AC Milan vs Napoli

JespSwe wrote:i mean we were asked for patience for 7 years!!!! this is great milan for christ sake!!! milan that use to compete on all fronts!!!


if u even bring the word patience to real, barca fans, there would be massacre in the streets..!!!!

frankly our fans has been long long patient and gracious enough to accept the reality for too long!
there were lot of windows of opportunity to improve but galliani did nothing!!!

2 months since inzaghi was fired, or infact, when decision was taken to get rid of inzaghi before the last season even ended, there should have been a full assessment of the squad, come clean, get rid of bad players, bring bright potential talents and world class players,... what did galliani say oh we have plenty of time...

2 days until transfer window coming to close then we started looking for players like witsel...

in the meantime i will never understand this bs. genoa alliance, and listening to agents !!! no offense im sorry guys i have been really negative like cookie monster said, but i am frankly sick and tired of galliani
he is gonna bring this milan down for the rest of his natural life no offense

You're very right to be mad m8 .. I will keep it simple , since such failure (ever so ridiculous) wasn't the first nor it will be the last we saw , seeing it all stems from the same problems that keep plaguing us all this time : In essense , there have been so many mistakes at Milan all over the years , and we still keep paying the price . Milan's BS have been too much and too many for Milan to get away with it quickly , or easily .

Been a while i've been 'calma' with Milan's shortcomings and i can honestly say , it's the most pathetic feeling i've ever experienced as a fan , to be honest . I just shrug it off and smile awkwardly when friends mock me , and that's what i will also do tomorrow .

I got through all phases by now , rage , sadness , denial , despair , i even stopped watching the game for some time , bar Milan of course ... now i am just #yolo , whenever we get good again , can't bother myself with this shit anymore lol . Can't care less who's at fault , who sucks , who stays and who goes , who this and that.. I just support the team and that's that. Milan still has too many issues to resolve , before we can have expectations again .

To tell you just how much this doesn't surprise me , i had a friend of mine tonight who bet Milan to lose exactly 0-3 . I didn't even attempt to debate this and that , only thing i said was , "lol we won't even score in our home?" He was like "nope , why should you , you suck" . Well , 0-4 . And really , we do suck . I even bet it 4-6 goals , i just knew we would get rekt anyway.

I agree B & G should gtfo and retire , but you know they just won't , not in any immediate future at least.. We know B & G are clueless and didn't help the team enough in the summer . We can only support the team and do what you won't hear about , which is to still be patient , as unfair as it is.. there's not much more into it , that's just how things are.

Pretty well summed up Dante. I'm also at the point where I'm just like "whatever". The duo of Berlusconi and Galliani is past it. Has been past it for a while. But they refuse to move on. Our squad is in a very bad state due to Galliani's cheap and highly incompetent dealings for the past few seasons. The administrative side of the club is also in shambles. How do you screw up the stadium plan they way these guys did, is unbelievable. And now they are close to screwing up the buy-out as well. With a new person in the board (despite being a minority holder), there was the chance that he could get the ball rolling in terms of a new management, but that is also seeming more and more unlikely.

Yep, i share the same sentiment Dante. I just don't know where the club can go if it continues like this every summer. There just doesn't seem to be an exit sign with SB as owner.

Not much to say really. Almost 100 mil spent and nothing has changed.

Zapata will be crucified for the first goal but I blame Miha for instructing our center backs to play out from the back against a team as good as Napoli. The finger must also be pointed at Montolivo. Unacceptable to have our pivote standing in the center circle with the ball at the feet of someone as unskilled as Zapata.

If the last six months have taught us anything, it seems it is that nothing will change as long as our transfer department is so inept. No amount of money and solve the problem of incompetence.

It's a shame, because this team has shown glimpses of potential throughout the season and even at points in this match. Sadly, at the end of the day, if you buy a bunch of scrubs, they will (shocker) play like a bunch of scrubs.

We lost this game last week when Romagnoli got sent off. With that, any slim chance of victory against Napoli was snuffed out.

There are some serious problems in our team's 1st XI and in our depth, mainly in defence and midfield.

Defence

The big hope at CB was Ely - Romagnoli. However, people need to realise that defence is about partnership and working as a unit. How many games have Ely - Romagnoli played with each other?

Most of the time Zapata has deputised for one of them. Ely and Romagnoli are by no means star defenders, but they can develop into a solid unit if given the chance. In saying that, I would prefer if we purchased another higher-quality CB to partner Romagnoli.

I laugh at anyone who was impressed by Zapata a couple weeks back in a game where we still conceded 2 goals. He's not good enough and never will be. He's a disaster zone. You only need 1 weak link in defence to bring the whole team crashing down.

At WB, Antonelli and Abate are clearly our best options. Calabria is raw and MDS looks like he's not going to get any better.

Midfield

It's a similar story here. I think Bertolacci has proven to be an extremely poor transfer. He was plucked out of nowhere for an extremely high fee and yet he offers nothing more than Montolivo already did.

Speaking of which, Monty is terribly slow on the ball and has little impact on the game.

De Jong is a great player, but he's not a complete midfielder. His role is to win the ball and pass it to a creative midfielder. However, I think he's being asked to compensate for the other slackers in our midfield and its obvious that this isn't working.

Bonaventura is a player who I love to watch because he's a guy who you know will actually attempt to do something useful with the ball. Yes, it doesn't always come off, but at least he's making an effort to start attacks.

Kucka is no improvement on Bertolacci. He has no aptitude for passing in the final third.

Honda is mis-cast in just about every position he plays because he is reliant on other midfielders making space for him so that he has time to receive the ball and make passes to strikers. Unfortunately, you get the feeling that the rest of our midfield couldn't maintain possession in an opponent's half even if they put up a giant net across the half-way line when we have the ball there.

Coach

I can't blame a coach who looks at his team and asks them to play good football, but hasn't quite grasped the fact that the cheap players he had at Sampdoria were more dynamic and skilful on the ball than the ones he has now at Milan.

He'll soon realise that it's time to finish off what was started in the summer by cleaning out the rest of the detritus and bringing in some players who aren't merely content to be static and pass the ball around aimlessly until they lose it. I have a strong suspicion we'll be looking for players with pace and good ball control instead of the glorified bunch of lazy sideways passers we have now.

The Upside
We aren't PSG and this isn't Ligue 1. We cannot expect 2 months worth of investment to bring us success. Serie A is much more competitive than that. Juventus to a couple of full seasons of continuous investment to turn their results around after they were promoted to Serie A and Inter still endured some extremely painful times after the Thorir takeover.

It is early in the season and I anticipate that much progress will be made between now and the end. We're not going to win Serie A and it will be unlikely that we will finish in the top 3, but we can make an effort to build this team up and work towards those goals in the future with continued investment.

Worst thing regarding Milan is that many of us saw this 8 years ago with Ancelotti's last year. Many of us blamed Carlo then, and his policy regarding youngsters.

Little did we know about the transfer facts B&G were responsible for behind the scenes. FFS, a past-it Ronaldinho was one of our biggest signings then.

In fact, our 2011 win was probably a last-ditch effort by the seniors (who all contributed really well to that title) and the result of Buying Ibrahimovitch who really landed in our lap, and the magnificence of TS who we actually should have bought long before we actually did.

When both were sold, I realized that 2011 was a false spring, and that we are simply going to experience a very long winter.

Year after year, we added scrub after scrub, in so much that no actual quality can thrive here. Right now in the AM spot for example, we should have SES there now, but our best option there right now is Honda, who despite trying is limited.

Lord Spencer wrote:Worst thing regarding Milan is that many of us saw this 8 years ago with Ancelotti's last year. Many of us blamed Carlo then, and his policy regarding youngsters.

Little did we know about the transfer facts B&G were responsible for behind the scenes. FFS, a past-it Ronaldinho was one of our biggest signings then.

In fact, our 2011 win was probably a last-ditch effort by the seniors (who all contributed really well to that title) and the result of Buying Ibrahimovitch who really landed in our lap, and the magnificence of TS who we actually should have bought long before we actually did.

When both were sold, I realized that 2011 was a false spring, and that we are simply going to experience a very long winter.

Year after year, we added scrub after scrub, in so much that no actual quality can thrive here. Right now in the AM spot for example, we should have SES there now, but our best option there right now is Honda, who despite trying is limited.

I agree to the last word . Pretty much what i thought at the time , what i used to think as time went by and what i still think today in hindsight.

As for Ses , i also blame Mihajlovic for Ses leaving btw .. like , the BS he was saying he would play him at LCM .. can't say i would have stayed myself. I honestly don't blame Ses for leaving , there's a Euro in the summer too , agreeing to something like that would be suicide for him . My first major warning sign about Sinisa popped up right then , how could anyone think of SES as LCM ?? Now , Ses had that option and then came up Monaco , with good money and lifestyle , while also being given the chance to play in the CL with other talented players , a fresh team with ambition... like he said , it was an easy decision .

Now , as for our defence , it's the 3rd season in a row we are heading into January , in need of defenders , mainly in the CB area this time .. Galliani never learns really. Just the 12-13 season was more than enough , all he needed to see. He didn't do anything in the summer. 13-14 disaster happens , he gets Rami in October , hoping it will be enough. In the summer , he again does nothing. Once more , catastrophe ensures and we head into January to sign Palleta , Antonelli and Bocchetti . Moar band-aids , at least Antonelli came out good. Now , 15-16 ... We have a mediocre Zapata , who's at best a situational player , a washed up Mexes who Sinisa didn't want and he's leaving anyways , and Alex , a finished player we couldn't offload. Ely i won't count in this , he's just a green lad coming from Serie B , he's not part of any solution as things stand , he can't help us reach any of our objectives , he can only help out on the rare occasion .

Once again , we need to strengthen the defence in January , in order to either salvage a lost season by that time , or try and sneak our way into Europa League.. The thing is , can't they see that these people have failed at it already , what's the reason they are still here , i honestly cannot fathom why. They couldn't offload Mexes and Alex because they are piss poor , but they didn't get CBs to strengthen the team anyway , regardless of them . Now what?

Romagnoli out and we crumble . Romagnoli can't play every single game and bare in mind , this is with Zapata in mind . Romagnoli and anyone else it will still be asking for trouble , Romagnoli is no world class defender that will cover up such weaknesses . He can cover for Zapata's low skill on the ball by carrying it on himself , or take responsibility of making the risky passes / long balls / help the midfielders out occasionaly. That also eliminates Zapata's tunnel vision and frequent lapses in concentration , which leaves him to just defend , the only thing he's decent at . That's why Zapata does fairly well with Romagnoli , because the lad covers for him well enough and let's him focus on defending , because strictly as a defender he's not the worst out there , most of the time he can defend his ground . Now replace Zapata with anyone else . He can still do things he's already good at , but he hasn't shown he can cover for a partner's defensive weaknesses just yet . Whenever he was paired with anyone else other than Zapata , it doesn't work quite the same.

Is it maybe because he can't carry the ball onward , or that he suddenly can't pass it well ? No , it's because all the rest of our CB are really bad for this team and Romagnoli can't cover for their defensive weaknesses . Zapata is also a mediocre defender with above average speed , but at least he can defend most of the time (that's when paired with Romagnoli and the team is actually doing things ). The rest? Mexes needs an entire system to suit him to be good nowadays , Alex is finished in Serie A let alone carry Milan's defence and Ely is as green as it gets.    

Sigh.

If we want at least Europa League football come next season , we will need to make a particularly good CB transfer in January . At the very least one . Mexes is leaving , so we are at least guaranteed one (at least i hope that's the case ) . Now , who will that be i have no idea , but he better be a real success and not just some band-aid scrub , there's no way we will finish in at least Europa League places with just Romagnoli-Zapata . I doubt they can play all these games to begin with and in general lines , Zapata ain't even that good to begin with .. he's just our least worst option as things stand , with Romagnoli covering his glaring weak points .

Ideally , we should be getting 2 , with Alex gtfo of the team as well. Let's just hope that the one who will replace Mexes will be a legit CB , first of all .

Don't worry, Ranocchia, KPB and Urby will turn this season around (:

El Shaarawy wrote:Don't worry, Ranocchia, KPB and Urby will turn this season around (:

Boateng over Cerci any day

Btw , thinking about it some more , even if we do strengthen in January ... there's a very good chance it will very likely turn out to be one hilariously irrelevant matter come May , just like it has been for the past 2 seasons already . Overall picture , we still don't have what it takes and Napoli made sure we get the message . Ty Napoli (:

Juventus , Roma , Inter and Napoli , will be fighting for the top 4 places . Not even mid October and 3rd place is officially out of reach . There's no way we will have a better season come May than any of the aforementioned teams . So right of the bat , our target is 5th , or 6th place.. kek

Comparing us to just Napoli .. we are not on their level , never mind the others  . Is there anyone here who thinks we will do better than Napoli this season , reinforcements in January or not ? This 0-4 was a statement by Napoli . It basically means that we won't finish above them this season .

I saw Arrigo Sarri's Napoli and i caught myself being a little jelly there , lol . Like , it will take some convincing to make me change my mind that this Napoli won't finish -worst case scenario- , at least 4th . I am quite certain that's what they are thinking at Milan right now. I don't know about you , this already seems like one more wasted season to me.. Champions League is almost completely out of our reach by now as it is and with the majority of the season still ahead of us , it certainly doesn't promise it could get any better either . Anyway , 5th-6th place , yeah .

Really hesitant talking about top 3 anymore , it's just being delusional at this point .

To be frank, it was delusional to think of the top 3 spots from the start. It was never going to happen, eve if we had the best coach in the worlds rolled into one super coach.

Simply put, Juve, Roma, and Napoli were better teams day one. Inter, Lazio, and Fiorentina are arguably in the same level. Hence ,the best we can get is EL football.

I honestly hope we use this formation vs Torino:

---------------------Bacca-----------
----------------------Balo-------------
Anto-----Montolivo--------Kucka-------Bonaventura
-DES----Romagnoli--------------Zapata-------Abate
-----------------------Lopez-------------------

Since we lack quality midfielders, we should flood the midfield with hardworking players. Bona and Anto can provide width which we have been severely lacking in the past games. The main concern with this formation is the link between Kucka and Montolivo, I do not know if they can control the midfield.

BTW was insigne always this good or is enjoying one of those seasons

Pirloisjesus wrote:BTW was insigne always this good or is enjoying one of those seasons

He's getting better with consistent playing time and maturity.

•MilanDevil• wrote:I honestly hope we use this formation vs Torino:

---------------------Bacca-----------
----------------------Balo-------------
Anto-----Montolivo--------Kucka-------Bonaventura
-DES----Romagnoli--------------Zapata-------Abate
-----------------------Lopez-------------------

Since we lack quality midfielders, we should flood the midfield with hardworking players. Bona and Anto can provide width which we have been severely lacking in the past games. The main concern with this formation is the link between Kucka and Montolivo, I do not know if they can control the midfield.

Suicide formation IMO. We severely lack creative midfielders, this emphasis on hard work and not much else isn't going to get us anywhere when they can't string two forward passes together to save their lives. Also, anyone but Zapata.

Lord Spencer wrote:To be frank, it was delusional to think of the top 3 spots from the start. It was never going to happen, eve if we had the best coach in the worlds rolled into one super coach.

Simply put, Juve, Roma, and Napoli were better teams day one. Inter, Lazio, and Fiorentina are arguably in the same level. Hence ,the best we can get is EL football.

well , top 3 meaning 3rd place , nothing else. Even then , the chances were abysmal , obviously . Just going by our defence it was evident. But i would have liked to believe , maybe others would fail their season for a change

Anyway , i agree of course . At this point and for the team we have , add maybe some reinforcements in January , a europa league place would be right. Most of the season is still ahead of us of course , but it will take quite the change in Milan to make me even consider Milan can do better than 5th-6th . As things stand right now , i doubt we can finish 5th tbh , let alone doing better .

I doubt we can even achieve an EL spot tbh, Napoli, Fio, Inter, Juve and Roma have top 5 locked down imo

hmm , doesn't 6th place also lead to EL ? (not straight qualification of course)

anyway , fighting it out for 5th with Fiorentina and Lazio isn't out of this world . It should be something we can do . Don't know if we will manage it , but it's not out of our hands at least . Top 4 secured though , nothing more to say about this one.

If a team already secured CL wins the Coppa Italia then yes, 6th does get an EL spot

I'm just thinking of what player wants to come to this team (not former) in Jan considering our current condition

probably the same bunch we've already been getting every January

Palletas , Bochettis and the like (Mesbahs and Zaccardos before)

Lord Spencer wrote:To be frank, it was delusional to think of the top 3 spots from the start. It was never going to happen, eve if we had the best coach in the worlds rolled into one super coach.

Simply put, Juve, Roma, and Napoli were better teams day one. Inter, Lazio, and Fiorentina are arguably in the same level. Hence ,the best we can get is EL football.

Disagree. A massive amount of our problems are due to coaching. We all complain when we sign generic mid table Serie A players, but its people like Antonelli, Bertolacci, Bonaventura, etc who ran rings around us in their former teams under better coaches.

Our squad may be disappointing by the standards of what this club used to be, but its certainly better than the likes of Genoa's or Empoli's. Why do they dominate us year after year? Coaching.

Cruijf wrote:

Lord Spencer wrote:To be frank, it was delusional to think of the top 3 spots from the start. It was never going to happen, eve if we had the best coach in the worlds rolled into one super coach.

Simply put, Juve, Roma, and Napoli were better teams day one. Inter, Lazio, and Fiorentina are arguably in the same level. Hence ,the best we can get is EL football.

Disagree. A massive amount of our problems are due to coaching. We all complain when we sign generic mid table Serie A players, but its people like Antonelli, Bertolacci, Bonaventura, etc who ran rings around us in their former teams under better coaches.

Our squad may be disappointing by the standards of what this club used to be, but its certainly better than the likes of Genoa's or Empoli's. Why do they dominate us year after year? Coaching.

If those player's ran rings around us, it would be due to our players being poor. Also, I didn't say we were worse than those teams, but worse than Napoli, Juve, Roma, Inter, and maybe Fiorentina.

As for the actual coaching, the fact that we play with higher aspirations and fire our coaches at will will always result in poorer coaching. We cannot have consistency if we continue firing coaches.

Sinsia has proven himself at other clubs before. But he arrives to a squad that was coached by 3 different coaches in 2 years. Not only have the promising youngsters (MDS) stagnated, but everyone is apathetic and confused.

There should major signings imo mainly in creativity department. Also more time for Balo would also be gud option

I've finally had a chance to watch the game in full. I agree with Cruijf in saying that this game demonstrated the role coaching plays, however I don't say this to denigrate Sinisa. He's not a poor coach by any means, however it was very clear just why I wanted Sarri and what he brings - and in a very short amount of time as well.

If you evaluate the performance of our players against Napoli, no one had an outstandingly poor game, Zapata aside perhaps. They made mistakes, certainly, but for the most part we didn't lose due to individual underperformance. No one was especially good, of course, but this was simply a matter of a group of individuals stepping onto the pitch without a cohesive approach intended to either dominate or frustrate our opponents.

We can point at the squad and say it's poorly built and that we lack talent but I think that's taking the easy way out. The only player in our starting line up who wasn't an international was Ely. We had more players who are full internationals in our line up and on our bench than Napoli and this was while missing players through injury. This isn't simply a case of players not being recognised yet. Rewind two months and Jorginho was on the verge of leaving the club, dismissed as an overhyped youngster, Koulibaly was struggling to make the side as an error prone time bomb and Insigne was a flashy, profligate, inconsistent mini-Cerci who could only cut in and shoot. They've benefitted though from having a coach who teaches players, who improves them, who makes them relax and confident in executing their game plan.

This is not to say that Napoli are treble winners elect. They remain a vulnerable, evolving side who we troubled in the first half. We did not do poorly with the ball in the first half by any means and might well have drawn level had Bertolacci's cross not been slightly behind Adriano. It was obvious to anyone watching however that there was a difference between the sides. Napoli make their game look easy and we make every chance we create look like it was laboured and paid for in blood. Napoli had a clear plan on how they were going to build the play and we looked - as always, might I add - like we had no idea where we were going to pass next. Dani has a saying I like, that football is about putting players into a position where the decisions they make are as simple and easy as possible. When our players get the ball in midfield, they take a touch, then another, then they turn back to our centre backs, dribble laterally with the ball and hope something opens up so they can slide a ball forward or cut it back to a defender to start again.

Compare this with Napoli. Their midfielders are close to each other, they move it quickly, one touch or two touch football. If they're in trouble, there's always an option within 10 yards to release the ball to allowing a quick switch and restart. Players know where they're meant to move. For us though, it never seems particularly obvious what we're about to do. It took until injury time in the first half for De Sciglio to get into the final third and send a cross in. It took 65 minutes for us to actually push Napoli deep behind the ball and manage a few sustained attacks by ensuring that when the attack did break down, Napoli had to rush a clearance and we were pushed up to quickly gather the ball again. That was another telling difference, the ease with which each side regained possession. Sides that are very good on the ball put a lot of work into getting the ball back very soon after its lost. It's one of the features of our midfield play that we've lost. Back when we were a functional, CL level side with Allegri, we were nothing special in attack, but our midfield was hard to pass through for most Serie A sides when we pushed them back and if we couldn't win it back quickly, we at least slowed down the transition to allow us to get back into shape. Against Napoli, there were times when we genuinely tried to harass them and win it back. The way they kept the ball moving anyway was practically contemptuous.

Again, this is not a Napoli side of unparalleled talent. Against Lazio last year, when they actually beat them 1-0, Benitez had them essentially parked in their own half the entire game and breaking on the counter, unable to match Lazio in the middle of the park. Jorginho looked like he couldn't pick a creative pass to save his life and he was defensively lost. Now he's floating around, getting touches and facilitating play, because he is being taught to make it second nature on a daily basis. Allan had scored once in his entire Serie A career a couple of months ago and now he has three goals in six games. I'm not going to throw Sinisa under the bus for not turning us into an Italian Barcelona. He himself has many qualities and does not deserve to be the subject of speculation around his position already. It's ironic though that not only were we outplayed but outworked. Sarri plays beautiful football but he's also an iron fist who works his players hard than anyone else in the league. That's what lets Napoli make their play look effortless. After an hour, when we were looking tired and exhausted, they were still ready to run for a day. It's why they were still looking for goals at 4-0 while we were looking for the final whistle.

Montolivo was decent defensively and had a few nice moments on the ball but for the most part he took too many touches and the less said about his attempts to send scooped passes back into the box when our first set piece play had been cleared the better. He wasn't helped though by the fact that our side is set up to hide from the ball. De Sciglio barely got forward all game, while Antonelli was anonymous in attack until the second half. Zapata's passing would have been better explained had he put on a Napoli shirt and Ely did well for a kid but looked raw and lunged in poorly on Higuain to give away the freekick from which Insigne scored. Kucka and Bertolacci weren't poor on the ball but they were too uninvolved and are frankly too similar in nature if we're to persist with our current style. Bertolacci was also completely at sea when Allan got Napoli's first. With Antonelli attempting to push up there should have been some awareness on his part when we were caught on the transition but no one took responsibility. Bonaventura did well to link the play in the first half an hour in particular but when asked to play a deeper role in the second half with Cerci's introduction he practically hid on the flank. When Montolivo was getting the ball from our centre backs after we went to 4-3-3 the entire Napoli midfield was in between him and our two advanced centre midfielders. Also I must say I was disappointed with the way Jack lashed out and then later risked a second yellow for a needless shirt tug at 4-0. With the game over, the last thing you want is to needlessly suspend yourself and I was frankly shocked he remained on the pitch for what was a stupid, pointless foul. I'm glad he was affected by the result but it was unprofessional.

Our forwards really had nothing to work with. I can't defend such an anonymous showing but neither am I going to attack them for it. Despite the excellent job they've done in helping to construct play in the early part of the season, neither arrived with a reputation for being heavily involved in midfield and I'm not going to crucify them for not being Ibrahimovic. If we give them chances, they'll score. Our problems went far deeper than our front two today however. I could go into more detail about how there was no real tactical response to our troubles from the sidelines and that the substitutions were frankly pointless, but I've no real desire to relive it any longer.

For all this pessimism however, I will say one thing. We should not in any way judge our season or our squad by this game. There is no other team in the league which we will struggle with as much as Napoli. We're a side who rely heavily on maintaining control of the ball, something that Napoli do much better than us. Forced to fight for scraps we were always going to struggle. Without our best defender and without pace or width in the side, we were vulnerable from the beginning and lacked any weapon that would particuarly unsettle Napoli. It's an unacceptable performance and result, but it was on the cards. It does not however reflect on our chances this season.

Plenty of sides are going to get whalloped by Napoli this year. Hell, we did better than Lazio. The most important thing is how we match up against the competition in general. There is no reason we can't do well against most sides. There are a few more sides who will take the ball away from us, such as Roma and Juventus, but not so completely and neither will they so easily create chances. This game hurt but frankly not as much as the loss against Genoa. That is the type of game we need to win if we're to get back into Europe, the tight ones against mid table sides, the games our direct competition will not drop points in. I don't think we can match Napoli, Roma and Juventus, but the rest, we should be speaking of challenging. Not necessarily uprooting at the end of the day, but if we can keep pace, the lottery of injuries, suspensions and other unpredictable factors may smile upon us. I'd be happy to simply get back into the Europa League, we need to defend our club's European co-efficient. The other sides might have started better than we have, but there's no reason why we can't keep pace. Sure, we have holes in the squad, but do you really think the other squads don't? Even the top sides do, let alone those in the second tier. What they do is play to their strengths and cover their weaknesses with teamwork. It's about time this squad became a team again.

P.S. With regards to some sort of panic button formation, I certainly do not condone the 4-4-2. Antonelli should certainly never be used as an actual winger. Being able to overlap and choose the time to burst forward is crucial to a fullback, when placed with the responsibility of being the advanced player, they almost always fail, there are only a handful of fullbacks who can do it, most of the time because they are wingers who were put back because of their work rate. Bonaventura as well doesn't really have the physical gifts to be a great wide player, nor does he like playing on the right hand side.

If we were to abandon our current plans for the sake of grinding out some results, I would suggest the 3-5-2. I would add that I despite this formation and don't want to play it, however it eliminates the 10 role, which is a major issue for us, and obscures our lack of quality advanced wide players. Floods the centre, gives us numbers at the back, lets us still put two forwards up front and then you simply break down the opposition through sheer bloodymindedness, Conte style.

As I said before though, I don't condone the idea, it's merely a thought.

Fantastic summary Dost, i always look forward to hearing your input

What did we expect? When we let players such as Muntari, Essien and co leave the club, it's obvious we'll struggle to replace them

jk

I don't know what to expect from this team anymore. In a couple of games we show some cohesion and improvements in every aspect that makes you hope, just to later have it all crumble to pieces and have one of the worst defeats. Even though its a bit kneejerky to say we won't do good this season after this game, i feel like you're bit optimistic Dost (i like optimism) tbh, you are 100% correct that we whould pick points against the Genoas, Chievos etc. But if you look at Empoli, where LA and Bacca single handedly got us the win and Udinese, where we completely lost the plot in the 2nd half (granted, if Calabria was still on it would've been different) it makes me far more cautious. We face Torino away in 2 weeks, does anyone expect us to comfortably win that? I personally doubt it tbh. Also, i like what you said about the 3-5-3, and i agree, we might as well play the numbers game in midfield since we don't have one, just collapse on teams with the numbers and see how it goes.

Agree with everything you said about the match Dost, I don't know about a 3-5-2 though. Keep in mind we're playing with a 4-3-1-2 now, which is similar in that you sacrifice wingers for greater numbers in midfield. The only difference is that we'd swap a trequartista for an extra center back, which is more trouble than it's worth IMO. We've had trouble forming a cohesive partnership with a back 4, I highly doubt our defensive organization (which is already our biggest weakness) would benefit from such a drastic change in shape.

I'm certainly not optimistic about facing Torino, in fact they worry me immensely. It's a reflection of our state though that we do fear them. I'm not suggesting they're not a good team but we've lost all sense of striking fear into our opposition. Why can't we beat them though? Quagliarella, Lopez, Belotti and Martinez are decent strikers but they're not the sort we can make excuses about. We've held clean sheets with the likes of Bonera and Antonini against Messi and Neymar, why do we lack the organisation to keep Torino out? Why can we not impose ourselves in midfield against Baselli and Benassi? Results won't always reflect our play but we should be at the very least dominating the majority of our matches. If we look to dominate sides, the results will come.

Also for the record, I don't actually like the 3-5-2 and I don't think we should switch to it, however if we were to try something new, I think there's plenty to be said for it. It's a drastic change though without much time to train.