Davy & Chin Talk A.C Milan Weekly
Davy & Chin Talk A.C Milan Weekly
Celebrating AC Milan's 124th Birthday, Dissecting The Triumph Over Monza & Squad Depth Analysis
Please celebrate with us as AC Milan clocks 124 years, in style with a flawless victory over Monza. We dive deep into Ac Milan's current form, Stefano Pioli's tactical gambles to the emotional victory on the club's birthday, we dissect the season's pivotal moments and the passionate responses they evoked from the fans. Our conversation takes a personal twist when we reminisce about shared celebrations and the broader implications of team direction under Pioli's reign, all while raising a glass to the future.
Off the field, the complexities of managing a top-tier football team come into sharp focus. We discuss the delicate act of player rotation, injury prevention, and integrating young talent into a squad brimming with ambition. The narrative delves into the intricacies of squad depth, the potential pitfalls of overprotecting emerging stars, and the trust issues that could hint at deeper management challenges. Our analysis doesn't shy away from the thorny issues of nurturing players while preparing them for the rigors of top-flight football.
As we explore the tactical nuances that underpin a successful team, we pinpoint the need for a defensive midfielder to anchor Milan's play. This isn't just about filling a gap left by a former player; it's about envisioning a midfield that operates with the precision of a well-oiled machine. Drawing inspiration from iconic figures like Pirlo and Gattuso, we dissect how a cohesive unit can achieve defensive mastery, a must for Milan if they are to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their fiercest rivals. This discussion isn't just for die-hard football fans—it's for anyone who appreciates the intricate dance of a team in perfect harmony.
The Rossoneri.
Speaker 2:Renaissance is complete After 11 years. Once again, milan are the champions of Italy. It's they who wear the crown for the 2021-22 season. Hello everyone, this is David and Chin. Talk, milan, we are back again, yes, back. And bouncing Three-pointer. Yes, chin, how you did up.
Speaker 3:I'm good To be honest with you, dave. You're such a great guy. Milan has a very interesting week. We lose to Atlanta, we beat Newcastle but get knocked out of the Champions League and then beat Monza, and then Dave is very happy about all of that.
Speaker 2:You know what? I'm happy because we didn't just beat Monza and it's also Milan's 124th birthday. So, yes, it's what's celebrating with the three-pointer, leo. How?
Speaker 3:you doing. Mine is coming up tomorrow, so I should be happier than you, but somehow I'm not.
Speaker 2:Leo, how you doing bro.
Speaker 1:Thank you, dave. I'm doing good. What's up, milanistas? It feels good to be back. Yes, yes, yes, like Dave says, we're all in a celebratory mood. Even though I'm not wearing my Milan dress today, I have my bottle of Heineken, exactly exactly. He has to celebrate Milan and, of course, my friend Chin Chin's birthday is tomorrow. Chin happened to share the same birthday with my wife, oh yeah that's true, why? I know especially that he's my husband.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, and here's the crazy part though Not only birthday, even the same name, sort of. But that's good. Happy birthday to your lovely wife.
Speaker 2:Happy day, Dave Go ahead. Anyways, guys, welcome back again for another interesting episode, because this season to be on a spin and roller coaster season, different kinds of emotions that we can't even describe. Sometimes I wanted to say it as a roller coaster season because of one person, but it's okay.
Speaker 3:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:The last time we recorded this pod was when Chin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was after Milan before the Atlanta game. Yeah, before the Atlanta game. So that was after Milan lost to DotMond, we had the DotMond discussion.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 3:And then we played the Frosunoni game, where, again, like I said, we've had a lot of up and down in the past since this season began. Yes, that's Milan, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, in a nutshell, to be honest, and again, after the Monza game, which happened today and we defeated Monza by three, goes to nothing to celebrate a wonderful birthday. And I want to start with the build up to this game. Right, Because again there's been a lot of tension, a lot of conversation about, obviously, the should I say the elephant in the room to some people, to some of us, is the special one. Again, it depends on how you see it. But yeah, we beat Monza. Do you want to talk about the Monza? You want to talk about the build up to the Monza game?
Speaker 3:Leo, you pick what you want to talk about.
Speaker 2:To me. I'd rather have just quick summary, because I think the Atlanta game is what we're talking about, just for a few, for like five minutes or so. Going into that game, to be honest, it was again, it was a tense game. I know a lot of people had a mixed feeling about the game in terms of the results. To me, I accepted the defeat, not because of the fact that maybe we didn't deserve to win or we didn't deserve to at least get a point from that game, to be honest, but again, a red card at the last watch, at the end of the game, cost us the game, to be honest, that's how I see it and the fact that we have games back to back.
Speaker 2:This is with teams that are top level teams. I know we bought some games against some low level teams, obviously, and again I will talk about that as well, but again, the Atlanta game, I think, is a game. That is what we're talking about. I'll start with you, liu, because you're one of the big, big critics of Stefano Pugli this season, and again I will completely understand from your perspective as well. Going to the Atlanta game, I know you have some doubts, right, and again you and I will talk about it. But going into the Atlanta game, what was your expectation from this game before the results?
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. So it felt like a huge opportunity that we just threw away. After the disappointment of Dortmund, it felt like we needed to get that bounce back in the league. I think that was the same week Juventus played Inter. They played out the draw. So if we had picked up maximum points that would have put us in a good spot in the league.
Speaker 1:But then our approach to the game was awful. It was abysmal. It was like we were just chasing the game all through and if you remember, from the start of the game when we saw the starting line up, we were having that conversation on the WhatsApp group Exactly about Teo and Chen. We were saying why is Teo central back when we have a natural central back on the bench in Simic? Because this whole issue of playing big shifter, center backs, maybe putting the full backs at center back. I was actually the first person that said it, because when we lost to Dortmund, they were like oh, we lost Teo, what was the gaffer supposed to do? Like you, purely fans were always sick. But I was like come on, there are things you would have done Even if we didn't win the game. We wouldn't have lost the reward. There are ways you react to change, you know, to the dynamics of the game. Yeah, so, but surely he's somebody that I don't even know. If he it's like he just comes up with one plan to every match, one approach, yeah, and if that fails, he's confused and the rest of the team is confused with him and all of a sudden we're beginning to play like school boys because the way we lost to Dortmund is just awful. We had the ascendancy.
Speaker 1:The same thing happened against Atalanta. He didn't start with his best team because, if you look at that game particularly, we kept chasing and chasing and chasing the game whenever in control of the game. Because when I suggested making a full back to come in, you know, to the central back position against Dortmund, that was a reactionary kind of like change. But when the three of you get that injury if you remember it was in the second half ready made some changes, right, so we don't have, you know, that was just like something to, because you need people to stay in position. You don't bring in Krunic that is a natural defensive midfielder and ask him to play central back. That's not a solution and that was what caused that disaster. So I said this is what he could have done. Yes, the next game against. Was it Frosinone? He did the same. He started using that full back.
Speaker 2:Let me just correct you on something, please. Simic is not yet registered to play in the Champions League, so against Dortmund he had no choice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course. That's why, against Dortmund, my suggestion was to bring in a Florenzi, you know, and have like a Florenzi play central back pairing with Tomori, right, but for the league where Simic is available. That's why I was confused. I was like why is he not playing Simic? Why is he not playing a natural central back in that position? So we raised that alarm, myself and Chin and then when the game started it became obvious Pio was always making schoolboy errors in that central back position. It wasn't his natural position. He was failing and we considered three goals in the game. You could see that that's obviously on the gaffer. I'm not going to blame the players for that. I put that loss on Pio, on Stefano Pio, because if you had started with the right team, right, if we wouldn't have gotten picked out the way we got picked out, like we just got picked out.
Speaker 3:So so, so this is a thing though right, my question, my question, that I would have asked for that game. And I asked the question. I think it started with the first first in only game, right when Theo Hernandez was played as left, left, center, back or whatever, right, and Dave said, well, Pio least commented, so Simic is too young to be starting him in the game. Blah, blah, blah against first in only right. I said okay, so for that podcast. You asked me well, what would you do if you're purely, would you go and study kid? I said, well, why would you want to study kid against Atlanta right At a way? So whatever. But then that game came. Theo Hernandez made a lot of errors that, like you know, because it's not his fault, it's not his natural position.
Speaker 2:Chin. Okay, fine, let's just talk about the mother game. Okay, To be honest, I followed Simic because I was born today and I followed Simic right from the preseason. I watched his very first game for Milan against Ramadri and he did very well and the same feelings that you guys had was same feeling that had as well as why purely hasn't really started him right. But again, I see no reason. I don't think he there's any solid reason to justify the reason why purely is not really giving, you know, these kids, you know, opportunities to play other than him being, you know, not trusting them enough Afraid, yeah, exactly. Maybe he's afraid, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 2:Now, the thing is, what do you think? What do you think purely can do to even start with, because we find ourselves in this situation because of the whole injury, all injury in the team, right, with lots of injuries, and then stuff, again, a couple of picked up injuries today. I mean Pobega picked up injuries as well, today as well. I mean Pobega is muscle, but again a couple is. I think his injury was from celebrating his goal. Yeah, if you look at, go back and check the celebration again, I think he twisted his arm, he messed up his arm string when he jumped or something whatever. What do you think Milan can do to this medical team? Because, again, we spend a lot of money in the transfer market in the summer right To acquire all these players, because the medical team is not doing enough.
Speaker 3:And all these guys, all these guys, they're not like you know I wouldn't call them injury from like a police officer and they were lost this week and police, to my surprise, that wouldn't have been that bad since they came to Milan, before they came to Milan, right?
Speaker 2:Which kind of surprised me, to be honest, because I think he's been managing police very well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we are expecting police officers to have been the person that would spend a longer time on the hospital bed. Yeah, for some reason, police are available, like compared to some other players.
Speaker 2:It will love to stick. Love to stick is also getting better as well, I guess.
Speaker 1:But the thing is love to stick. I don't know, some games, if you give you 100% and some other games you get like 20%. You know, I feel like he's just, you know, kind of like slowing it down so he doesn't get injured. So maybe it's just me, to be honest to me as well.
Speaker 2:I noticed that there's a drop in his performance a little bit. I'm thinking is it because of the fact that he's trying to manage himself to stay fit, or maybe just to dip in form?
Speaker 1:Or what do you think? I think that's what it is. He's actually afraid of getting injured and you know he's just, you know, playing it safe, playing it, you know. Yeah, that's what I think it is, because we know his quality, we know what he can bring, and when we watch him for Chelsea, we see that 100% every time. Right, If he's injured he will give that. You know 100%. But I guess it's just a psychic thing. He doesn't want to.
Speaker 2:Are you okay with him, though, playing like this?
Speaker 1:Of course not. No, we want to be consistent, right, like we want to see players coming in and giving their all I'm not going to sing without Love to Chee, because he's not the only one that's been injured. Right, I feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with our setup that is causing these injuries and it comes back to I'm not going to say purely, but I'll say the entire management team which is purely on his team of coaches, trainers and all that, whom I feel purely would be the boss of that whole setup. Right, like if purely come wakes up today and says, hey, mr Technical Trainer, this has to like what's going on. What do we have to do? You know, we can also make the call to say, okay, maybe we need to change the medical personnel. I don't think I'm getting the right.
Speaker 1:You know services from whoever is currently doing the job right now at Milanelo. It could also be you know how we're doing fitnesses, warm-ups, or how he does his training. Is the training regimen too intense? That? Because the truth is that there's a level of strength that they can handle before they start failing or before they start collapsing. That's what you check are injuries. You know, 90% of our injuries are muscular injuries, which tells me that this may be. Maybe they are overworking the muscles in training, right? So should purely be doing things differently. Like do you need to play full 11-a-sides every time, you know, at that high intensity every single time training, right? Do you need to do things differently, wake things up and, you know, kind of like just work on some practical setup rather than doing full 11-a-sides. This is just me thinking. We don't get to watch most of the training sessions, right, but some of the ones that I've watched, I know I see them doing that 11-a-side thing and I'm not really a fan of that because I feel like it puts too much stress on the players already before the game. So these are the questions that you know, purely on the team, they used to ask themselves like why are all these injuries?
Speaker 1:You know repeating? Because it feels like it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. We get injured, players are not, you know, available, we're losing games, we rush the players back, we get injured again. You know, like it's just repeating itself and, purely, it's not actually easing these players back from injury.
Speaker 1:I feel like we are all getting rushed back, you know, because he doesn't trust the little boys on the bench, he doesn't trust the Premier players to come in, you know, and he gets these opportunities, like you get games against Crescinole or Salah Nithlaya, where you could, you know, particularly ginger H-C-Mitch and say, hey, this is just something that I can do, this is what I'm watching training Like, just follow these instructions. This is what you have to do, you know, and that's it. Trust him and let him do it right.
Speaker 1:You don't wait until the big game is, where you know you feel like, oh, this game is too big for this guy and you now, just if I use that to justify why you won't play the guy right, if you put somebody that is not a natural player in that position because you're trying to, you know, not make a mistake with a young player, that's who will get, you know, hammered. If we don't win the game, it's still you, right, but if you have played those players, then maybe some of us that are critics may start, you know, not seeing the fault as him when I start looking, oh, maybe we don't actually have enough squad depth. Right, because if, as I'll be honest with you, if Simic has started that at the end of the game I will not be calling out Puyoligui. I was calling him out right, because I just felt like we had a better opportunity to do it.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you a question let me ask you a question because you're so funny. What you just said now, to be honest again, I said it right. I'm with you on Puyoligui not really giving these young stars opportunities. He made a comment after these, after these Monza game. He hit praise on all the young stars. He mentioned Batisaghi, he mentioned Simic, he mentioned Kamada and he said that we shouldn't forget that these kids are still teenagers and we shouldn't burden them with expectations. That's what he said. Now, is it trying to? Is it him not playing? Is it trying to protect them? Or do you think it's just that he doesn't trust them enough? Shane, do you know?
Speaker 1:that the dream of every professional footballer is to play. Yeah, it doesn't matter if they are 15 or if they are 19, or if they are 35 or 40.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make sense to me. They all want to play.
Speaker 1:It doesn't make sense to me at all, to be honest. So, so he can't say he's shielding them, like, come on, he's more like pegging them because they want to play. They are looking, everybody is looking for that opportunity to show what they can do, right, do you think? Do you think Simic in his mind is not thinking I can collect this starting shed from Theo before he's going to come back or before they are coming back? I'll be the next best in, you know, I'll be the next next step in the line and I will pay the next big contract, right? Yeah, that is how an average player thinks. So he cannot be saying he is protecting them or defending them. No, that is their, it's their chance. Like they don't. Do you know how many people play football professionally and don't get to that level?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So to be honest with you, one of the big, one of the big also, me saying also miss is like understanding when to blood, blood the young players right, give them a chance, like there are some teams. I know that you know like defined, because I call it balanced rotation, right, you're not going to expose, you have to find the right time so you don't have to expose the kid. So let's back up to like the Napoli game.
Speaker 1:Peregrino probably have been.
Speaker 3:Peregrino have been on the bench for a while now, didn't get a single minute. All of a sudden he's tossing in the middle of a very intense game and then you expect him to perform. To me that's not the proper way to blood. The player in Simic has been there with the team. He went to preseason. Then all of a sudden, like you said rightfully, dave, milan does not have a lot of depth in terms of defensive cover and yet you play Malik Teow and and what's his name? And Tomori play Malik Teow Tomori. Malik Teow Tomori Doesn't matter if Milan were playing against one of the 18 boys Malik Teow Tomori and then now one of them gets injured. Then you're forced to play centre back, left, back at centre back. Until then. You're forced literally. Then you find the kid and say, okay, now play To me like he showed you in preseason that he could at least kick a ball. Like to me he. Actually what he showed me in preseason was better than because I've never seen Peregrino play before, was better than whatever Peregrino had to offer Milan. Now I understand there's other factors, like the Premier Verra. I don't want to deplete them too much by pulling out their very good players and so on and so forth, but the Milan, the main Milan team, comes first, right? And if you're going to blood these guys, because this blood in players in and using them is about spreading the minutes you talk about.
Speaker 3:You know why have Milan players always injured? I think a few podcasts ago you and I talked about it and I outlined it for you. There are factors that lead to injury, less or more especially the muscular injuries. Leo mentioned it fatigue level. Fatigue level is mostly a factor of how often are you asking these guys to use those muscles and work those muscles in training as well as in what's called in the games. Secondly, well, those are minutes, right. Like if you put Raphael Liao in a game that is meaningless for no reason, it's just unnecessary. He has to warm up for that game, right. He has to prepare all week like he's going to play that game, then he has to ramp up to play the game and then he has to play the game, right. You know what I mean. Like it's about load management. In the NBA, not America, they call it load management.
Speaker 3:You have to be smart about that, especially in today's football world where everybody, there's so many intense, high intense games, you can't put your guys through that as though they are not Especially a team like Milan, that in the last three or four years we've gone through this thing where every year it's almost like somehow they cost the team, but it's not the cost. There's always an explanation behind all this. The other thing, too, that I talk about is what's it called the science behind the team. I'm surprised that, again, a top, top, top, top team. Think about it. How many other teams in Europe okay, in Europe's top five leagues are in a situation where Milan are every single season for the last three seasons? Think about it.
Speaker 3:People get injuries, and you showed me one time, you showed me Manchester City. But you look, they're having ankle injuries, knee injuries, whatever head injury, back injury. Milan is muscle, muscle, muscle, muscle, muscle, muscle, hamstring, front and back of the leg, literally. What is going on here? You're having front leg injury or back leg injury, literally, and Mike Minha will end up with calf injury at some point. They're all muscle related. Why is that important? It's because it has something to do with Milan, right? And what is it about Milan that is different from India? Well, for instance, we don't get to give young guys a lot of minutes to play. We don't rest our stars after a heavy workload. So the point that Ruben lost his chick, got smart and he started managing his own energy level.
Speaker 2:Because otherwise purely we kill him.
Speaker 3:Oh, I mentioned I didn't mean to, Otherwise they'll play him until he runs to the ground. The same with Krunich, for instance. The guy was playing. I remember when we talked about it and the coach himself said I'm worried about Krunich because I feel like his energy level plus his body might not take. And then guess what? Next game, bam, you play him again and the guy gets injured before 23 minutes and you bring him out and then now he goes away. He gets four weeks off, right, or three weeks off, comes back without food, whatever, and you throw him back again. And then you're wondering why players cannot be consistent. Right To me, as far as I'm concerned, it's a lot of things that we're doing.
Speaker 3:For my structure this is why we talk about process. For me, it's about those little things, the details of. We have a philosophy, we have an idea, we have a formula for dealing with players. We have a formula for dealing with players when they come back from injury. We have a formula for dealing with their exercise, their routine. It is about that. It is not.
Speaker 3:Well, you know what? Milan is playing Newcastle United, because Milan is playing Newcastle and you really need the result. You toss Raphael Liao in there because I was worried in my head that this guy just came back and this high intensity game is going to tear Hamstring again. You toss him in there because you really really need him. Meanwhile he might. You know what I mean. Like, I'm just saying that. I'm not saying that's the case, but I'm just saying those little things. You put people when they are not ready because you don't even know what ready looks like. So to me that's one of the big issues and that's why Milan gets injured and that's why young players don't play. It's because you don't know what ready, what ready looks like.
Speaker 2:I just want to quickly touch base on some conversation on our group chat that specifically about Amidfield, that Leo kind of like talked about during the week, about Love to Cheek and Tijone Reinders having this sort of similar style of play and you thinking they have to be some sort of balance. You know they have to come in between both of them and you recommended them. You're making some sort of recommendation Either it's my Benaseh coming in and stuff. I know there's been a lot of rumors about signing no transfers coming in in January. Leo, let me start with you Again. I think if Amidfield I think Amidfield is very mobile and mobile enough at least to create chances and opportunities. But the problem again, I think that we usually encounter is basically in the defensive phase, right? Do you think Milan need?
Speaker 2:Obviously Krunic is leaving because Krunic is out, he's no longer in Pule's clan and to be honest, I don't think he, I don't think Pule. Krunic has a space in the steam, let's be real. And Pule knows it as well. That's why he put him in, he sent him to the bench. The thing is, when you have options to a certain level, I feel, when you have options to a certain level, you see the quality of what you want in your midfield. Krunic doesn't process that quality. We've both talked about it. Krunic is just basically a backup plan that we've been trying, I've been trying, I've been trying to use to survive. But what do you think, what kind of player do you think Milan should be going for in January? I have some leads, for example, like Amrabacana style Casemiro, like Do you think Pule doesn't need a new midfield coming, even if Krunic leaves Definitely?
Speaker 1:Definitely we do need a proper defensive midfielder. Like what is a proper defensive midfielder like that would do that work and do it better than Krunic. I wouldn't be in a hurry to just throw a Krunic like because I have always told you that it's a good idea. I've always told you that, even though I criticize him a lot. I told you that Krunic is an average player, but I felt like we've kind of given him these responsibilities beyond his technical capacity and that's why it feels like he's failing me the flop because she's tossing me. I can keep Krunic in the squad, but then I know his limits. Like I know, okay, this is a player I can put into managing a game if I'm one man down. Or this is a player I can bring in to rotate my midfielders. Or this is a player I can bring in when somebody just got a red card or so Other things. Like just know his limits, oh, this is not the guy I want to put in when I'm chasing the game and I need to score and I need somebody to. You know people that can pass the ball very well find my striker so that I can score. He's not that guy. So understanding his limits would have helped a lot, right, but all we see is Krunic being the only solution and the only answer to all our problems. Even when we lost a fantastic guy in Kessie, we didn't replace him right. So I think it is one of the things the scouting team should be looking at.
Speaker 1:You know, and that defensive midfield position is where you, there are lots of ballers that are good defensive midfielders. You just need to scout properly. You just need somebody. You don't need a big name, you just need somebody that can, you know, that wants to play ball, that wants to fight to win the ball. You know, that's all you need. You know, and sign that person, because having both RLC and CJ in that midfield is making us flex. We don't have any, any ball chasing, you know, any ball breaking kind of midfielders that will give us that balance when teams want to start piling that pressure on our defense. That's why you see most like it's a system where he's overworking himself, like he has to be running helping us get out of some of those boys. It's just a moment you chasing an attacker to, you know, to the left wing or to the right wing. I'm like, why is our defensive midfielder? He should be the one like chasing, but what you see happen is tomorrow with Chase and then CJ, and I still want to now cover tomorrow.
Speaker 3:So are we on that assumption here that Benazir is not going to be? No, no, no, that's the question. Benazir, I was going to come to Benazir.
Speaker 1:The fact that Benazir he's not I would not say he's reliable anymore because of injuries, right? So if when he's out on injuries are we going to be stuck? That's why it is important that we get a proper DM. Even when Benazir was playing his best, he had Kessie to help him too, right? So you could do a double five-foot, you could do a Benazir Kessie, and that will give you more balance, but not having any DM at all and you just have, like you know ball carriers, you know that's going to just give you a flat.
Speaker 2:So let me ask you a question, though, before you ask a question please how do you rate Benazir's defensive ability though?
Speaker 3:In terms of his ability to do what?
Speaker 2:To intercept the ball or go make tackles and so on, basically playing in between Lofos, chika and TJ.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'll tell you, the only issue I have with Benazir doing that, to be frank, is just that he's so excited he gets excited about wanting to join and play that sometimes he kind of pulls him away from being right. In that, you see, the thing you like about Krunich right, which is just sits there and does absolutely nothing, but just sit there like a child that is sent on an errand. I said do not talk to anybody, just go straight to this person. So just walk straight to this brother, don't play or don't talk to anybody. That's so Krunich does, just stands there, right. The problem is Benazir is too smart, right, sometimes too smart for his own good.
Speaker 3:I want to help keep the ball moving, which is what I actually wanted to talk about, because I think our assumption here is that we literally we're assuming that Milan Playing a game where they are losing, they're playing against a man city or whatever, like where you need to break up a lot of this end. It seems like Milan, on 90% of the teams in Italy, should literally Defend by possession right, like. What I mean by that is, we progressively defend in a manner think of a lot of teams that are very good you figure out how you want to defend. Some people defend it. They don't have a so-called so-called defensive midfielder, right. Some people do have a guy that, literally, when Milan, sometimes, when they are their best what you want to do is what you want to progress, play.
Speaker 3:But, okay, pillow. When Milan had pillow, it was a trecuattista, right. Yeah, yeah, gattuso that runs around and tries to win the ball back. We have a few people that, to be honest, can win the ball back. Winning the ball back is part of the issue. So, like I would imagine, generators is not the strongest, but he has legs to go in the bomb. Wasa could give you that. Go in the ball back, right, but what you want to me is what I call controlled, controlled possession.
Speaker 1:So when you control, possession, you see, the thing with the moves are we thinking, was I was gonna be, you know, groom for that GM position when they signed him, but now we have seen that guy play already.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no.
Speaker 1:He has.
Speaker 2:In all honesty, I don't think. I don't think most. I won't trust myself to play as a DM.
Speaker 3:To be honest, Second, secondly, he's too young, he's put his front to cards a lot. Okay, yeah, milan, all Milan players are prone to cut, so anyway. So what was I going to say? My point was this when you ask, a lot of teams are not to mention pep, for instance His idea of what's he called defending is defending through keeping the ball and progressing in a manner that allows people to catch up Right.
Speaker 3:Doesn't matter who's your defense. He tells if you have ruddery, but if you look at ruddery, go and look at ruddery. What do you get? A lot of all those, a professional fouls. There's a reason why because every time play breaks up, what he can do now is he's going to foul somebody. Right, so you can get away with that. But the thing is you can't have Milan play the way the planer, which is be wide open, with no control. Because you know why that there's no control is because they actually have. Literally, I was watching the first half of the game today. I see Florence, he will have ball. There's no, absolutely no reason whatsoever. He'll just to kick the ball away and I'm wondering like there are options right in front of you.
Speaker 1:Somebody put a tweet that he was like angry at my friend yeah, for some of the chances he missed. I was like this guy is even the wrongest person.
Speaker 3:Okay, so let me so. The point I'm trying to make is again you can go ahead and go spend prime dollars to get that defensive midfielder, or you can work with the group of people and, excuse me, they have, and what Milan has today in midfield to me are technically gifted players. Imagine playing Benaseh. Let's say Benaseh Ruben loves his chicken renders.
Speaker 1:I'm just using that as an example that's that's, that's not it, that's that's the ideal option anyway, right, yeah, but you, but you wouldn't always, you wouldn't always get Three of them fix. That's my no, but okay but Leo, let's forget fitness.
Speaker 3:Just imagine that right then, now you're keeping possession, guys are moving, there's lots of movement, renders moves, a lot of all. Milan me feel that one of the guys are Opens a lot to give option, you know, like that kind of movement, and then Milan shouldn't be worried that much. Think about it. Inter Milan. Okay, this isn't who is your defensive midfielder.
Speaker 1:I can. Defensive dropping defensive work good Is actually. I see your point now, because now they do it as a kind of a team, exactly because let's progress the ball Exactly because you know why the way football works is this right.
Speaker 3:What we may have seen in football is if you coordinate a group of people, even though you think they are not that good when they are compact, they know what they are supposed to do. They expect to lose possession in certain places, so people preempt that. But when you're playing Chaotic football with no idea of where you're going to lose possession Nice then all of a sudden you know what you're always going to. It doesn't matter if you bring back Frank Casey. All Frank Casey is now doing is doing his own personnel, using his power to cover up for our what's he called lack of I. You know what I mean. So think about, think about inter Milan that running away with the league. Right, think about them. They are defensive midfielder in quotes is Hakan or Meketarian or Barilla, which we know is not that player you guys are talking about. But yet somehow they have some form of control that they can keep clean sheets. Almost every, every week they play. It's almost like a given that inter Milan show up clean sheet. It's because of the idea of what they want to accomplish. They know where they're going to lose the ball. They know where the danger is going to come from if they make a mistake. They know how to cover for that mistake, because it's preempted with us. I'm telling you, when I watch Florence, you just shoot the ball inside anyhow, and I try to go give Jiru ball. Then Jiru is fighting for ball. Then I'm thinking to myself. What this tells me is, guys are just all over the place. There is no coordination with where they need to be. So when we lose the ball, people are going to be out of position. Then you have heroes. Then you need heroes to save you. Right? You need heroes because everybody's running around. So that's just me. So you can sign whosoever you want to sign in midfield and you basically start playing.
Speaker 3:You know how? Amrabat. You called Amrabat. You know Manchester United fans now believe he's bad. Right, right. Why is that? Because guess what? He's not playing in a team where, again, there's chaos everywhere. Then he's always out of position. He's looking like oh, by the way, kasimiro that you mentioned does not play for United. Again, he's like Khrunich, because I was on. Kasimiro is bad. This is again. I'm not going to name names, I keep saying it. If you grew to the point where you're consistent. You have to have controlled, you have to be controlled, you have to have control over what you're doing. You have to understand what everybody wants to do. We all have to work off of each other. Then all the players will get to their maximum. You see, a guy like literally, like renders, will become better defensively, magically, because he's always in the right position.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think you and I were saying the same thing, chain. Well, you're just not the tactical side, because Just having the players alone is not going to give you that. You know results right, you still need the right tactics. Oh yeah, so that's why I feel like we're well the same.
Speaker 2:So okay, so the right, obviously, the writings on the wall now, that, purely, will be leaving at the end of the season. No doubt about it, right? My question is that you will be leaving at the end of the season, don't worry, oh you know this inside information you have to me, yeah my question is.
Speaker 2:My question is I'm just one because again I can I can say the reason why Jerry, cardinale or Redbird are leaving on. Redbird is leaving on purely for now is because of the fact that I don't think they really find the suitable alternative to pure nest and I think I Don't think it's it's really gonna help the fact that these guys are new and coming in and being switched, no having to do with different managers within close few months of coming in. I think he's really gonna mess up a project and stuff and I feel like it's it ideal to find a better replacement.
Speaker 1:The reason I believe we mess up this project is if they start selling players indiscriminately Because there's a lot of feelers that they may start selling the likes of a few in and theirs or maybe one big name is gonna leave Next transfer window right how we lost them. That's the only way you will use your. You will use your project because you changed the bad manager. In fact, you will actually save your projects like changing the bad manager.
Speaker 2:The situation right now is, though I'm Leo because I no. My concern is here is it, if a new manager comes in and doesn't like half of the players that came in this summer, what's going to happen?
Speaker 1:Why would they come in and say it doesn't like half of the like. If you think it could be, you don't have to like people. If you think Everywhere I've ever worked in my life, I don't know. I liked everybody there, but I was forced to work with them.
Speaker 2:If you think it could be. You don't have to like the players, leo, I can guarantee you you have to tell management.
Speaker 1:You have to tell management. Okay, I want to replace a summary because of X, y, z. You know you have to give reasons why you want to do it.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Otherwise, don't manage management.
Speaker 1:Don't manage management with this into you. Don't tell your friend.
Speaker 3:Okay. So, Dave, I know where you're going with this. I can guarantee you that a coach like Moriho will come in.
Speaker 2:If a coach like Moriho come in to Milan, for example, and has no different style of play, right or a girl forbid, okay, let's assume county, for example.
Speaker 1:I'm not even a fan of that county.
Speaker 3:I'm not a fan of that, I'm not a girl forbid.
Speaker 1:County is too defensive for my life. Okay, all I'm asking for. You know what I'm asking for. I want to enjoy watching.
Speaker 3:It See, exactly All I'm asking for is I want to just enjoy watching. Is it too hard?
Speaker 3:I want to watch football where I'm like, oh my God, this is so good. So at the end of the day, let me tell you it doesn't matter. So the thing is this right. The only reason why sometimes I think Dave thinks I don't like Pioli is because when I think about Milan's future I said it before I feel like maybe I don't see him as a guy that will take us to that level, because I think this club has, in my own mind. We've gotten out of the banter era. This is our time now to take opportunity of these two numbers and whatever you know, and take that next step where we become consistent, like we don't have to be the Manchester cities of the world and whatever. But at the same time, though, I feel like we can at least approach how we're going to play football and have an identity.
Speaker 3:All the times Milan have been great in the past. Think about it. They've always had a no time. You have great teams that don't have an identity of what they want to accomplish. You get what I'm getting at. So Milan has to literally build that identity. And then even the Juventus of Allegri time they had an identity of what they wanted to do. You need to build an identity and then that will be your team, that will be your trademark. That is my own team, because if that falls to a niche, that level of consistency where I will sleep, wake up, not check my phone we fear that Monza might beat Milan. You need an identity, right, and it doesn't matter the players. The players, they do come and go. Coaches come and go, but the ones that last in our memory, if you think of all your great Milan coaches, they are the ones that you remember because they had this consistency and approach week in, week out.
Speaker 3:The players to me, especially when Milan are financially, we know we can't get all the top players and blah, blah, blah, we're going to have flood players here and there. That's where you need a coach who has an idea of how they can convert players that are not top, top top, that are not consistent, and make them consistent 60% of the time. Right, so that we take away those little gaps, because we know Chouquets is a good player, but he's not consistent. Okafor is a good player, he's not consistent, but how can we get the most out of those guys? Mix them together, whatever, whatever, so that every week we come in we kind of expect a minimum out of them.
Speaker 3:It's a simple ask and as far as I'm concerned it is doable. It is not a crazy idea. I know why because there are lots of coaches out there that look at teams and grab teams that are not that good. Think about Girona. Their coach you think he's what's the code? They all of a sudden they sign great players we talk about Bologna that are fought in the league for instance, aston Villa is also good.
Speaker 3:So Aston Villa literally that's what Girona almost took that team to relegation. And one guy comes in. Within less than one year, he figured out a way to use what he has. Add a couple of people to it, which is what I want sustainably rebuilding the idea that Milan changed 10 players in one season. Do you think that is a good thing in Piolli's record? Let's use Piolli. I'm talking about him. It's not because that just tells me that whatever you did the last three years, somehow you believed that it wasn't working out for you anymore and you had to change it all up. And then they change it all up. Now what do you do? You have to build to the next two to three years. If you're going to change all these players up a year later, then we might as well. Just you know, every day we show up, we'll pray. We just continue the same direction.
Speaker 2:Anyways, guys, I'd like to shine a light on some couple of players here. Please, can you give me your top, your tops, in, in, in in these games.
Speaker 1:I think that was excellent. Like he, it was really useful to watch his, his movement, that first go. So he's my top number one top player. Also, a car for no car for was also really good, and I would say I'm tempted to mention Jiru, but this time I think of that last chance he missed. But yeah, the asses for car for was actually good and he also got to go.
Speaker 2:Actually, it was horrible to this yeah. It was horrible to this. It was very horrible. What do you? What do you?
Speaker 1:need from? What do you need from a striker? Google's and assists let's, let's defend you.
Speaker 2:I think my top today is Simic. To be honest, simic really really came in. He came on and and again showed purely that he deserves started. He deserves to be playing with the first team and I think definitely in a next game, I think purely needs to start. He needs to start Simic and give.
Speaker 2:give him free, free, free tail, give care give care, give care, Simone care, some rest, Because Simone came to the play that had an amazing game. We can tell that the old man is, is not the old the the the care of two three years ago, Definitely. Okay, let's just talk about the. Just talk about the other team to the big, please, before we go, Cause we don't. We only have like three minutes left.
Speaker 3:Well, as a resident, as a resident in Tamil, and fun can I talk about? I guess you guys say I'm an Inter fan, right?
Speaker 1:Don't talk too much about Inter. I'm, I'm, I'm.
Speaker 3:I'm getting lassoed already because if I talk, well, you, you, you, you. Your problem is, you put your faith in lasso, Like who puts faith in lasso. Second of all, let's call. Let's call it speed, it's speed. Inter Milan are the best team in the league.
Speaker 2:They are doing it very well, no, no they're one of the best in zero.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Well, you don't have to say that they finished second last year and this year they look like they're probably going to go into another deep run. I think for me.
Speaker 1:They make it not that in the second leg they finish in second in their group Wouldn't help them. But let's see what happens.
Speaker 3:I think nobody wants to play in Tamil, and that's the thing. If you, if you were in the Champions League on the other side, you wouldn't want to be playing in Tamil land, until they set them up against man City.
Speaker 1:We'll see how they walk on it.
Speaker 3:Actually, if this man city this past few weeks man City, yes, sit, I can take them. My biggest shout out is to Bologna. I think you know they are doing. Yeah, yeah, it's incredible. I like when, I like when a team of whatever group of guys come together and they, they put their minds to it and they are doing an incredible job.
Speaker 1:Do you know?
Speaker 3:what Do you know what Happy about?
Speaker 1:Bologna. We are linked to their coach.
Speaker 2:Look you better, don't get too excited, because Juventus and Inter also linked to the same person, to the same coach.
Speaker 3:So which Inter? Inter has a coach. Why would they need their coach? No, inter doesn't need that so good. I'm happy for them. I think they are doing a good job and, yeah, milan are now third on the table and we are nine points behind Inter Milan. So, according to Dave, he's hoping that he will do an exaggeration down the road and flop.
Speaker 2:Milan will keep up. I think there will be changes. I have confidence that there will be changes To what there will be changes. There will be changes to do to those points Come January, February, Because Inter is going to….
Speaker 1:It's not impossible to catch them. I wouldn't say I've lost hope yet. It's three games. We have one against them, but it's hard, it's hard.
Speaker 3:If we don't play tomorrow, we will lose to Inter Milan.
Speaker 1:No, first of all, we need consistency. That's why I like that. Our next two games are games we should win. If we beat Monser, beat Salah, nittana beat Sassolo, we get our fear factor back right. That's what we've lost. We've lost that fear factor. Everybody sees that I can go to Toto with Milan now, so we need it back. And then we need to start putting that heat on Givertuz and Inter.
Speaker 3:Oh and by the way I wanted to note too. I don't think there's going to be a winter break this year in Italy. So I think that's actually interesting, because the last game is on the 30th and then the next game is the week later, so there's no winter break this year. Usually we get two to three weeks off.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, guys, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure chatting with you guys about Milan again. Thanks Chin, thanks Leo.
Speaker 3:Forza Milano, we are back.
Speaker 1:We should catch up. After this, united, we start, yes, united we start, definitely we are.
Speaker 2:We have to start. We're not my chance at United 124 years of red devilness.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes we count it in black.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, guys.
Speaker 3:Thank you, have a wonderful week. Take care guys. Take care everyone. Thanks guys, bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Ciao, Thanks guys.
