Summer mercato 2012

[ACMILAN1983]

When you talked about results, here are the stats for this year.

In Serie A, 33 matches played.
Ibra played 27matches, 17W, 4L, 6D
W/Out Ibra, 6 matches, 3W, 2D, 1L

Statistics speaking,
Milan with Ibra is 63% win, 22% D and 15% loses
W/out Ibra is 50% win, 33% D and 17% loses

In CL, Milan played a total of 10 games.
With Ibra, 3W, 3L and 2D
W/out Ibra, 2D.

In a way, Milan can't win without Ibra in CL, but at the same time, they can't lose either.

I am not going into detail of how each of those games were won, draw or lose, bc then it will have too many factors and variables.

Dev, you might think that Milan played their best during the 3 games Ibra was suspended. But to me, it was the period from mid October to Dec, where Milan pretty much beat anyone and scoring around 2 goals each match, I think their only bad games were against Juve and Viola in the league and that Draw with one of the others CL teams in the group.

As for thinking ahead, well, I agree with what you said but at the same time,
why replace your primary offensive output with someone who is equally talent but might not gel well with the current team and other new players then just get better players to suit both Allegri's system to support Ibra and take it from there.
B/c I know that if Milan actually were healthy and did manage to get someone like Vidal or Honda(in Jan), or a dream signing like Hamsik or Hernanes, Milan at this moment could very well be in a position for a treble winning season.

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Do you have the stats from since Ibra joined, rather than just this year? I concede though I was wrong on the stats of this season.

I wasn't too pleased with most of our performances this season if I'm honest. Only really during the period I mentioned before did I feel we were close to achieving what we should be doing. I guess we'll just have to disagree on that matter, it's subjective and we all have our opinions.

As to why I think we should replace our primary attacking weapon, I would argue because I think he holds too much power in this side. He gets us many results, but at the same time I feel we're too reliant on him and it affects us badly at times (Fiorentina, Chievo and particularly Bologna being recent examples). I always think about what Sacchi has said since around the time Ibra went to Barca, and that is he's too much of a soloist.

As I'm sure you'll know, this isn't the first time I've doubted him, as last summer I was discussing with you this exact same debate.

Actually, I think Ibra must be kept ... Nowadays, he's our best player. He sometimes disappears from games, but we can't expect him to be good in each game when he gets no rest.

I think we need to keep this player, because he wins points, a lot of points, for our team, but Allegri, if he's still our coach next season, will have to rest him sometimes and create other ways to play ... This way, Ibra will be the player who will give us important points, he will be our positive "surplus" ...

And joining both discussions : why not trying to put Ibra behind the strikers ? It's obvious Ibra becomes a bit lazy, compared to his "old days" when he was really running (Juventus days for example), so having a guy like him in the center could be something interesting, especially because he's able to keep the ball thanks to his technical skills, and he won't be physically outplayed.

So if Boateng was to be sold, I'd try right after that Ibra in that position ... If I have some time, I'll try to make some schemes to explain why I think it could work.

PS : It's a cheap solution for our management ... Sell Boateng, keep Ibra, don't buy a new AM (Robinho or Cassano or other could do it too, in other ways), and just use the money for the other positions (CM/DM, LB) as we would still have enough strikers in our team ...

Ibra behind the forwards is interesting but as Mystik said there are other issues with this due to his defensive workrate (or lack of it).

I think Ibra's biggest issue is his mentality. It seems impossible to keep him balanced all season, and that's when his highs and lows come in. Allegri's acknowledged this and done better than most to manage it in recent years, but I just think it's part of the package. He's our best player, but again this raises problems as I've said before, as the team doesn't work with him so much it works for him.

I think my argument all comes down to me becoming sick of Ibra's influence in the side. I think he's given more power than any player should have and his constant highs and lows (both form and mentally) makes it difficult to maintain consistency in the side. I think this is why he's never won the CL, because the teams he's in always play to him and if they don't he struggles. Like Inter and Barca, I'm confident we can move on to better things if we sell him on.