Serie A Season 18/19

I think he is more like Matri and Oliveira.

gian...i know you have utter disdain for Kalinic but i feel like you will be wrong in the end. Kalinic is a player montella has said will fit right into our lineup, with his work rate and playing ability. Many teams typically field players with less skill but more complimentary team play...we have so much skill on the ball but we need hard runners and supporting roles too

He wont score 20...but my guess is more than 5. but its not his goals...we had a pure goalscorer in Bacca...how did that go again? Lets see how a striker known for his off ball presence will do. If Montella has wanted him all this time, what does that say? I trust the guy

People said the same about Matri, and I was right about that. Kalinic is a player with few redeeming qualities, and one that is generally low quality. His hold up play isn't that good and his scoring record is horribly inconsistent.

That argument about his presence doesn't even matter. He isn't that good at it. He is a mediocre striker meant for a midtable team. And we aren't trying to be midtable.

His playing ability isn't good, his goal scoring rate is poor and his hold up play isn't any better than Borriello.

I think I'm quite right here as I was about pass players. A 29 year old mediocre player will only turn to shit. Fiorentina is laughing all the way to the bank.

Kalinic is a nice bench player and an occasional starter. He was always going to be our back up option if we weren't able to get belotti or auba. Time for Andre Silva put in work!

Hopefully next season we could get another elite striker, mid and a winger.

A back up to who? We don't have a starting CF and Silva is a second striker.

And if Kessie gets injured we are screwed.

We will be playing 3-5-2 tomorrow with youngsters. Will Zanellato be our next young star?

http://m.milannews.it/news/shkendija-milan-la-probabile-formazione-dei-rossoneri-montella-punta-sulla-difesa-a-tre-e-sui-giovani-265546

Milan (3-5-2): Storari; Zapata, Bonucci, Romagnoli; Calabria, Zanellato, Locatelli, Mauri, Antonelli; Cutrone, André Silva

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The defense is fine, but the only question for is midfield.We will see.

Seems to be a ton of rotation. Romagnoli was called up, but isn't entirely match fit yet.

Correction: Romagnoli will be playing. I hope he is ready then!

finally i was able to watch our serie a opener against crotone this morning. here are some thoughts i'd like to share.

so yet another red card in our first game, but luckily it wasn't us this time - now that kucka and paletta are gone our chances to have less than 5 sending offs this season are quite high i think

although it's been pointed out that this match was decided within 3 minutes, i don't think that crotone's game plan altered too much after going one man down, so we've got an impression of how we'll play against such deep at the back sitting sides of which there'll be many. for once it was a pleasant surprise that we did create a good amount of chances, something we struggled to do so often last season - it was also great to see that we took the opportunity and put two past our temporarily lethargic opponents in quick succession, which we barely managed last season either.
suso, our linchpin in the offensive third, yet again with a great performance and though he was central to most of our moves, i am sure that calha will make his presence felt rather sooner than later and with the addition of jack the creative burden will be shared more equally than was visible last sunday.

as for calha, i thought, he had a good game and was much more involved than in his previous outings while his physical shape has improved too though he's still far from top form. he had some very good and opening passes and a few good runs. defensively his contribution wasn't required, so we'll have yet to see how good he can fulfill the defensive duties of a mezzala.
kessie has been such a huge surprise and he continues to impact our matches in an excellent way. it's amazing the great tactical awareness he shows, particularly for a player of his age - at times he's overcommitted and make small mistakes but he's also shown to be a quick learner and has always improved with each match. another outstanding performance.
also loca's growth is - specially - a joy to witness - his match against crotone was obviously far from perfect, he still produces careless turnovers and needs to improve on his positioning and long balls and he collects too many yellow cards... he's just improved so much compared to his first appearances and it's just great to see such a talent nurtured and allowed to continue to grow.
cutrone's performance is also worth a special mention. great goal, some excellent runs and made his presence felt at all times. i didn't like the fact that he didn't take the shot and rather looked for the foul that got his opponent sent off eventually, but that's just personal preference. anyways, hopefully he continues to show this great form.

all in all a great performance though this match gave us little to no indication how we are going to shape up defensively.

a little comment on our lack of depth that's been mentioned numerous times
mauri and sosa are still here to provide cover for the midfiled, and as we barely pursued any real winger all summer, it's clear that we'll alternate with different set-ups. until now, we've used niang and borini on the wings - one will be sold, while the other won't get as many starts come september. so if either of our primary 'wingers' jack and suso are out, we'll likely see the 352...

whatever, this has been a great start so far and i'm looking forward to seeing more...
here's to a successful season
forza milan


btw, i'm also looking forward to the reactions of you guys, dante and giancarlo, anytime kalinic remains goalless, misses sitters, scores a brace, wins us the derby

Good post Vu.

Let me give you a taste of my future reactions on Kalinic , pleasure and satisfaction .

Imagine not rating this beast who scored against all big teams last season ?

Imagine thinking he's mediocre when he scored 20 with the circus Fiorentina was for 2/3 of last season ?

Only real flaw in his game is he doesn't stat pad nearly enough if at all , but even this , you need the team to allow you to do it .  

Kalinic is all about winning the game at hand before anything else , that said he's found his inner Luca Toni and realised he's a beast at 28 , thinking he won't score more than he did last season is amusing .

Serie Alpha is not ready for him , Kaligola

Imagine rating a guy who missed basic sitters and went missing for an entire part of the season costing Fiorentina vital points and an EL spot?

Imagine rating a guy who struggled to score more than ten goals a season for the majority of his career?

Imagine rating a guy and thinking he would perform for a top level team with high pressure when he has never played for a top level team?

Stats says it all. 40 misses in one year and an uncanny ability of going missing when his team needs it the most.

15 goals in the Series A last season wasnt that impressive. Especially when you look at how many appearances he had. He had a lower goal per minute ratio than Lapadula.

Comparing him to Luca Toni is an insult to Luca Toni. He isn't half the player Toni was.

He isn't an alpha and he isn't worth the Milan jersey. This is a joke. Angering stupid comparisons too. RnB was worse. They were comparing him to Shevchenko.

I have never been so disgusted by other Milan fans before. Don't you dare disgrace the memory of Sheva. I am old enough to remember Sheva quite clearly, and Kalinic wouldn't even be worthy enough to shine his shoes.

Probably just a depth signing.

Biglia is called for Cagliari tomorrow according to Sky. Looks like he returned sooner than expected.

http://www.milannews.it/news/sky-lucas-biglia-torna-tra-i-convocati-del-milan-per-la-sfida-al-cagliari-265882

I need to say that I was upset about Kalinic to such a degree, I downgraded the entire mercato. I need to be honest with myself. This is a 8.5 out of 10 mercato... maybe a 9 even. I won't give it a ten because depth is indeed lacking in the midfield (maybe that Rafinha guy will help with that), and the attack needed a world class striker, but we were too late on that one. None of this changes my view on Kalinic... who truly is overpriced mediocrity (and I'm being nice!).

Maybe despite these stupidly big transfers, we will still find someone under the radar. Someone worth the money and that plays at a top level. It is possible.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's game and will watch it.

Fantastic pass by Suso !

We're giving too much possession to them, Kessie and Hakan need to do more

Losing the ball too quickly , wont work

Calhanoglu is looking a bit fraudish

Add bad defending to it.

Yep

Getting Gustavo Gomez vibes from him, the 'i dont know what to do with ball' vibes

Sooner or later Calliari will score. Too bad defending + zero midfield

Just terrible from Kessie and Calhanoglu, lost count how many times they got dispossessed. You know its bad when Montolivo is performing better. Hakan i have some doubts about him since i did some extensive research, some of the comments were glad that he is gone, some didn't bat an eye. Either way, doesn't look promising based on this performance.

If this is the midfield we are stuck with then there is no top 3, if Borini keeps starting then there is no top 3, if we dont get 2 reinforcements to bolster this side then there is no top 3. Getting dominated by Cagliari's midfield is sickening, whats gonna happen once we come up against Roma or Napoli's midfield? Last year we shithoused our way to top 3 by December and collapsed.

midfield *bleep* awful so far

all that $$$ spent and borini is a starter?? lol how is that possible....

1-1

Hakan <--> Lucas

We need to win EL, i have seem the light, that is the only we can qualify for CL