(EL ,Group D ,Round 3) Milan - AEK 19.10.2017. 21:05
#91
I play a game when watching our matches. I try to predict movements of our players and where/who they are going to pass to next. It's pretty easy to predict and if I can do it, then certainly the opposition can. It's all just so damn bland.
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#92
Attack: Kalinic & Andre Silva are too static to play together.

I disagree. I think they can play very well together. Kalinic is slow but strong and can hold the ball. While silva can make the runs. Silva is a quick player with alot of potential. 

Many teams are already lining up to snatch Silva if we don't quality for UCL.

Fassone has stated that we will have to sell one or two players if we don't qualify. I think it would be Donna and Silva.
AC MILAN
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#93
There was nothing good about this game.
There was nothing positive.
It was horrible.
Milan should be beating AEK Athens with ease.
A poor team from a far lesser league against a team that has aspirations of UCL and the Scudetto and maybe winning the UCL , A team that spent €220m.The game was horrid.Kalinic is mediocre at best we all knew it and hes proving it.
Silva is young and has a lot to learn.A lot.

Our defence is a joke our midfield is non existent.We're not seing some teething problems here.We're seing a poorly constructed squad with a lot of players that are better on FIFA or PES than in real life.We need a new coach.Hes had the squad for 5 months and still has no clue what hes doing.
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#94
(10-21-2017, 11:52 AM)Jay Crisp Wrote: There was nothing good about this game.
There was nothing positive.
It was horrible.
Milan should be beating AEK Athens with ease.
A poor team from a far lesser league against a team that has aspirations of UCL and the Scudetto and maybe winning the UCL , A team that spent €220m.The game was horrid.Kalinic is mediocre at best we all knew it and hes proving it.
Silva is young and has a lot to learn.A lot.

Our defence is a joke our midfield is non existent.We're not seing some teething problems here.We're seing a poorly constructed squad with a lot of players that are better on FIFA or PES than in real life. We need a new coach.Hes had the squad for 5 months and still has no clue what hes doing.

Completely agree with the red. Maybe you are being a bit rough on Kalinic, but he hasn't done anything to prove you wrong so we'll see if he does in the future. I think he can be very useful and important, but can't really argue your point presently. You are right to say that seeing as what is happening right now.

I completely disagree with the bolded text though. This is not a poorly constructed squad. In my opinion, it is a well constructed squad. These players are good and I think it's unfair to say that they are overrated and are no good. Biglia was one of the best players in Serie A last season. That's only 6 months ago. He didn't go bad over night. Bonucci, even though no Nesta and has always been a bit overrated, was a top 5 CB in Serie A at the very least. He didn't go bad over night. Etc, Etc. I don't want to list all the signings here, but you get my point. Most of them were good buys and remain very good-great players. If last year we had no quality, then it is the polar opposite this year. The players we didn't get in the summer were a top class LCM and a top class CF. But it was always going to be difficult to get all the needs addressed in 1 summer. As a matter of fact, I believe we were going to get a top class CF (Aubameyang) had we not signed Bonucci. But this was a market opportunity that I think 99% of people would have taken. It was either Aubameyang or Bonucci + Kalinic. 

I am not saying this is a squad constructed to win the scudetto or even be one of the main contenders for the Scudetto. But this is a squad more than capable of getting a top 4 finish and NOT be 8 points away from that mark midway through October and playing like absolute shit. So the problem HAS to be Montella. I mean, the guy doesn't even know his starting 11 and it's almost November FFS. The right coach will make a world of a difference with these players because there really is some serious quality in this squad now. Just look at Inter and the difference from last year. No, they are not playing like Napoli and catching anybody's eye...but they are very compact and solid and win games. I said this summer that Inter's biggest signing was Spalletti and that was the single most aspect of their team that I was worried about. He has made a huge difference in that shit club while Montella hasn't ben able to do the same here. His time is running out though so hopefully there is a plan in place for a replacement.
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#95
Most of the people (Milan fan base people) I spoked with are not too "worried" about Inter ,because they expect them to collapse in second part of season like they did last few years. But I think that Spalletti will be key factor to prevent exactly that ,which is bad for us of course. And that's the factor we don't have. Truth to be said we alredy collapsed ,with season not even properly started.
Avaiting for arrival of exorcist into our boardroom.
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#96
(10-20-2017, 06:56 PM)ACMILAN1983 Wrote: To illustrate the point of where we are in conjunction with what level we should be aiming for, here's a video somedevil posted of Sarri's Napoli in preseason training in July:

https://streamable.com/kdqqy

Compare this to us yesterday. The training was on a half pitch with 11 a side yet the structure, distance between the players, pace and movement of the ball and player movement off it are all significantly better that anything we saw vs AEK.

Another example is look at Guardiola's Barcelona:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwB_y7E7Y0Q

Again, same concept, the movement and pace of the ball and the players off the ball is critical, as well as the generally short distances between the players. It's one touch, two touch football, simple concepts that are implemented superbly.

Now I'm not expecting us to suddenly be masters of tiki taka (I'm not personally the biggest fan and prefer a more direct approach) or the new Napoli, but we need to understand that with the technical group of players we have we should be building on a technical game which fulfils our potential on the ball and a starting point on that is that players have to let the ball do the work with the way they use it.

Perfect example of what we were talking about. Let's not even talk about the quality of the touches, passes, and quite frankly the trust those players have in each other to consistently play the ball to a teammate even if he is under pressure. Let's instead just take a look at the support on the ball, which goes directly in line with what we were talking about the other day about being way too stretched when having the ball. The videos you provided show perfectly that WHILE the ball is moving long (20-30 meters) there are AT LEAST 2 players sprinting to provide short options for the player that receives it...and they are doing so at different angles and depths. Instead, in Montella's "possession football", there are NO short options. The only short options may be horizontal passes, but very rarely vertical. ALL our vertical passing options are long passes. I understand the concept of spreading out when you have the ball....but you really only need 3 players to get that width and depth. The LB and RB can provide the width (since we don't play with wingers) and get all the way on the sideline when we have the ball, and one of the (or both, it doesn't matter) CFs can push up all the way on the opponent's defensive line to offer depth. The rest of the players can vary their movements and obviously there should be worked movements also...but at the simplest form, that leaves the 3 CMs + the other CF/AM (depending on what we are using) to create short options all over the field. If the ball is on the right side, we can have the DM, RCM + CF/AM providing triangles and short passing options along with the RB....while the other CF and CM can provide the depth and vary movements behind the defensive line for the long option. Note, I am not even talking about the CBs here but they can also provide "drop" options as "safety" nets and we can spread the field in that way too. 

INSTEAD, Montella wants the ball to be with the CBs, while the entire team pushes up as far as possible to create room and then drop back into that pocket to receive the ball from the CB. There is no need for for the 2 CMs, 2 CFs, AM, all to be that far from the ball. And even so, the added problem is that when these players drop into that pocket to receive the ball, there are no options on the ball instead going backwards. It's a full on stop and has no fluidity. No combinations.
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#97
(10-21-2017, 12:41 PM)nefremo Wrote: Completely agree with the red. Maybe you are being a bit rough on Kalinic, but he hasn't done anything to prove you wrong so we'll see if he does in the future. I think he can be very useful and important, but can't really argue your point presently. You are right to say that seeing as what is happening right now.

I completely disagree with the bolded text though. This is not a poorly constructed squad. In my opinion, it is a well constructed squad. These players are good and I think it's unfair to say that they are overrated and are no good. Biglia was one of the best players in Serie A last season. That's only 6 months ago. He didn't go bad over night. Bonucci, even though no Nesta and has always been a bit overrated, was a top 5 CB in Serie A at the very least. He didn't go bad over night. Etc, Etc. I don't want to list all the signings here, but you get my point. Most of them were good buys and remain very good-great players. If last year we had no quality, then it is the polar opposite this year. The players we didn't get in the summer were a top class LCM and a top class CF. But it was always going to be difficult to get all the needs addressed in 1 summer. As a matter of fact, I believe we were going to get a top class CF (Aubameyang) had we not signed Bonucci. But this was a market opportunity that I think 99% of people would have taken. It was either Aubameyang or Bonucci + Kalinic. 

I am not saying this is a squad constructed to win the scudetto or even be one of the main contenders for the Scudetto. But this is a squad more than capable of getting a top 4 finish and NOT be 8 points away from that mark midway through October and playing like absolute shit. So the problem HAS to be Montella. I mean, the guy doesn't even know his starting 11 and it's almost November FFS. The right coach will make a world of a difference with these players because there really is some serious quality in this squad now. Just look at Inter and the difference from last year. No, they are not playing like Napoli and catching anybody's eye...but they are very compact and solid and win games. I said this summer that Inter's biggest signing was Spalletti and that was the single most aspect of their team that I was worried about. He has made a huge difference in that shit club while Montella hasn't ben able to do the same here. His time is running out though so hopefully there is a plan in place for a replacement.
Probably frustration on my part and I didnt explain.By poorly contstructed I mean the players in the final third do not compliment eachother if you get me.Calhanoglu cannot play CM or LW Suso can only be himself on the LW , Kalinic can hold the ball up and has been but when he knocks it down or looks to lay it off theres no one near him.Bonucci still persists with these 90 yard hollywood balls , he should be told stop doing it when the pass isnt there.
Biglia is slow and needs legs around him , having Milinkovic Savic and Anderson around him and Parolo (even though he aint fast) helped him a lot.He is good but here he has Kessie and thats it.He ends up trying to do too much.Conti is a huge loss.
We need a coach that can make these good on paper players a team.Montella clearly cannot
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#98
Jay I presume you mean Suso on RW.

Anyway, I don't think it's the players don't compliment each other, but rather it's that we're not playing in a way that allows them to express themselves at their best. Take the Biglia example, yes he lacks pace and so far looks exposed in Milan, but it's not just about having legs around him and instead is the lack of a unit that he's working in. Compare him to Jorginho of Napoli, who's slower and defensively not as strong, yet Jorginho rarely looks overly stretched in front of defence, because the midfield unit he works in is a tight working unit. Instead, if we go back to the derby, on a number of occasions Biglia was forced out left to cover in behind RR and Kessie didn't come across allowing Inter to cut in. It looked like Biglia was exposed in these instances, but without the correct supporting network no player would be able to cover that much ground.

It's the same for pretty much the whole team. Bonucci looks heavily exposed without the level of cover he had at Juve. That's normal though, as the only defenders I remember in Milan who didn't look a disaster despite having very little cover were Nesta and Thiago Silva (imo mostly because he had Nesta next to him) under Leonardo. Bonucci's not on Nesta's level (no defender today is) and so needs his team to support him to be at his best.

Same in attack. Kalinic, Andre Silva and Cutrone often look isolated up front because they're very disconnected from their teammates. Cutrone at times looks a little better at getting balls played to him in behind opposing defences, but most of the time those balls are played by Locatelli, with who he's developed a clear understanding with having grown together in the youth setup.

The creative trio of Suso, Bonaventura and Calhanoglu are all struggling, but in different ways imo. Suso has been too focused on trying to get into scoring positions in the final third and goes for the spectacular when often it makes more sense to play a simpler ball. One thing that made him so good last season was his ability to play for the team, which I don't think is fully the case this year thus far.

Bonaventura has always had an element of selfishness in his game, but in recent years it wasn't a big problem because he was the driving creative/attacking force for our side. The game went through him and his individual ability was often depended on to get results. Now, he's no longer the center of the team and he's got players of equal (or greater) ability around him. He needs to play more for the team and use his ability and experience to serve the others, not playing for himself.

Finally on Calhanoglu, I really feel for the guy. He's one of the most technically gifted players in our team and there's a reason why not long ago he was considered one of the best young talents in world football. He's a player that needs his teammates to move around him to get the best out of him (kind of like Pirlo in the past). Right now he's playing in a team without structure and without any teamwork. It's no shock he's had difficulties.
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