Pre-Season 2016

16th July: vs Bordeaux

27th July: vs Bayern

30th July: vs Liverpool

3rd August: vs Chelsea

Sometime in August: TIM cup

Zapata got injured and will be undergoing surgery tomorrow, Mediaset claims he will be back in 2-3 months

Our only CB at this time is Paletta and Romagnoli, we need to wrap up Musacchio soon

ES wrote:Zapata got injured and will be undergoing surgery tomorrow, Mediaset claims he will be back in 2-3 months

Our only CB at this time is Paletta and Romagnoli, we need to wrap up Rugani soon

Agreed. The line-ups we field in friendlies are immaterial but it's important that whoever we select as a partner for Romagnoli have as much time with the squad as possible prior to the start of the league.

Wonder if we can use our game with Chelsea to tap up Fabregas after Conte realises he's not provincial enough.

dostoevsky wrote:
Wonder if we can use our game with Chelsea to tap up John Obi Mikel after Conte realises he's not provincial enough.

Fixed

Squad number changes: Bonaventura is now #5 instead of #28, Luiz Adriano #87 instead of #9, Niang #11 instead of #19.

Probable XI vs Bordeaux (4-3-3): Donnarumma; Abate, Paletta, Romagnoli, Antonelli; Poli, Jose Mauri, Bertolacci; Niang, Adriano, Bonaventura

Is Paletta supposed to stay at Milan this season? I rate him more than Zapata and Alex, although its been a while since I followed him.

No idea, i wouldn't mind him staying, him, Zapata, Musacchio and Romagnoli should be enough for CB positions, we're not in 3 comps so its fine.

Then again, this is the club that had 8 CB's at one point

(Rami, Alex, Zapata, Mexes, Paletta, Zaccardo, Bonera, Bocchetti)

AC Milan (4-3-3) – Vincenzo Montella
Gianluigi Donnarumma; Ignazio Abate, Gabriel Paletta, Alessio Romagnoli, Luca Antonelli; Andrea Bertolacci, Andrea Poli, Giacomo Bonaventura; Suso, Jeremy Menez, M’Baye Niang.

Interesting, Bona is the LCM

Toulalan still balling

Or are we that shit

Defensive blunder and Suso capitalizes, 1-0

Suso with a golazo 2-0

Keep?

Not sure if Bonaventura or Zidane

Gabriel, Calabria, Zanellato, Jose Mauri and Luiz Adriano have replaced Donnarumma, Antonelli, Bonaventura, Bertolacci & Menez.

ES wrote:Squad number changes: Bonaventura is now #5 instead of #28, Luiz Adriano #87 instead of #9, Niang #11 instead of #19.

Probable XI vs Bordeaux (4-3-3): Donnarumma; Abate, Paletta, Romagnoli, Antonelli; Poli, Jose Mauri, Bertolacci; Niang, Adriano, Bonaventura

Freeing up the 9 for Pavoletti

ES wrote:No idea, i wouldn't mind him staying, him, Zapata, Musacchio and Romagnoli should be enough for CB positions, we're not in 3 comps so its fine.

Then again, this is the club that had 8 CB's at one point

(Rami, Alex, Zapata, Mexes, Paletta, Zaccardo, Bonera, Bocchetti)

9 if you count Albertazzi

If it's true that we're not pursuing any wide attackers in the market anymore then I wouldn't mind keeping Suso if he performs well in pre-season. My hope though is that we're still going to see a lot of movement in the market.

I LOL'ed pretty hard !

Il Diavolo wrote:

I LOL'ed pretty hard !

Looks like a hobit lol

We are going to the US tour with exact same team from last season, Lapadula and Vangioni will miss it because of obvious fake injuries issued by Galliani, have fun with that shite bunch, 2 months down the season we'll be wondering why Montella's football is so shite when the same people are starting bar 1-2

Bacca shockingly hit by an 'injury' before the US flight

Lol West Ham owner tweeted that Milan have accepted the bid and just waiting for an answer from Bacca.

He probably is busy googling who West Ham are and if they are even a real club.

I missed the first thirty minutes of the Chelsea friendly but saw enough to make a few comments.

1. Poli

2. If Kucka's going to be used as a reserve anchor he needs to cut out the suicidal passing. Doubt we'll ever see this in a real game though. He's much better when given the freedom to roam and burst forward with the ball, he simply brings a different dimension to our midfield in a box-to-box role. He's wasted at the base of midfield.

3. Niang's still frustrating at times but he seems to be responding well to Montella and apart from Jack he seems to be the only one in the team with some sort of idea how to go forward.

4. I'm very glad that we're practising how to pass out from the back but setting three players on each side of the box as passing options feels slightly pointless when the first thing they do after receiving said short pass is hoof. The only thing worse was when they did try and play short. The only defender I'd actually trust to play out from the back is Romagnoli but that's insufficient. We didn't even need Zapata out there today, Paletta was bad enough.

5. Calabria is too good to rot on the bench for a year at his age. He has three international level fullbacks ahead of him at the club; either one of these must be sold or we should find a club in Serie A willing to play him week in, week out.

Niang looked great versus Bayern in the striker position I can't understand why Montella decided to play him on the left against Liverpool and Chelsea.

I suspect he's simply experimenting with the wing positions because of a lack of options. Currently we have one position that can be filled by all of Niang, Lapadula, Adriano, Matri and Bacca, until our transfer situation changes at least.

On the wings however we have two positions that can be filled by Suso, Honda and Bonaventura. With Jack also desperately needed in midfield unless we can draft in a new creative midfielder it's easy to see why Montella wants to test Niang in a wide position. I agree that he's looked better in a central role thus far and I suspect Montella would agree with us but given that we have five players capable of filling a central role and three for two wide positions, he has to try and expand his horizons.

In fact, if you want to classify everyone in their ideal position - given the current squad - and put Jack firmly in midfield, then in attack we're left with 5 players for the centre, 2 for the right and none for the left.

Come to think of it actually, it might have been worthwhile to see Vangioni tested as a left winger during the pre-season, it's a position he's apparently familiar with. No point crying over spilt milk but it's frustrating that we've learnt nothing so far of our two acquisitions.

Vergara is the worst player I've ever seen.

http://www.goallegacy.net/t30129-welcome-vergara?highlight=vergara

Thank god we didn't win the jinx cup, one of the worst preseason tourneys ever