First game today - Sampdoria. Let's see how we start this year. Hope as well as our city rivals. FORZA MILAN!!!
Speaking of romagnoli, I've heard that he's going to sign with Lazio in January. Well, the pre contract..
Milan playing aggressively against Lazio, so far. I like it. Finishing has been poor, though. Strange formation, 4-2-3-1 with Rebic up front. I'm not crazy about Romagnoli and Florenzi starting. Leão playing well so far. Nice to see Kessié back, and Ibra available on the bench. Forza Milan!
Well, that was satisfactory! Ibra gets a goal in his return. Calabria, Tonali, Leão did well. Lazio were pretty much neutralized. Good win! 9 points in 3 games, life is sweet.
Calabria was solid today, Tonali improving the more he plays. Ibra doesn't even need to score, his presence alone is enough to put teams on edge.
Well, that was painful to see. We got completely outplayed and outclassed and we were lucky to escape with a defeat by only one goal difference, instead of 4 or 5... It was kind of humiliating. We obviously don't have a player as good as Salah and Henderson... Leão was so bad that he looked like he was playing for Liverpool... Saelemaekers was useless. Poor Maignan tried hard and wasn't responsible for any of their three goals, and without him it would have been much worse (saved a penalty and many other balls). Not even Theo and Kessie played well. The only silver linings are that it was an away game and we don't need to be better than Liverpool (we aren't); we need to be better than Atletico Madrid and Porto; they drew so that's a favorable result for us.
Kessie now is stuck with us. The transfer window has passed. He will probably sign a pre-contract as free agent in January with another team. Nobody hires a player who has six months left in his contract before he becomes a free agent because they can have him for free six months later. Kessie will be with us for the duration of this season. I doubt he'll remain, past that. Yes, he didn't play well but maybe he isn't at 100% of his form, coming back from injury. The entire team was a disaster with a few honorable exceptions. We just aren't as good as Liverpool, a sad fact we need to acknowledge.
My son has a less pessimistic approach to the Liverpool-Milan game. His take is that we wouldn't win anyway, against one of the best teams in the world, in a packed loud away stadium, and with our team being the youngest in terms of player average age in the entire 2021 Champions League. Several players from Liverpool have more Champions League games under their belt than our entire team put together. So he thought we lost honorably and almost scored a third goal, ruled offside by a hair, and he also complains of a clear penalty on Kessié that wasn't called. Yes, we lost and they dominated the game but we did scare them by scoring two goals and almost scoring a third. He says, our young team is not supposed to win a lot in the Champions League yet; our guys are learning and getting experienced. He said our guys were scared and overwhelmed in first half but did calm down a bit and did put together some plays. I guess it's a valid take.
We were definitely overwhelmed in the beginning, but we found out balance and took the lead. Liverpool are a better team with better players at most positions, and their quality won the game in the end. It's pretty simple really. We could have won, but it would have been against the run of play, which happens but shouldn't be expected.
How do you think we'll fare against Atletico Madrid and Porto? Do you think we'll survive this group, or will get eliminated?