Milan vs Cagliari, September 26, 2012, 20:45

[WCmilan]

Useless urby? Are you kidding me, he's one of our most useful players. Even when with our team last year i felt the same way. Even if he doesn't play every game on the wages we have him on plus what he offers for what we're paying him is well worth it. VERY well worth it. We just don't have the quality to start anyone else i dont see why he shouldn't start every now and then.

[LebRN]

Why was he not coaching? Was he serving a ban??

He was. For insulting the referee, which he denied.

Thx Xudong & thx for the vid too

[Mathias]

Useless urby? Are you kidding me, he's one of our most useful players. Even when with our team last year i felt the same way. Even if he doesn't play every game on the wages we have him on plus what he offers for what we're paying him is well worth it. VERY well worth it. We just don't have the quality to start anyone else i dont see why he shouldn't start every now and then.

Exactly. Useless? By far. He didn't have a good game yesterday, but for the rest of this season and the second half of last season he surpassed our first expectations and keeps growing in performance.

[ACMILAN1983]

I'm sure someone (aka Dev) will provide his customary "detailed summary" of the match

lol, I'll try to do what I can...

The match wasn't good, actually we were poor for the most part. That said, we won and that's what counts. The result alone isn't the only positive, there are things to take from this match.

First half was a mixed affair, starting off with us controlling the game totally and looking far superior to Cagliari. We were dominant, we looked threatening and generally we were pressing really well all over the pitch. We created a few chances and were moving fluidly into attack from midfield...unless Traore was involved. The goal came from this fluid transition with some neat interplay pushing forward, a touch of luck with the ball dropping to Montolivo who played it through the El Shaarawy whose finish was excellent.

After the goal, our performance dipped, with players looking less attentive or focused. This resulted in mistakes on the ball, costing possession cheaply, players were moving less well and we looked slower overall, with Cagliari growing. A few chances passed for them and the game was even until half time.

Second half continued where the first finished, only Cagliari pushed harder and we struggled to contain them, meaning they had the upper hand. In all honesty we were lucky during this period not to concede, with Cagliari coming close of quite a few occasions and with us looking really nervous. Luckily for us, we got a break with Conti being sent off, which finished the match as Cagliari lost their momentum and we controlled the midfield more easily. Eventually the result was sealed with us playing across the Cagliari backline and El Shaarawy again coming central to finish a nice move.

Tactically I was pleased to see our improvements. Our pressing is improving throughout the side and again progress can be seen, as players are getting a little more confidence. El Shaarawy's revelling in 4-3-3 and coming in from wide, while Urby hasn't quite gotten the best from the system yet. The midfield requires the most work, as De Jong and Traore were our two weakest players yesterday. However, it's nice to see some variation, with Traore and Montolivo often pushing up through the middle yesterday, and Boateng in Traore's place could work well here.

Players...

Abbiati - Needed on a few occasions but always alert
Abate - Solid performance, he never looked like he would be beat and had some good runs forward, though less than desired as he had to stay alert at the back
Mexes - A couple of mistakes that could have cost us (notably not marking Pinilla who had an open header in front of goal), but solid on the whole
Bonera - Like Mexes, a few positional errors could have cost us, but he did well on the whole
De Sciglio - Not as solid as when he's on the right, but this could be because he doesn't often play LB. He did well on the whole though, even if he got pulled out of position a few times.
Montolivo - Our best midfielder by far, he was solid defensively and assisted the first goal well
De Jong - Offered little protection to the backline, his performance both on and off the ball was disappointing
Traore - By far our weakest player, it was amazing how little good he did for us in the match, losing the ball all the time, sloppy on and off the ball and positionally all over the place.
El Shaarawy - Man of the match by a distance. He had a lot of movement, desire and quality on the ball, resulting in 2 good goals.
Pazzini - It's hard to see how we're going to get the best out of him. He needs someone to constantly supply him, but at Milan he won't get that. That said his movement off the ball was what opened spaces for El Shaarawy to score.
Urby - Not great, he was rarely involved in anything of great note, except one decent chance he had which he skied.
Constant - Came on in place of Traore but didn't do much better.
Ambro - Offered some assurances in midfield which helped balance the team better.

[honsano]

I actually think our side should be approaching more of a 442 formation. I like ELS movement and he had a few neat interchanges with Pazzo amongst others. I actually don't like ELS exclusively on the wing as he finds his way to the ball and having him out wide can isolate him from play at times.

I don't know about you guys, but it seems with Ibra gone, the 433 only really suits Robihno now. When we have Emmanuelson or KPB play out wide, then tend to complicate the matter and lose the ball as the inevitably try to take defenders on one on one. Both seem to be more effective with runs in the midfield...like literally the middle of the pitch. Also, we are getting over run in the midfield game after game by smaller sides. We don't have the credibility to keep teams on the defensive and often see our side without the ball for long spells.

I thougth De Sciglio was pretty good considering. I think relative to our other LBs, even with modest improvement in is game he will be an upgrade. It would really really relieve a big headache for us there.

Pazzo, where are you. I know the service is poor, but his runs are late. I hope with more practice with the first team he can gel...or Pato can try not to get injured.

[ACM2023]

433 is certainly not going to be our long-term solution as it does not reflect our proud tradition of 442 in which system two world-class fullbacks cover and utilize every inch up and down the two flanks, offering water-tight defense and sending in pin-point crosses; and in the meantime, maintaining the advantage in both quantity and quality in our midfield.

That said, 433 can certainly be a good short-term solution as we lack WC FBs now, and we do have players like Shaarawy and Robinho and Emanuelson who seem comfortable with the width (I do agree with honsano on Urby, as he does not seem to know when to do what; a best footballer knows when to pass, when to dribble, when not to dribble; Urby seems to struggle in that "football IQ").

[ACM2023]

The attendance of 28005 (23765 season ticket holders; 4240 bought the one-match pass). This was the lowest record in Berlusconi era (barring one abnormality when only 21649 season ticket holders were allowed to Milan - Livorno, February 2007).

This is the source (in Chinese):
http://sports.sohu.com/20120928/n354147984.shtml