AC Milan’s adventure in the Supercoppa Italiana came to an end immediately as Napoli prevailed 2-0 in the semi-final. It was a dire game in many ways and below are the player ratings for the Rossoneri.
If you haven’t already, make sure to check out how we decide the player ratings. From the scale to what affects the rating, we have compiled everything there.
Starting XI
Maignan (5): He definitely should have done better on the first goal, as you can’t steer it into the path of the striker like that. We got to see some good saves after that, but on the second goal, he didn’t do enough for me either. The angle was super tight for Hojlund and the keeper was so close to the ball. He nearly gifted a goal too in the first half on a corner.
Tomori (6): I actually don’t think he was bad in his defensive duties tonight, and he continued to push up in attack to offer support as we have seen so many times in recent games. For me, he did enough to get a 6 here.
De Winter (4): It certainly wasn’t a good evening from him. He had to do a lot better on the first goal, losing the duel with Hojlund just like against Pinamonti at the weekend. Then, on the second goal, it was just really bad defending against the Danish striker again. Not to mention that he was poor in possession. Milan desperately need a better centre-back in January.
Pavlovic (6.5): We saw some very good defending from the Serbian tonight with several last-ditch clearances/interceptions, especially on one counter-attack he stopped brilliantly. The deflection meant he could do nothing about the first goal either.
Saelemaekers (5.5) He had some good initiatives, including a few passes towards the penalty box, but he simply had to do better on that counter-attack in the first half. He did everything right with the run but the pass was behind Nkunku, and you could also argue he should’ve passed towards Pulisic instead.
Loftus-Cheek (5.5): This is a tough one because at the end of the day, he uses his size well and often gets into the box to offer an aerial threat. On the other hand, it’s all very predictable when he’s on the ball, and he didn’t really have huge success in the box either tonight.
Jashari (5): Truth be told, it was a very quiet night for the Swiss international. Yes, he had the ball quite a lot by virtue of his position, but 90% of the time he just played easy passes. He looked a bit unpolished in possession too, and aside from two good passes over the top for Estupinan, he didn’t stand out at all.
Rabiot (5.5): I never thought I would say this about him, because it’s usually what we like to see, but he was a bit too rash and aggressive tonight. It feels like the brawls on the pitch affected his mood a little and affected his performance negatively.
Estupinan (6): There wasn’t a whole lot to complain about here, as he showcased some good defending (especially in an early duel with Politano) and crossing. His delivery actually helped the Rossoneri create some decent half-chances.
Nkunku (5): He worked hard, I get it, but he’s simply not a target striker. In his hold-up play, he was nowhere near bold enough as he often continued for too long with his back against the wall. Then, he also missed that big chance on the counter-attack. Yes, the pass from Saelemaekers was poor, but he can still do better.
Pulisic (5.5): Aside from the very good pass to start the aforementioned counter-attack, we didn’t really see much of him at all. We shouldn’t put everything on his shoulders, of course, but a player of his quality needs to show himself a bit more in games like these. He can do better, we all know it.
Substitutes
Athekame (5.5): There’s potential there, but it really wasn’t a good game to enter at that stage. Napoli sat back so deep his pace didn’t really matter. Instead, we got to see some poor passing.
Fofana (6): It might sound crazy, but given many of his teammates struggled big time, he actually didn’t do terribly during his time on the pitch. He dared to drive forward with the ball at least.
Modric (N/A): I didn’t see enough to give him a rating.
The manager
Allegri (5.5): What can he really do? The goals were mostly down to individual errors, let’s be honest, and it’s not like he could have opted not to start De Winter. Besides, there was no attacking power on the bench. Taking Saelemaekers off can be questioned for the sake of the game, hence the rating, even if it was good to give him some rest.
Shari & De Inter are not up to standard thus far…
One can’t beat Conte twice in a season. lol
Transfermarkt today posted an article about how well Thiaw is playing at Newcastle. It seems that he is one the best CBs in the EPL, so Tare made a bad deal.
I read that he was sold because Allegri didn’t like his attitude. Still it would be nice to have him.
Allegri wanted to keep Thiaw and Thiaw also said that he was in the plans of the coach but needed a new experience.
I think the player Allegri didn’t like in regard of attitude was jimenez who is now in epl.
That’s Jiménez.
Thiaw was the one who wanted to leave. But I agree, it would have been nice to have him.
i still remember whem Allegri refused to renew Pirlo contract and use him when he was at Juve, Tomori is a defender who afraid to play with ball and run away against attacker
Where are Newcastle in the league…..?…..
Milan will beat Conte twice this season, just not in a cup match.
They’ll also beat Chivu twice this season.
The lineup that Allegri put out today clearly indicated that he wasn’t serious about competing, just testing out players who haven’t gotten to play much.
It’s not that. It’s because there wasn’t anybody else available. Gabbia was injured, Bartesaghi had a muscle discomfort, Modric was exhausted, Rafa is injured, who exactly did you want Allegri to call up? Our roster is too short and it’s not the coach’s fault. It’s the managers’ who trimmed the roster too much.
Newcastle are 12th. Thiaw is better suited to the EPL, but he hasn’t suddenly become world class, Gabbia and Pavlovic are significantly better.
From Gabbia’s early games, you could see his technique and confidence. It always baffled me when he gets overlooked the past 2 seasons. He always looked like one for the long term.
Try to bring Thiaw back and you’ll see the guy that played last season without confidence and making errors. At the time of the decision to let Thiaw go, it was the appropriate decision. The environment changed for him, and he plays better. Good for him. No regrets letting him go
maybe we should signed rasmus hojlund lol . also fofana really is the key to the mifleid , if he fixes the heavy first touch. i think this performaces wasnt bad only de winter and maignan.
Hojlund said no to Milan, not the other way around.
Milan didn’t have UCL, like Napoli did.
That was the deciding factor.
He wanted guarantee, permanent move or at least loan with obligation to buy if certain treshold is met, Furlani did not want to give him that and opt for permanent move for Nkuku instead. What a joke Furlani is!
Estupinan 6???? He gives us nothing, he doesnt dare to do anything.
Had some good defensive moves and put in some good crosses into the box that nobody got their bodies to.
Keep slatting him, but he’s the backup rotation option for us. It’d be better if you actually supported him instead.
Yes, Estupiñan is a half-decent backup for Bartesaghi who is undoubtedly the best player in that position, but it’s not like Estupiñan is horrible like De Winter. Gabbia doesn’t have a half-decent backup but Bartesaghi does.
Because Estupinan is good enough, Bartesaghi is the backup CB at this point. I suspect he will be quite good on the left. I worry about Pavlovich in the middle in that scenario.
Ahhahahahahaaha. Yes give him love and support!!! Beta!!
That is the replacement of Theo what a joke
More than a CF Milan need a CB
I disagree, Santi doesn’t score but he open up space and compliments all 3 of our current ST
Nkunku has to go already. He provides NOTHING. De Winter was very disappointing Rasmus is a big guy and he absolutely bodied De Winter. I guess bring in Fullkrug and Silva this winter mercato. It cannot hurt and it is absolutely necessary. But they (Furlani/RedBird) won’t they’ll think of some clever alternative that isn’t clever at all. We’ll qualify for champions league and waste an actual opportunity we have to challenge the Scudetto.
With our very short roster, I don’t even know if we will make the top four for the Champions League. This game showed that it’s enough to have a couple of additional essential players injured (in this case, Gabbia and Bartesaghi) and we completely fall apart. The championship has 38 games; I’m afraid we can’t compete if we don’t have a deeper roster. We have competed thus far, but we can also see that we’re slowly declining.
???
Panic much?
So Milan have cut short their sportswashing of a brutal regime that murders people including journalists.
Milan had no business being in the ‘competition’ anyway. They didn’t win the Scudetto or Coppa Italia last season.
The game is already over-saturated without adding more games to cover up crimes against humanity.
The whole thing is a disgrace and I’m glad they’re out and can concentrate on an actual competition.
For once I agree with you
I sorta hoped Pavlovic would have mauled McTominay. I miss the old days when a football brawl was an actual mass brawl. Nowadays not many players looks to scary but I do believe that the Serb might actually be able to do some serious damage if he wants to.
Either way maybe not a huge surprise that we lost but nevertheless disappointing.
Lol yeah a brawl would’ve livened it up a bit!
Agree and it certainly would have lightened up my mood to some extent.
Dude needs a neck tattoo before he goes John Wick or Sergio Ramos on someone.
Nah not really I’m talking about fisticuffs. Ramos might play dirty but could he take a real fight against someone. Not many footballer scares me. I could name some but nowadays footballers are softies. Vinnie Jones probably wouldnt be the best fight to take up. In our team I think Pavlovic is probably the most brute force type of fella. Maignan has some kick boxing skills as well so he would probably be a tough not to crack as well.
Roy Keane…
Keane certainly also could qualify as a football hardman.
We know him well enough now, Pavlovic is like the typical scary looking Russian guy in a US movie, who is like a teddy bear inside.
But yesterday several Napoli players deserved a spanking with their attitude on the field and McTominay should be very appreciative he was not taken out of the field with either a second yellow or punch in the face. Neres in slavic languages means a male pig – I guess just a coincidence.
The ref was not helpful at all as he missed to show a lot of yellows on both sides in the first half and this just raised the tention in a low profile game..
The ref definitely allowed Napoli to do far to rough tackles and it looked like they were trying to injure our players and just walked around afterwards laughing so yes several of their players deserved cards or even red ones. 😀 To be fair a lot of napolis players behaved as pigs yesterday also the main reason why I wanted them either injured or beaten up.
They played well for the first 40 minutes but after the Napoli goal they lost focus, lost their cool, and fell apart.
Its infuriating to watch Milan pin a team back, even though they don’t have a true striker in there they still have tall physical players like RLC, Rabiot, Pavlovic, and instead of crossing the ball in the box they just pass it to each other around the box. Just send a damn cross, a lot can happen.
Pulisic probably covered the most ground in todays game but he barely touched the ball.
I didn’t like Jashari today. Outside of couple forward passes everything was sideways and backward.
Estupiñán had a good game even though prior to the game i wasn’t in favor of him sharing over Bartesaghi.
Rabiot hasn’t been the same since he returned from injury.
Sign Thiago Silva and let de winter and Gabbia watch him play.
Defensively they have lost their compactness and solidity. 6 goals conceded in last 3 games.
Maignan was terrible and he is lucky not to get a red card for that swing at Politano’s head.
Kudos to Hojlund. He has inproved his back to the goal game tremendously since he has been at Napoli. He was nothing more than run in space striker at Atalanta and ManUtd. Great game by him. He bullied Milan’s defense and goalkeeper today.
Now they literally have only 1 competition left.
Good note on Rabiot, he is no longer that force of nature of september and october.
Although Modrić, who helped him and us a lot, is also on the decline.
Of what use is covering grounds and nothing to show for it? We know his limit, right place at right time ain’t cutting it anymore…guess he ran out of luck
Haha you can’t help but be angry that Pulisic is Milan’s best player so have to have throw shade after he has one bad game. Kudos!
Nkunku too bad
De winter too bad
Jashari too bad
Estupinan too bad
To be replaced by
A proper striker (target man)
Thiago Silva
Modric (hopefully Sandro Tonali some day)
Barthesaghi
That’s four players that arrived a few short months ago.
And your solution is to sign more players who you will no doubt be calling to replace in a few short months.
Jashari played well in my opinion.
We definitely need a striker to be the focal point. The game against Fiorentina showed how much of an importance a target man is to unlock this attack. Or change formation
Story of Milan is you buy cheap, you buy twice. Thing is Nkunku and De Winter aren’t cheap. Stop buying Chelsea’s rejects. Pulisic was great, he wasn’t playing much after injury in Chelsea. But the rest aren’t even bench warmers- like Tomori, RLC, Nkunku.
I sort of regret passing on Rasmus Højlund just to get Christoher Nkunku…
I thought the advantage of De Winter is that he is experienced and knows serie A, well I guess there is a reason Juventus prefered to loan him all the time when Allegri was the coach. Perhaps we should momentarely switch to a back 4 with Athekame as a right back.
We used to be impenetrable defensively, now every time a team switch things up, we can’t stop a goal.
Needless to say, if we don’t reinforce the team this winter with 1 or 2 strikers and a defender, our chances for a scudetto (and perhaps even a 4th place) will seriously be put in jeopardy.
How about we don’t write off more players because they failed to impress some Saudi sheiks?
Nkunku hasn’t impressed anyone. Neither has De winter. I’m fine if they are backups and build some form eventually but Milan can’t rely on them as starters.
Milan don’t rely on them as starters…
They’re back up but the starters are injured.
Now clearly the idea of a back up is they will play sometimes.
And also they’re likely to be not the same standard as the starters a) because they’re back up not starters; and b) because they’ve got less match practice (being back ups).
So I’m not really sure what the solution is.
You want Milan to go out and find someone who is not a starter who can sit on the bench and be instantly amazing the minute they get minutes?
Or you want someone who is a starter which would mean dropping a starter.
Perhaps the solution is to understand why the started are getting injured. In particular Leao and Pulisic have not been able to get established as a partnership this season as they keep getting injured.
If they can’t stay fit then THAT is an issue. Hopefully they can in the second half.
Signing a new striker now would further disrupt the Leao and Pulisic partnership before it’s even had a chance to get going.
“Perhaps the solution is to understand why the started are getting injured. ”
Yes! Sense!
Last year the Portuguese Pair had all sorta of injury issues.
The precious year the defense was decimated under Pioli.
Why?
Method.
Redbird should be looking at this systemic issue more than marketing in AUS.
A Scudetto will bring far more eyeballs than a game on the other side of the world
Nkunku is the new Lionel Messi.
De Winter is soon to be the new Marcel Desailly.
You’re happy now ?
Yeah! Don’t write them off guys. We need to give them love and say its OK to be a total waste of space and detriment to the team and make millions per year to do it. Yeah let’s just pretend it’s all roses and butterflies and nkunku is good….
Stop feeling bad for these loser players, they don’t belong here.
How can u play useless nkunku,RLC and dewinter,then ice it with A-stupid-man estupinian as starter and you expect to win that match
There was no option not to play all of those players (except RLC) due to injuries. Literally no options for this game except in midfield and RWB.
Only way to not play Nkunku was for RLC to play as a striker instead or play a youth team striker.
There were no other CBs only Odogu. Also mostly a Futuro player.
And Bartesaghi has a slight muscle issue it was announced before kick off.
The cupboard is bare.
Each passing week, I’m starting to believe in the Top 4 rather than the scudetto
If, big if, we make the top 4, I’ll be happy. With this thin roster, can’t you see we’ve been declining? The good start to the season won’t continue when we have no deputies that worthy it, and we miss essential starters to injury. That will continue to happen until we likely drop below 4th place.
Group of disabled players….😂
Questions:
Why is Pulisic not taking our corners anymore?
We scored on several corners that he took last season and he even scored one himself. Now our corners never look threatening.
Why on earth was Nkunku taking all of our free kicks in this game? Terrible. Who is making these decisions?
Why are trying to outlet balls over the top for Nkunku? He is small and has no chance of winning them. If that is our strategy better to put RLC up there who can actually win them.
When can we get rid of this dinosaur of a coach and bring in a forward thinking coach. This game was brutal to watch. 2 old school Italian coaches afraid to do anything. Conte out-Allegried Allegri. 10 men behind the ball. Actually made Allegri look like the more attack minded coach. This is not good football. Even when Milan win the games are boring to watch, but to have to watch this style of football and lose is brutal. Win the Scudetto or not I don’t want to see Allegri back next year.
We are not winning the scudetto. ACM eked out several wins and people starting thinking this team was better than it really is. I know people replied to me that we were winning, but eventually playing like crap catches up with you. This team has no offensive strategy. This was like my son’s 6th grade team playing basically kick ball. Kick it long and hope someone makes a great play.
Napoli won the scudetto last season playing the same way. They play the same way this season. The only deference is their striker created something out of nothing in this game.
Are you enjoying Allegri ball yet? Regarding Pulisic, why is he not touching the ball much? Because he doesn’t fit Allegri’s system. Allegri has neutralized one of AC Milan’s offensive threats.
No player has looked better than Pulisic in Allegri’s system. He just needs an actual striker to play of off. Allegri doesn’t have the striker that he needs for his system to work.
I disagree. He has not fit into Allegri’s offensive system as there doesn’t seem to be one. Yes, he has scored, but many of these goals were from individual effort and not a system. Pulisic is rarely on the ball as he is not being positioned to receive the ball between the lines. When he does, there is no one hit with a pass.
It appears De winter is just not good enough. Same goes with Nkunku. Why was he taking spot kicks and corners?? The whole team looked bad. Pav was probably the best of the bunch.
It’s been a few months…..
True but how long does it take to say that a player might not be up to Milan’s standards? Nkunku has played a good amount and really hasn’t shown much of anything. Plus why was he taking corners and spot kicks?
The Game
Milan started well, organized and propositive, also maintaining possession, but progressively we got worse and worse. De Winter pretty much gifted two goals to Napoli, leaving big space gaps (unlike Gabbia’s exquisite positioning), chased around opponents by just accompanying them, and was utterly ineffective as a defender. Pretty much I think we might not have lost if Gabbia were playing; he might have stopped both attacks that resulted in goals for Napoli. Surprisingly, Pulisic was almost invisible and almost never inside the box; I may have missed other occasions but I think I first saw him way into the box at minute 80. Nkunku as usual was terrible; we seemed to play with a 3-5-1-1 with only Nkunku up front, and if you rely on Nkunku to score goals, you’ll lose. The whole thing was made worse by Maignan failing in both their goals. Several other players tried hard but with the goalkeeper failing, a centerback leaving the opponents free to shoot, and no one up front able to score, there is no way we will be beating a good team like Napoli. Oh well, with this short roster and injured/tired players, and such a huge gap between starters and subs (like Gabbia is years-light ahead of De Winter, and Nkunku years-light behind Rafa), one fears that we won’t get too far, despite being only 1 point behind the leaders in Serie A. This short roster means that any tiny short-staffing, like Gabbia being injured, and Bartesaghi according to Allegri also suffering a slight muscle discomfort, will doom us. The managers need to seriously do something about the roster in January, but I actually don’t think it will happen, so despite a good start to the season, I’m fearful about what will come next. We seem utterly unprepared for a long championship, despite playing only once a week. And mind you, Napoli actually didn’t have such a good game; we just made it easy for them.We will NOT succeed, not even be in the top 4, if we continue to be this thin up front (and we definitely also need another centerback who can play). Just look at this game: we couldn’t score against a Napoli that actually didn’t have a great game.
The Players
Maignan – failed in both their goals. Made two good saves but that’s not enough to rescue his rating. 5.
De Winter – a disaster, a nightmare. In great part responsible for both their goals despite other players also failing (notably Maignan in both goals, Nkunku losing the ball in their first goal, Pavlovic also failing to clear it in their first goal; their second goal was pretty much mostly on De Winter and Maignan). Last time I commented that De Winter doesn’t seem to me to be a Milan-level player, people here chewed me up because he is young and has been with us for ony 5 months. But tonight I again stand by my assessment: he is just not a good player and I doubt that he will improve. Hopefully I’ll be proven young especially because he is young, but actually I don’t think I will. Not all young players have potential. Some are just bad and will never grow. I think I’m just right about it; we tend to lose or draw when De Winter is playing. Score: 2.
Tomori – the best defender tonight. He was angry and hotheaded as he often is but he was actually the only one of the three centerbacks who had more positives than negatives tonight and deserves a bit more than just a pass. 6.5
Pavlovic – tried hard but also failed in their first goal (although he was the least responsible one, in this collective failure) which lowers his score. However, he also did help the offense somewhat, which raises his score. All in all, I will grant him a pass. 6.
Estupiñan – no huge errors and he did stop some of Napoli’s attacks; still, we sorely missed Bartesaghi’s creativity, dynamism, and great crosses. Again, there is a huge gap between Bartesaghi who took full control of the starting position of LWB, and the player who is now his deputy, Estupiñan. Still, the latter deserves a pass. 6.
Saelemaekers – as usual, enormous effort, however, this was one of his least effective games. I think he is suffering from being pretty much the only player who doesn’t really have any deputy so he’s been started game after game, and it means that he will be fatigued therefore less precise. He is already not a great finisher and today the Saudi government is formally protesting the fact that Alexis took down one of their GPS satellites when he tried a shot. Still, a couple of good passes and lots of effort, encourages me to give him a pass. Sure, we can say that he should have passed to Puli rather than Nkunku but maybe he just experiences pity and wants Nkunku to succeed while Puli needs no help (despite having had an atypical off game tonight, we all know Puli’s high quality). 6.
Jashari – I completely disagree with Isak here. I thought he was our best player tonight. He was solid and for a long time when I was counting and paying attention, he completed accurately 100% of his passes, including two very good vertical ones; he wasn’t just passing horizontally. At one point I stopped paying attention but at least I don’t recall any major failure. I wasn’t really missing Modric that much as Jashari seemed to be able to organize the midfield and to be accurate. I think he is a very good player who had bad luck in the first part of this season, first being a little shy in a new environment, and then suffering a horrific injury. However he is now clearly getting into good form and it was refreshing to see him playing tonight. 7.5
Ruben Loftus-Cheek – I disagree with Isak again; I thought that RLC also did rather well. Tried hard, almost scored if not for Milinkovic-Savic’s reflex stop, and had several good moments; second-best Milan player tonight. 7
Rabiot – seemed angry and frustrated, could have been expelled, collected a deserved yellow. Tried hard but was way less effective than his usual. 5.5.
Pulisic – atypically invisible despite having had the highest total of kilometers; seemed to be playing too low and almost never inside the box. This may have been Allegri’s fault rather than Puli’s, but the reality is that he did very little tonight, regardless of the cause. It is very rare for me to rate Puli low, but tonight I can’t help it. 5.
Nkunku – as in most games, did nothing helpful. Attempted a good shot but sent it high; as much as this was his only positive action of the game, he still shot off-target. Received an excellent pass but as usual had his back to the goal and did nothing with it. Lost the ball leading to their first goal. I am now utterly convinced that Nkunku is a bust and should be sold in January. There is no point in continuing to have this guy in our roster. He really does look like Origi 2.0 especially in view of the huge transfer fee we paid for him, and his high salary. He’s just not worth it and we should cut our losses and get rid of him, and use whatever we can get from his sale (if only some silly club got willing to buy him) to try again to get a decent striker, especially now that Santi has just had surgery and will be out for weeks or months (his injury might explain several of Santi’s bad performances when playing with chronic pain and an ankle issue, which can affect first touch control and shooting accuracy; unlike Tare and Furlani, I think Santi is way better than Nkunku and might still shine for us once he is fully healthy).
Subs
Modric – limited minutes, was unable to make the team improve and didn’t do anything better than Jashari. Again, nothing bad, so, a pass. 6.
Athekame – limited minutes, but the defense did improve slightly with this sub; I suspect that more because we took out a detrimental player (De Winter) than because of any merit from Athekame; his biggest asset tonight was the fact that his name is not De Winter. Nothing wrong with what he did, so, I’ll grant him a pass. 6.
Fofana – ineffective. 5.5
Mister Allegri – have you all noticed that in my thoughts, the word I used the most was “ineffective”? I feel like this time Allegri didn’t really come up with tactical solutions that could have changed this game. Lineup-wise it was limited what he could do, with Modric exhausted, Bartesaghi slightly banged up, Rafa injured, Gabbia injured, Santi having surgery, and Pulisic having an atypical off game. Still, why didn’t Allegri encourage Puli to be more present inside the box? Why didn’t he yank out the horrible De Winter earlier? This time, I have to grant to the Mister less than a pass. I won’t bring him too much down because again, like I’ve been saying, I believe that the fault is primarily the managers’ who trimmed the roster too much and we’re left with a very thin roster without depth. We are, well, ineffective if we are not complete, and if we have a few key players missing while the subs for them are miles behind their skills, we are doomed. It’s hard for a coach to be effective when we lack essential personnel among the players. So I’ll lower the Mister’s score by just half a point: 5.5.
The managers, though, might deserve a 2. Not a zero because signing Rabiot and Modric were positive moves, and it is starting to seem like signing Jashari was also a good move, but we drop points and even lose games because we are criminally short in the offense and the centerback sectors (not great at RWB either as poor Alexis is being ran into the ground, like happened to Theo on the other side of the field; now almost by miracle we got a good guy there on the left, Bartesaghi, but it’s sufficient for him to be out and the team is less good, and while Bartesaghi does have a half-decent deputy in Estupiñan (much less good than Davide but at least half-decent), Alexis doesn’t have a half-decent deputy (Athekame is not it). Gabbia, Tomori and Pavlovic have no deputy whatsoever because calling De Winter and Odogu their deputies gotta be a joke! So the Mister is defensive-minded but our defense is so shallow that it’s enough to have one centerback out and things fall apart.
Oh, I forgot to highlight that horrible ball that Mike dropped on a corner, that by miracle wasn’t a score for Napoli.
After several good performances, Maignan was pretty much a disaster tonight.
You forgot to give Nkunku a rating. I’m guessing it’s a 2 or a 3. Was he better than De Winter?
I agree on Jashari, for me as well he was the best player tonight. In the midfield it is all about accuracy of the passes and consistancy, your evaluation is spot on.
As for all this negativity, I did not expect us to win this anyways, our focus is on Serie A, where we are doing fenomenal last time I checked. After all this is football.
Maybe the scales are falling, the team balance is off by Miles now, the ball progression is too slow and very predictable. Thses players seem to not understand what’s going on around them and it’s painful cus they are professionals.
Maybe people won’t agree but everyone could see Dewinter struggling with Hojlund, one would expect Tomori to assist and double up to mark Hojlund when play switches but Tomori was usually miles away each time.
The whole play was just lacking a team play.
I pity Nkunkun cus with the way this team transition, there’s not much Nkunkun can deliver or any sanding striker for that matter. The flow from defense to attack is so slow and lacking numbers.
A lot Alegri has to fix, from setup to mindset switch, to effective use of players.
Allegri can’t fix anything if he doesn’t have the players. We had to fill the bench with Futuro players tonight. It’s enough for one position-aware, solid centerback like Gabbia to be injured, and we fall apart because De Winter is ten light-years worse than Gabbia. But what could Allegri have done? He simply lacks a quality centerback to back up Tomori, Gabbia, and Pavlovic. De Winter? Not him, obviously; horrible player. Odogu? Young and inexperienced, more a Futuro player. The managers got rid of Kalulu and Thiaw who were both decent options there. We got Emerson Royal in place of Kalulu (oh God, so thankful he is gone, now) and De Winter in place of Thiaw. How is that Allegri’s fault? Sure, Thiaw asked to leave, but maybe he wouldn’t have left if the managers had tempted him with some contract upgrade. And Kalulu for Emerson Royal qualifies as one of the most stupid decisions ever, given that they both cost about the same – 14 M to sell Kalulu, 15 M to buy Royal.
It’s true. Milan has 3 quality defenders and that’s it. Should be the first thing addressed in January. Also I’d start RLC as the second striker next to Puli until Leao gets back. Nkunku, at least in this system, is horrible.
These are two things, you are taking of personnel problems. What we are having is a system problem, if the system is solid the personnel would be able to work the system.
We have a non functional system right now so we have to rely on individuals brilliance to win games, individual brilliance fades with time and people get injured, without a system we continue to look for only Messi and Tiago Silva to sign to solve out problem.
But I actually don’t think that we have a system problem. When complete, with our best players able to be available, this system has worked. Better proof, we were competitive against all the big clubs; could have beaten Juve if not for an atypically missed PK by Puli (very rare for him to miss); beat Napoli, beat Inter, etc. With a complete set of starters, 3-5-2 has worked well and we shut down opponents, had several clean sheets, were first in Serie A for a number of weeks, and currently we’re second only 1 point behind the leaders.
What is also true is that this system falls apart whenever we miss some essential players due to injury, suspension, or extreme fatigue. So, that’s the classical situation of a good squad as far as the starters are concerned, but has no depth, and has too short a roster to deal with injury crises.
My concern is that despite doing well in Serie A, this won’t continue because players will continue to get injured and fatigued. A short roster means shorter rotation and less ability to rest players from game to game or inside the same game. Which then means more injuries, and the bad situation escalates. We started strong (except for the first game, haha) because at season beginning the players were available. But then we have started to steadily decline because the good players are sequentially getting injured or over-tired.
So, is it the system, or is it the roster? Maybe one could say that it is both. I however believe that the roster is the much predominant problem. With a complete team and all starters, we had moments earlier in the season when we were devastating for the opposition, shutting down their offense, counterattacking well, and scoring decisive goals that earned us points, even though most victories were by narrow scores. I actually don’t care if we win games by only 1-0 or 2-1. Narrow victories count for 3 points just like 5-0 victories. And this, especially now that in Serie A there is no tie breaker any longer related to goal differential or number of victories. If two teams finish tied in points for an essential position, like winning the league or making top 4, the rules now are that the two tied teams will play an extra game to decide the tie breaker. So, again, winning 1-0 or 8-0 means nothing different; they both earn us 3 points. So I don’t resent Allegri for his narrow wins. The important thing is to win, regardless of the score.
So to you, this system is working perfectly cos we won some big teams ?????
Jeez The lengths yall go to defend Allegri blows my mind.
So if the way you judge a working system is because we won some big teams, then Conceicao’s system works wonders. Since he also won big teams last season. Lmao.
Very interesting take right there. Smh.
Maybe one day this forum will actually get something right…almost no one wanted Milan to sign Hojlund!! But I must say, I was wrong too…I actually predicted he will score 2!
It’s almost like football is unpredictable, finding the right conditions for players to perform is like finding the right conditions for life in the universe, and nobody knows what they’re talking about….
Why would Athekame get a 6 and Fofana a 5.5? What did Fofana do wrong? He actually had a nice header on goal which was one of the only real chances we had tonight. Judging on a curve again I see.
And we get it , you like the Italian boy Bartesaghi… You can just give Estupian his rating without every time you mention his name you have to throw in ( Bartesaghi is so much better). Your biases are clear. We have 2 good players in that position, you don’t have to put down one because you like the other one. If you are going to leave your ratings here don’t be a fanboy for certain players.
MK, you notice this ‘journalist’s’ biases too?
Yes, but I was talking about Luigi who always feels the need to leave his own ratings here, making excuses for his favorite players while judging others by different standards.
Drop the silly fanboy accusation. If you had been paying attention, you’d know that for a long time I thought that Estupiñan should be the starter as he was the more experienced player and Bartesaghi was still learning. But then, Bartesaghi did blossom nicely and he was even called up to the Azzurri. He has had some phenomenal performances, MOTM stuff, and was making us forget Theo Hernandez’s runs to support the offense.
Will you call Allegri a fanboy too? Because he’s been starting Bartesaghi over Estupiñan. Is Gattuso a fanboy too?
Still, while some here make the distasteful joke of playing on Estupiñan’s name calling him stupid, I always said he is at least a half-decent backup, and I said he did stop some Napoli attacks. However, he is NOT as creative and dynamic as Bartesaghi is, and he doesn’t deliver the pinpoint accurate crosses that Bartesaghi can do. A few crosses by Estupiñan are good, but Bartesaghi is the other way around: a few crosses by him are bad; most are very good.
If you can’t see Bartesaghi’s qualities, while people way smarter than you like Allegri and Gattuso can, then you don’t deserve to call anybody a “fanboy.”
As for the jab at my “need to leave my own ratings here”, this thread is called literally “Player ratings” so why in the hell I wouldn’t contribute to it with my own player ratings? You don’t want or like to rate players, then don’t, but stop trying to censor others for posting ratings in… drum beat… a thread that is called Player Ratings. Duh!
You may think that because I’m Italian, I’m a Bartesaghi “fanboy.” Far from it. I’ve said MULTIPLE times that in club football, I couldn’t care less for a player’s nationality. I want Milan to have the best players we can afford (and yes, we can’t afford much like EPL teams can) regardless of their nationality. My favorite Milan player is one Christian Pulisic (whose number and name are on my Milan jersey) and he is American. The closest player you might call me a “fanboy” for (although I’m very far from being a boy) would be Puli. Still, I rated him a 5, today. When players I like very much underperform, I rate them low. But Bartesaghi has been deserving high ratings (just like Puli who had an atypical off game but we all know of his consistent quality).
Again you are giving yourself away. On and on about Bartesaghi when I didn’t say a bad word about him. I said we have two good players at that position, but settle down about a few good games. The same people who want to make him out to be the next Maldini, just like Tonali was the next Pirlo because they shared the same hairstyle. Italians always have to overrate their own. Bartesaghi has been good for the most part, he’s also had some bad games(just go watch the Roma game back). Estupian has also been good for the most with a couple bad games in there. Bartesaghi is not miles better than him as you would like to believe. I’m comfortable with either one starting.
And the fact that you can’t give Estupian a rating or even mention his name without throwing in a comment about how Bartesaghi is so much better, just shows you have an agenda.
And it’s the “Sempre Milan Player Ratings”, not “Luigi’s Player Ratings”. Another one of these types who fancy themselves a “journalist” and think leaving a comment in the comment section is akin to publishing an article. You can leave all the ratings you like but if you are going to than other people have the right to criticize them and point out your bias.
Nobody is censoring you snowflake.
If Maldini’s Heir comes on here and tells us we don’t need a transfer market to fix these squad holes.
I will scream!
Given the transfers people are calling for are to replace players who were only signed a few months ago…..why exactly do you think some magical new signing is going to make a difference?
If there’s another Modric or Rabiot sure, but it had to be a Modric or Rabiot (or Thiago Silva or Benzema) or else there’s no point.
If they sign Icardi it’ll be hard to watch but he’s probably the best option.
Ha you found the breadcrumb!
No I don’t want to give up on the new players after 4 months.
But genuinely think we need some key additions. Which is questionable if it can be done in the Winter mercato.
1. Desperately need an actual 9. Maybe two of them. How can we continue with 4 forward players (all of which are injury prone) for two striker positions.
Particularly when 3 (if not all 4) are not centre forwards.
2. Desperately need more Centre Backs. Particularly if we keep playing with 3 at the back. 4 CBs for 3 CB positions is not sustainable. I’m not counting Odogu as clearly the coach thinks he is too young and Futuro only.
Midfield and GK are the only places we have sustained depth.
Not saying I want to sell current players but they need targeted additions who are senior players. Ready from day one.
Else be happy to maybe scrape top 4 in Serie A.
And with so many injuries. I’m puzzled why we are not making more use of Futuro players in the late stages of matches.
On the No 9, Milan spent €32 million less than a year ago on Giménez, and this season the plan is to play Leao and Pulisic upfront but they keep getting injured.
If the club signed another No 9 it’d be writing off another €32 million and breaking up a strike partnership before it’s even started.
On CBs the club signed 2 x CBs a few short months ago, and has 5 CBs for 3 positions (plus Bartesaghi) which is a perfect number as CBs shouldn’t be rotated much. Milan only signed 2/5 a few months ago, and the other last year. Signing another now would disrupt those players.
This is what Milan and most Italian and portly managed clubs constantly do. They keep looking for solutions on the transfer market rather than focusing on getting more of the players they literally just signed.
This is how Milan have had the farcical situation of signing at least one striker ever year for at least the last 20 years.
You’re talking about writing off a €36’m asset?
Who does that?
How has football become so disconnected with the real world that clubs, fans and the media think nothing of that?
Maybe one that is ok with whorling itself to sportswash a brutal regime.
Where did I saw writing off those signings,
I particularly said to keep them as we need more depth.
We don’t appear to have 5 CBs. Allegri appears to not consider Odogu ready. He is only 20 years old .
So we have 4 CBs for 3 positions. That means one injury/suspension and there is reserve.
We need mature players on loan/short term deals until younger players develop.
By the way De Winter was a straight replacement for Thiaw except that he appears to only be suitable for RCB. And not as an under study to Gabbia.
Same for the forwards. I’m not saying to give up on Gimenez or anyone else. But there is no depth. All 4 are injury prone and none are suited to the hold up CF Allegri wants.
Stop gap loan needed to get through the season.
Every squad should have 2 players for every position. None of the following have an understudy.
Gabbia
Pavlovic
Gimenez
Whilst Saelemaekers only has a very young understudy.
You seem to ignore that the other two full backs, De Winter and Odogu, are light years behind the three starting full backs Tomori, Gabbia, and Pavlovic. So, we have literally no depth whatsoever in the full back position, and it is sufficient for one of the three starters to be out, and we fall apart. That’s NOT sustainable in the long ran, for a 38-game championship, even playing just once a week.
Pretty much every time De Winter plays, we drop points. Odogu is even less prepared, and like people (and Allegri) understand, more of a Futuro player.
Am I for getting rid of players after 5 months and buying new ones? No, that’s generally not a good idea UNLESS SAID PLAYERS ARE UTTERLY BAD, CONSISTENTLY BAD. I’d say that De Winter and Nkunku fit the bill for being consistently bad.
We can chose to insist with them and do nothing. However, I predict that the end result of this will be that we will not only not win the Scudetto, but will actually drop below 4th place, thus missing the Champions League again, which is a disaster because two years out of it, the good players start getting anxious and willing to abandon Milan to go to teams that actually play the Champions League; also, the revenue drop makes us less competitive to sign good players.
Is that what you want? Because we can do that, just be content with the likes of De Winter and Nkunku… under the idea that they need more time because they’ve been here for just 5 months… but beware of what you want because the club may suffer a lot more damage if we don’t fix the problem.
The problem is, we don’t have a lot of leeway. We already missed the Champions League last season. We were unable to sign someone like Hojlund who is doing well for Napoli, and ultimately didn’t want to come to a non-Champions League club, in a World Cup year. We missed a couple of good centerbacks in the mercato for the same reason. Another year of failure and we are even more doomed. We are getting to mid-point in the season and our performances have been declining. We just can’t afford to decline more, and for this, we need a longer roster, and a roster with more depth. Period.
I find it actually stunning that you don’t seem to see that, because it is obvious and evident.
Well I no longer feel as frustrated with this coach’s lack of attacking. I’ve decided to accept it sadly. But he’s already out of 2 of the 3 trophies easily. I’ll bear with the football but please don’t go outside of the top 5 Max. I know you’re very capable of it tho
Yes Allegri was brought in to get us top 4, which he will probably do with this ultra boring style of football. Hopefully the team will then move on to a coach that is not stuck in the past and can bring a better brand of football. Clearly Allegri can not handle any other competition other than league games once a week. Not the one to take this team forward.
De winter’s standard is Serie D
The problem is De Winter is more RCB rather than CB. He’s done good in the past
Any match De winter on the pitch couldn’t won …. Therefore, De winter out.
PLEASE.
I’m highly disappointed other than no other person but Nkunku. I didn’t even notice him on the pitch at all. With e ery match, no sign of improvement. I like him but he needs ro wake up.
When people say sell Leao, he is useless, he is trash , he is rubbish, at least we all have seen that had he been around, Napoli would not have won so cheaply. Our biggest problem is injury. We haven’t had chance to play all our starting 11 since that time we had Pulsic and Rabiot injured during international break
Ok Napoli won flat out deservedly. Have no problem with that. But it seems we just get the short end of the referees or something. Our guys were getting man handled our there and no calls or yellows. I saw Pulisic got picked up and slammed on the ground WWE style and not even a consideration for a card Sheesh.
Anyways I feel our squad is too thin to be competing on so many fronts. I figure Allegri was of the mind that hope to win with a lesser squad and hope to have a better team of more starters on the final. Well he hoped but it didn’t pay off. It’s fine as we now get a long break to recover players.
In this moment I seriously doubt about Igli Tare skills
I swear De Winter made me so mad last night! Does he know where the opposition goal is because every time he passed it was towards our goal?
He obviously lacks confidence and I really hope that changes soon.
Nkunku 10. He has become a shadowmaster and no one can stay out of the game better than him. Did anyone even see him on the pitch? He was there for 90 minutes.
Any regrets on Hojlund? He’s everything Nkunku isn’t. A proper #9 we needed. And we got Nkunku. Thanks Fruitlani.
Alegri 4
Bad tactics again.
Pulisic and Nkunku isn’t macht RLC/ pulisic ist better.
Bit harsh on Maignan. Sure, could have done better but these were no easy saves.
DeWinter was shockingly bad… would fit perfectly in our league in AT *lol*
Nkunku useless as usual.
Players played poorly tonight, but tactically, we really struggled. Over the past few matches, I really don’t understand our build up play and what we’re trying to do. Did anyone watch the match on Mediaset? The commentator said it best: the difference between Napoli and Milan last night was really just that Napoli had someone to attack the space behind to push the back line and create more space between the lines to find players and go forward… Milan didn’t. I think Puli and Nkunku were too far apart — often, Nkunku was isolated around 3 center halves and when they played a long ball to him, there was no one near him to win a second ball. Puli was between the lines or wide, and they didn’t move well together to create space for each other. meanwhile, we couldn’t find any third man runs and i can’t recall many times anyone received the ball on the half turn. (Modric came and helped us break the lines, but it was too late by then.) and with Napoli defending in a super compact 5-4-1, it exacerbated everything. they were happy to let us circulate and put a sh*tty cross into the box.
We need Thiago Silva and Big Benzema and another wingback that can play both side. It would stabilize the team abit. Especially Benzema would be an excellent player and will bring the best out of everyone around him. Especially leao and puli.
Barta can play left defender in the absence of Gabbia and pavlovic in the centre with tomori on the right. i actually expected that of Alegri but eish. De winter is just not up to standard. we need to Swap him with someone abit more reliable.
Sell Dewinter or loan him out in January, bring Thiago Silva or Ramos at least