Might be better to finish 2nd in your Champions League group

Idiot wrote:i really cant see anyone apart from shakhtar that can eliminate malaga

its a 2 legged clash obviously and i think malaga at home would crush all of the possible opponents apart shakhtar as i previously mentioned
maybe arsenal too if they improve

They only beat us 1-0 in Malaga when we were at our absolute worst.

Forza Rossoneri wrote:

Idiot wrote:i really cant see anyone apart from shakhtar that can eliminate malaga

its a 2 legged clash obviously and i think malaga at home would crush all of the possible opponents apart shakhtar as i previously mentioned
maybe arsenal too if they improve

They only beat us 1-0 in Malaga when we were at our absolute worst.

+Considering most of our players were injured/rested

El Shaarawy wrote:

Forza Rossoneri wrote:

Idiot wrote:i really cant see anyone apart from shakhtar that can eliminate malaga

its a 2 legged clash obviously and i think malaga at home would crush all of the possible opponents apart shakhtar as i previously mentioned
maybe arsenal too if they improve

They only beat us 1-0 in Malaga when we were at our absolute worst.

+Considering most of our players were injured/rested

yes but you still are milan.. better than the likes of galatasaray,celtic and porto even at your worst.

dante they showed a lot of maturity and against a relatively decent group that included apart from milan an experienced belgian champion and a talented zenit side with a tricky trip to russia
id say they r already through the typical hurdle that newcomers such as city fail to adapt to

Blue Barrett wrote:

dostoevsky wrote:I see that history has already been rewritten. Their 'backline' consisted of putting eight men in the box, relying on the opposition to miss clear cut chances and penalties whilst even then playing out of their skin. They were a team desperately clinging onto life given one final chance to win something on the back of their veterans. It had nothing to do with the individual quality of their backline.

Bottomline = It was a strategy and it worked. Apologies to the teams whose players missed their penalties but how is in anyway our fault and not the PK taker? Oh and how is it somehow our fault that Cech saved Robben's PK?

Was expecting to touch a nerve, though I predicted Gil would be the one to bite.

I wasn't questioning the effectiveness of the strategy at all, I was questioning Surag's claim that it was a strategy whose success was made possible by the individual quality of the defenders. The stand out performers however were, as you mentioned Cech, who was a force in goal - I have considered him separate from the back four - along with Ramires and Drogba. The only member of the defence who might have been said to have had as much influence as these other members of the squad would be Ashley Cole, though I would have him rounding out the top five alongside Mata.

This wasn't meant as an attack on Chelsea, simply an attack on the idea that it's a strategy that requires a great individual backline. Chelsea's victory was won because they acted as a team at the back and showed discipline as a unit.

To say this is quite different from taking away credit from Chelsea and also quite different to what Surag was claiming.