



Oh yeah, my 6 was purely on a defensive basis. As far as an attacker or creative outlet goes, Honda is a complete flop. He cannot pick out passes, he can't cross, can't take corners, he can't do ANYTHING (beyond defending) other than direct free kicks.

He's a truly ghastly player in the opposition half.



Just another example of Pippo being the wrong man at the wrong club at the wrong time. Milan these days is not the place to cut your managerial teeth on. We need a seriously powerful manager to pull this together.

But we still looked quite solid until Honda left. I don't agree he was tired. Till that moment our shape looked good, and Honda was mostly in our half digging in. Are we seriously saying he couldn't have lasted another 10 minutes?

We gave them the initiative, but we still held our ground and they only had two meaningful shots on target all night. Both were goals.

Yes, the second one came from the right.

Yep, second came from the right

As for the goal, yeah, Abate was caught in two minds as to who to cover on that one, it's probably why he hesitated on the jump, looking at the replay you can see that first he was going to cover the man behind him and then moved to cover Rodriguez. Don't know who Paletta was supposed to be on at that point, but he was probably dragged to cover another player. That's the issue, we dropped so deep that there were so many bodies in our area, this was bound to happen, especially when your mids don't also drop back and help to cover


I thought Mexes had the more crucial moments, Paletta had a more steady and consistent performance overall though, once again due to the fact that Mexes had 2 bad moments on the ball and passed directly to an apposing player


You know, I don't know what we should be doing with him at this point. He could be so great if he applied himself, maybe a proper coach can really knock some of the bad habits out of him


Is there really any difference between him and Muntari? I personally see very similar traits in both, Muntari is just a bit more egotistical and thinks he's better than he actually is while Essien seems to have realised what all his shortcomings are these days and succumbs to them


Eh, thought he was overall good. Sure there were iffy moments as I conceded to in the previous comment, but what can one expect considering his limited amount of playing time during the season?


At the start of the season I really did think that he had the right traits to do well. He seems to have just lost all of that especially after coming back from internationals. I don't know, I still say that he's never been allowed to really show us what he can do in a position where his assets are better used, but I'd expect that he would be able to pull off a simple pass or a cross field ball, and the position he's playing in shouldn't matter.


Yep, is there ANY news about his status as coach? ANY at ALL?? Because something seriously needs to happen, if we continue in this vain with the fixtures we have coming up we could be coming in closer to the relegation places than the top 3 we aspired to at the start

Does it really matter in the end? Today's Gazzetta says that Inzaghi is not at risk.

He will be sacked at the end of the season, I'm 100% sure of it.

Will reply in full later but here's some ratings which agree with me re: Paletta/Mexes, you re: MvG and disagrees with both of us re: Abate

http://forzaitalianfootball.com/2015/03/pl...2-1-ac-milan/2/

Well, I don't disagree with the Mexes assessment there tbh. yes he was careless on the ball and totally forgot about the stupid yellow, but yeah, I agree with the general assessment. The only reason why I commented on it is because I thought he made the more crucial stops. Also, re the first goal since those ratings mention it, Paletta was the guy who was on Abate's side, Mexes didn't really have anything to do with either of them

And can't disagree more about Abate with regards to those ratings. Thought he was our best player for long stretches of the game

This is why I don't take these rating that certain outlets compile too seriously. They focus too much on one singular event rather than the performance as a whole

Muntari is more explosive, and more of a liability. He can have more impact, but cost more too.



Oh no denying it, Pippo ruined him. His debut v Empoli was very impressive, but he's been nothing since then. IMO.



I guess now we know why the best period of his career was playing in the not-especially-illustrious Eredivisie. He wasn't that great for CSKA and now he's just absolutely terrible. Still, sells shirts...



Pippo will remain till the summer. He won't be publicly fired like Allegri was because he's a Milan man.

Hadn't even read this. Yes, he'll survive till the end of the season and probably be 'politely fired' via the old 'mutual consent' thingy.

Totally with you on that post Danny.

Also, Pippo should do the honourable thing and just step down at this point.

Staying will continue to tarnish him and this club even more

I get the argument when saying they won't fire him, but Pippo should have the sense and decency to step aside of his own will, without having to get fired at any point

Meh, even if he steps down, who will replace him? Tassotti? Brocchi? Is it really worth it at this point? He'll be gone by the end of the season, and considering how this season is burnt, it really doesn't make a difference. If we wanted to be credible, we should have fired him long ago. Now it's useless.

Yes, agreed.

I thought I posted the Milan Cagliari thread yesterday... Something must have gone wrong... :scratchinghead: