Prince Boateng

[bijon]

whatever...he is not good enough for AC Milan

[Aficio]

And never enough for N.10

[ACMILAN1983]

This criticism isn't particularly fair on Boateng, to me he's just trying to do what he's been doing the last couple of years, just that right now everything around him is a complete failure. He's not been good on the ball, but I don't see him being our biggest problem.

[Mystik]

I don't know when people started fooling themselves into believing Boateng was this brilliant football player who would save our season. Like Dev said, he's been doing the same things as the last couple years. Ridiculous flicks which don't work, shooting the ball too much and from all ridiculous positions. One thing he was good at, was running off the ball to support Ibra, similar to Nocerino but now that Ibra is gone..that's pretty useless. He's not the worst by a long shot..but I never expected much to begin with.

[RIO]

One of the problems was in giving him the number 10 to wear: Now Boateng seems to think he IS a number 10, which he is NOT, and when he tries to play like that (classic "number 10") he can't. He does not have the unselfishness and "smarts" to be that player. He keeps passing up doing the correct thing in order to try something spectacular and it is just kind of sad. They should have just held off giving anyone the number 10 shirt for now...

[xudong]

Boateng isn't an angel of course. He thinks of himself as this team's leader now (as B&G&A want), and it is obvious that he lets that get to his head. His shootings were just aimless, his dribbling was woeful, and he couldn't even always control the ball to his own feet.

But I would not go very far accusing him of everything. As said, it is not like he was told to play in the midfield yet he drifted away forward. He is just ordered to do all those stupid things by even stupider people. What a terrible waste of his talent. He may be limited, but if well used, he could become so lethal and I strongly feel that he could walk into any team in Europe right now, including Real Madrid and Barcelona. But he takes a great coach to use him properly, and Allegri is not up to this job, it so seems.

[Gio-mania]

I think that is unfair criticism of Allegri. If anything, I would say Allegri re-invented Prince. Before coming here he was just a player for the mid-table teams, now he's one of the top players in Italy and people know him in Europe. Maybe a big portion of this came from playing off of Ibra, which is something I suspect is the case with Nocerino too. But we have to see how KPB can be integrated to this Ibra-less side. We'll see what Allegri can think of. One thing is sure though, he should not have the number 10, regardless of whether it gets to his head or not.

[GeoTav]

I think that is unfair criticism of Allegri. If anything, I would say Allegri re-invented Prince. Before coming here he was just a player for the mid-table teams, now he's one of the top players in Italy and people know him in Europe. Maybe a big portion of this came from playing off of Ibra, which is something I suspect is the case with Nocerino too. But we have to see how KPB can be integrated to this Ibra-less side. We'll see what Allegri can think of. One thing is sure though, he should not have the number 10, regardless of whether it gets to his head or not.

Actually, I have less doubts about Nocerino, because he showed he was able to play the same way as with Milan last year with the NT ...
For Boateng though, it's a bit weird to see him play that bad !! He even doesn't dribble any player whereas last year, he showed sometimes he is able to do some magical dribbles (and goals). Really weird ...

And if Boateng wasn't an AM or CM but simply a striker (or second striker) ?!
It could be worth trying to use him near the goal, not behind but alongside one of our strikers ...

[ACMILAN1983]

I hear lots of talk amongst press/past players that he's feeling a lot of pressure today, which is I think is fair to say.

[xudong]

I think that is unfair criticism of Allegri. If anything, I would say Allegri re-invented Prince. Before coming here he was just a player for the mid-table teams, now he's one of the top players in Italy and people know him in Europe. Maybe a big portion of this came from playing off of Ibra, which is something I suspect is the case with Nocerino too. But we have to see how KPB can be integrated to this Ibra-less side. We'll see what Allegri can think of. One thing is sure though, he should not have the number 10, regardless of whether it gets to his head or not.

Allegri didn't re-invent Prince. Prince has always had those qualities in him, and to say that "he was just a player for the mid-table teams" isn't fair to be honest. Rijkaard had a terrible season at Zaragoza before joining us, but that doesn't mean that he was just a player for the mid-table teams.

Allegri obviously should take credit for utilizing Boateng, then again, as you can see the key, with Ibrahimovic in the squad, so my concern is that Allegri is quite one-dimensional in term of tactics, that is just Ibrahimovic. Unfortunate for him, we haven't even found an Ibrahimovic replacement yet, and probably never will.

Once again, boateng is a very limited player, but whatever he is good at, he is amazingly good. If used well, he will help the team greatly, any team. He should not be given #10 in the first place. It is of course too late and would be demoralizing to strip him of #10, but that's really not a big deal, numbers are just numbers, and I think he should keep the number but not play as ACM. Maybe as a pure striker could work, as Geo suggested. I am willing to see that given a try, personally.