Diego Lopez; De Sciglio, Ely, Zapata, Antonelli; De Jong, Montolivo, Bertolacci; Bonaventura; Luiz Adriano, Bacca.

That defence...

Are we bending over at the ready for Napoli?

Romagnoli suspended and Mexes injured. And please don't say play Alex!

What I don't understand is De Jong as CM. Didn't the Genoa match teach Mihajlovic anything? Hopefully it's just a stupid guess by Mediaset.

I would personally prefer:

You know, at least with Alex I can rest easy that he won't be passing to Higuain and Co. Can't say the same about Zapata. Sorry but after the last match I simply cannot take watching him start anymore.

You can rest easy with a rusty, slow, old, injury-prone player who had a mediocre pre-season? OK.

Anyway, Mediaset has Kucka instead of De Jong now. Better.

It makes you think, though, how 1/2 of our starting midfield consists of former Genoa players, one of which a Roma bench warmer, and the other an almost Bursaspor player. Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

I admit, Alex hasn't been in the best of shape but you're also exaggerating.

Again, I trust him more than loose balls Zapata any day of the week

Again, you're evaluating a defender based on his passing abilities than on his defensive skills and current shape.

And again, I think you're brushing aside how big a liability his inability to pass makes Zapata...

When it becomes such a huge issue that he's regularly creating goal scoring opportunities to our opponents, then yes, that aspect of his game does become a big factor when making a decision.

And it's not like Alex is some incompetent imbecile.

I've said more than once that he hasn't been in the best of shape, but as a defender and as a player in general, you better bet that I'd trust him more than Zapata

Zapata made a few errors, sure. But Alex didn't look well this preseason/season, so I don't see the necessity of changing the lineup completely. It's what made Inzaghi very insecure, the constant change in CB pairings.

But the point is to pick your best 4 and stick to them. For me, Zapata is our 3rd best CB. And I'd be fine with him in general if he wasn't such a huge liability.

Making a few errors is one thing, making the same stupid mistake 1 or 2 times in EACH game you play is a whole different ball game.

When people are expecting him to mess up, then you know it's more than just making a couple of errors.

Like I said, I agree that Alex has looked a bit unfit during pre-season, I'm sure that rustiness will wear off once he gets a couple of games consecutively.

You're also forgetting that we're using Zapata next to very inexperienced CBs as well, and whereas he's usually the one who needs a hand holder next to him (Mexes or Alex) we're now expecting that he'll lead the line, which is something that he very obviously cannot do, but Alex can

And if we were actually solid in defence, I'd maybe agree with you that consistency is better than switching things around and I could sort of close my eyes to some of the terrible judgement calls Zapata is prone to make. But the fact here is that that is not the case. We have one of the worst defensive records in the league. And that is a fact.

Until Mexes is back and we can use him next to Romagnoli consistently (which is what I think would be our best pairing) I'd rather go with Alex, even more so today when Ely is going to be the other CB. Or even just go Zapata and Alex as that would make much more sense against Napoli imo, but apparently Miha wants to have one inexperienced guy next to an experienced one.

Zapata and Alex would make more sense than Zapata and Ely, I agree. But Alex and Ely would be asking for disaster.

I think Zapata and Ely vs Alex and Ely are both terrible ideas, Alex and Ely for me are the lesser of 2 evils simply because you don't add the Zapata factor into an already pretty weak pairing imo

But yes, Zapata-Alex for me is without question the smartest duo Miha can field, but he's obviously going with Ely

http://milanfan.better-than.tv:5005/stream.flv

Channel is BT Sport

Test feedback is welcome

Thanks!

Have you started streaming it?

Yes

Just buffering a bit for me every few.

Probably because it's got such a high bit rate because when it does play it looks great

I just lowered it a bit , better ?

Still buffering a bit. Don't know if this is just me though. Where is every body anyway, did they forget we were playing tonight?

I'm now using the same settings as last time when it worked well , strange...

Hard to forget this match , perfect time for a match 😉

Don't know, looks like we're the only 2 here atm

Maybe it's my connection acting up tonight?

Seriously afraid of our defence against that Napoli attack...

lowered it some more

indeed looks like it is , now we can fart

I dont have a good feeling about this game ...
oh well it started

Off we go...

Much better for me atm

Who remembers Pato's first game , also against Napoli if I'm not mistaken

Yep.

Remember Ka-Pa-Ro?

Stream working well so far.

Sure do. Back when we were still worldclass...

Thanks man , good to hear

Thank you Zapata!

Exactly why I don't want him playing FFS!!!!

X-Offender 0-1 Han

Meh, we were already going quickly down that slippery slope with all our legends declining

And there we go again ... Just when I was about to say Milan is playing well..

Thank you Superdefender Zapata

You're only acknowledging this because it directly led to a goal. He's done this very same thing in pretty much every game aside from the derby so far. And it's why he's shouldn't be playing

And now we're in a terrible position after starting relatively well

We lack quality ... We have no creativity ...

It was looking like we were in control until the Zapata classic. Gotta say that it's becoming a combo with him and Lopez. Don't get me wrong Lopez has saved our *** and been a world class keeper. But I don't understand why he insists on playing the ball out with his feet. It puts unnecessary pressure on a certain cb who is one of the worst on the ball I've ever seen. Zapata just doesn't get it, if you can't find an open man boot it down field out of bounds and let the team reset

We were doing well before that mess up. It's why I've said over and over again that he shouldn't be playing, because not only do we not have that touch of class the really make a difference for us we especially don't have a team capable of digging out of hole we put ourselves into

Lopez had nothing to do with it, once again, Zapata was completely free without any pressure being put on him and he once again messed up, just like he did twice over against Genoa

Mihajlovic asks to Lopez to play the ball to the defenders. It was confirmed by one of the Sky journalists in the Genoa game.

Lol, Adriano back-heeling onto his @ss

And that would be smart if we didn't have a Trojan horse in that defence...

Han I'm not saying it was the fault of Lopez but when half of all the goals we concede are from Zapatas horrific passes you have to ask yourself if it's a good idea to give the guy the ball at all. Both Ely and romagnoli have shown skill on the ball and in their passing. Leave the job to them

Well, it can't always go out to the same person.

So how about going the easier route and not playing him at all, which is what Miha should have done

We lack the quality to handle games like this. It's plain as day. 90M thrown to waste. I'll never get tired of saying it.

At least Milan is trying...

Agreed

It would not be surprising if Mr Bee misses the next payment date as well