I do believe Inter play good football because they have a formidable squad. Their only problem is that they're incredibly inconsistent. I jokingly told an Inter fan friend of mine that they would draw against Udinese after they had just crushed Juventus. Well, lo and behold...



No, we lost 5-0 in Bergamo and tied 1-1 in San Siro last season.

Well of course Hakan would have played. Hakan though provides a lot more than just in attack. He contributes a lot in other phases of the game, and while Diaz is a hard working player, who presses a lot. He's also very light weight and easily pushed off the ball. Pioli said so after the game himself that he wanted someone stronger in there.

I personally think that Pioli had last season in mind when he made this decision and I don't think he has any ulterior motives towards Diaz. It's not about trusting him, but seeing that atm, he has some limitations to his game

Of course in hindsight, I can say that it was a mistake to play Meite in that position, but before the game I didn't criticise the move and felt it was somewhat justified. But hindsight is 20/20 and all that

I don't get that. I think the idea of putting more muscle to limit your opponent is hogwash. How you limit your opponent depends entirely on the intensity your players put on the ball holders and their concentration on the pitch. If anything, depriving yourself of that extra quality makes you even more susceptible to the opponent's gameplay.

And besides, Meite as trequartista? Amateurish stuff.

Busy week-end for me, catching up on some good debate :-).

My thoughts:
- We played the Atalanta game with a few key players missing (or just back and not yet fit). Pioli also picked an interesting time to experiment. Having the full team may have led to a different result.
- Next few games will be critical. Coppa game against Inter is coming at a very bad time. Any other team and I would be happier if we just played the primavera. However, losing to Inter right now would not be good.
- I am still positive that this team can win the Scudetto. Will not be easy, but ...

Regarding comments from various posts:
- No, I do not believe in the "Pioli effect". It happened at Inter (which has a history of collapsing the in second half of the season, regardless of who coaches them) and Fiorentina (not that good a team these days, plus it happened while the Della Valle were still in charge, and they would routinely find ways to demoralize key players).
- Inter plays great soccer? Really??? They are one of the ugliest teams to watch these days, their game-plan is one-dimensional, and they are rather Lukaku-dependent. Yes, they have good players on the team.
- Yes, we have struggled in a lot of matches. The team that played in the later part of last season could dominate games, now we get by most of the times. OTOH, if I am not mistaken we have played only one match so far with all our starters. I believe that makes a big difference.
- Are we a great team right now? No, but I believe the team has potential. We can become a competitive team again, we just need our younger players keep "growing" and (hopefully) we keep adding talent over time (while "pruning" players that are not that great, hopefully generating some important plusvalenze as we do that)

Great soccer? I said good football. There's a difference between good and great. Great is an entirely different scale. And I do believe I said they're inconsistent, meaning they'll pull a top performance like the one vs Juventus only to succumb to mediocrity in the very next one against Udinese.

And if you really think they are one of the ugliest teams to watch, then where does that leave us? Cos I sincerely hope you don't think we play better football than them.

Pioli talks about injuries: "Bennacer is better but will be available for next Saturday's match against Bologna. Hakan is not yet available and we had a couple of problems with Mandzukic, Kalulu and Tonali in the match against Atalanta. Only tomorrow morning we will know if they will be available for tomorrow night's match ?.

Can't wait to have Bennacer back.

Most conversation on this forum now is arguing.

Yes, we do.

+1

Tomorrow's derby will give us more topics to argue about, and hopefully put us all in a better mood :-)

I think the hype of this season has made some people a tad exalted.

You mean that despite having played the entire season (except one game) missing key starters we are first? Yup. It's all hype, no substance whatsoever :-).

ZLATAN!!!

Ibraaaaaaaa

No come on, don't tell me Inter play better football than us. It's just you don't like this type of football that's all. A matter of taste.

Tomori is quite physical.

What is Ibra saying???? 🤣🤣🤣

Lukaku completely lost it.

Lukaku fuckin lost it

Dalot is very, very bad.

Also, Meite has been incredibly mediocre.

Alala Ibra red card

We're being crushed.

Indeed

Even bad you can say

What a terrible performance.

We'd been down to 10 for over 30 minutes with no realistic options on the bench that could help out

I'd say we did okay, and thankfully we're out of this as our roster as it is could not handle anymore strain.

Now we've lost Kjaer, Kessie was not moving right at the end there either.

Inter could not break us down. And the ref helped them out, that was never a 2nd yellow for Ibra, but once again we keep getting f@cked over with the cards.

At least Eriksen earned his obscene wage and put us out of our misery. Can't imagine having to go through extra time for this when a goal was coming

Meite... Not impressed. Some really terrible errors, not to mention he does not cover the ground needed to be covered in that double pivot leaving Kessie to practically do all the work in there.

Cannot wait to have Hakan and Bennacer back

It's quite obvious Kessie needs some rest because he's been terrible for 3-4 games consistently now. A complete mess, like the good old Kessie I knew.

Pointless game, but I fear it will once again negatively impact our mentality.

Oh and Meite seems to be Krunić 2.0, yes? Pointless signing it seems. Suits us, buying from a relegation side team.

Question, what did you think about the penalty? I presonally thought Barella was already sliding down to the ground as he was off balance when Leao made the slight contact

That's 2 soft penalties against us in 2 games.

The ref f@cked us over in so many ways today it's laughable

We did okay? Are f*cking kidding me? Ibra got the red at the 60th minute. We had been piss poor since the last 15 minutes of the first half.

Kessie was practically doing the job of 3 men in there. Meite was really not helping out much in the defensive phase. Plus he looked to be in a bit of pain in those last 20 minutes or so. I think we've over strained a lot of out players. All these injuries and covid have not allowed Pioli to rotate effectively and we're seeing the negative effects now.

Like I said after the Atalanta game, all that matters is how we respond next Saturday. The league is all that should matter

The non red for Ibra changed this. We would have won this one if he'd not been hauled off after he himself got bloody fouled.

But that bangs on about my point re: Juve - we always fall at Juve and Inter mentally, if we don't have Ibra.

We were never going to dominate with the team we had out there. That was clear before a ball was kicked.

We had Diaz up there battling Brozovic and Vidal. What did you think was going to happen?

We lost Kjaer early which didn't help either.

Honestly, I just don't care. Let's move on to Bologna and get the win there. That's all that matters.

And for all the criticism you're shouting at the team, Inter were playing their best 11 minus Hakimi and maybe Lautaro but he's been terrible lately anyway. And yet they still struggled big time to get the better of us an had Ibra not lost his head this would have turned out differently imo. Either way, let's just move on.

Well we didn't have Ibra literally as we were left a man down.

A soft penalty and a great free-kick, not much you can do about either.

For me, the big mental test is not this. As I have been harping on and on about, what matters is how we respond on the weekend. If that goes badly for some reason, then we can start hitting the panic button

A bad outing to Atalanta and a handicapped showing in the Coppa against Inter should not be our barometer.

Tatarusanu - Fantastic performance, shame about the goal at the end.

Dalot - Mesbah level.

Kjaer - Best until the injury.

Tomori - Did fairly OK for his first game, but the guy sure loves to press high up the pitch.

Romagnoli - Probably the best along with goalie.

Hernandez - The nth mediocre performance of this season.

Meite - Give me Krunic back.

Kessie - I agree with Han, he was doing the work of 2 players as Meite was inexistent. Still rather shaky performance. Deserves to rest.

Saelemaekers - Rather anonymous performance.

Brahim - Read above.

Leao - He tried but he's too isolated.

Zlatan - Nothing much except a decent goal.

Rebic - Whoa, looked like some Sunday league player there. Is he that out of shape?

This list above gives you a clear picture of what we were dealing with while Conte had a fully fit side with the deepest squad in the league at his disposal, yet they kept relying on their whinging to the ref to get something.

Meite and Brahim were the biggest issues. Brahim is too lightweight against these types of teams, and if Inter have anything it's their physicality while Meite, who should be a heavy hitter in there was even more timid than Diaz, who at least runs around and makes a nuisance of himself by putting pressure on opposing players. When Kessie was made to do all the work here, we lost the midfield battle before a whistle was kicked.

Then you had players like Saelemakers and Rebic who clearly are out of shape. Rebic just came back from Covid, it could have effected him more than others. Probably wasn't asymptomatic, which is worrying as Hakan apparently struggled with it as well. The defence was okay, especially when having to deal with a change early on and bringing in someone who has never played with the team before.

For me, this game was changed the instant Ibra got that 2nd yellow. And you might say that we were terrible before than, but I disagree. We had the game relatively under control with Inter barely creating much of anything before then. Pioli obviously had no real options on the bench besides an unfit Rebic and Krunic.

Don't disagree with much in here but my point still stands. We always fall at Juve and Inter, or certainly more times than we don't, if we don't have Ibra. He's such a winner. Whether it's Coppa, Serie A or the tiddlywinks world cup, this team isn't a winner yet. Not mentally.

I thought we were pretty in control of this match till we lost him. It's not how much pressure you have or how many shots you get, it's how many goals you score. And like you say, a soft pen (was stupid from Leao) and a worldie free kick was how they scored twice against a Milan side ultimately down to 10 men.

Ps I was impressed by Tomori but I already know he's a fine defender.

Let's see who we're able to recover for the weekend

We have 3 very winnable games before we have to face these miserable whiny b!tches again in the league. So the goal should be to get max points. I really don't care about today, what we did not need is a 2 legged semi against Juve to top things off

This.

Agreed totally, I really don't remember a really good chance they created before that moment.

The pen and the sending off were both bad calls. Leao was stupid but Barella was already practically on the floor by himself before Leao touched his foot. But it's us who are lucky this season Yeah righ, we haven't had this much bad luck with calls and injuries since probably 11/12

Regarding mentality. For me it's not that cut and dry, we've proven we can win without Ibra this season. We've been terribly unlucky against both Inter and Juve these past few weeks. With both calls and personnel availability

I just was to see us bounce back from this ASAP

btw, the foul that earned the free-kick for the winner

https://twitter.com/i/status/1354190117330685954


Another piece of BS. I swear, all Inter did was whine to the ref and dive. They've always been a terribly annoying team but Conte makes them unbearable

I think Meiete touches him but you can't see it clearly from that clip. Could be wrong, though.

We looked completely disjointed.

Dalot being Mesbah 2.0 and Theo having one of his usual nights off meant zero support from the flanks. Meite taking a nap for the whole match and Brahim being rather anonymous meant zero control in midfield. Leao played for himself, and Zlatan can't be the Zlatan from the 10 years ago. It was a mess.

We need Bennacer and Hakan back, Rebic in top shape and guys like Theo and Saelemaekers to step up their game like in the second half of last season if we wanna win that goddamn scudetto.

Milan did well in this game..

The GKeeper was surprisingly impressive.

The new defender was superb as a debutant in a knock out derby.

Meite is no good, his fouls are hiddious and unapologetic. That said he has yet to get into the groove of the team.

Hernandez was on point on the left, canceling out most of the threat that came down that flank.

Zlatan will always be Zlatan, kudus to him in scoring a brilliant goal.

Roma was brilliant to keep Lukaku at bay.

Kessie was a midfield general.

Diaz did his utmost, but was crowded out and closed down too soon to do anything meaningful.


I think the team did its maximum today, missing Cala and Bennacer might have changed the final outcome. But I am proud of the boys out there.

Now bring on Bologna.

Yes, I also think Meite made a contact.

Diaz, Kjaer and Tonali out injured. The latter might recover, but Diaz will definitely miss the Bologna game and Kjaer might be out 2-3 weeks at least (thankfully we signed Tomori for that).

But man, just as we're recovering a few key players, we go and lose 2-3 in a row.

Bennacer should be back for Bologna and Mediaset even has him starting (doubt it), whereas Maldini might start as AM.

I think Pioli could play 4-2-4, with Kessie and Meite in the double pivot, Rebic and Saelemaekers on the flanks and Leao-Ibra in attack. At least with Rebic and Saele you know you're getting a lot of hard work and backtracking.

Missing out on Tonali won't be a problem cause he's been consistently horrible lately, especially in his last showing.

The Bologna's of this world are ideal clubs for Diaz, and especially since Hakan hasn't returned yet, well miss him.

Is there something with our training programe going on or what? We used to talk about Allegri and his regime causing problems and injuries. Could that be the case here? Because this is almost unbearable now. Especially players who recuperated for 2-3 times already and then got injured again (like Zlatan, Bennacer, Tonali,...).

I think it's the congested schedule this year. But, I agree the staff should adapt to that.