Milan – Roma

By: Gianfranco | October 17th, 2009

Historically this fixture was always a fun one for me, poking fun at Roma and their fans seems to be an Offside.com tradition but the current climate at AC Milan makes this no fun and frankly pointless. I have come to the grips with the fact that this season will be mediocre at best and though I crave a win, I can’t say I expect it.

Both clubs have gotten off to a pretty bad start and while Roma has seemed to right the ship with the Tinker Man, Leo and Milan have yet to do the same. Scoring goals is the biggest problem at the moment and though our last two games against Roma, a draw and a loss, saw us net four goals while conceding five, I can’t even be optimistic about our chances for finding one. Pato seems to have regressed and the lack of Kaka has made Milan zero dimensional (even one dimension is hard to fathom at this point).

This may be the breaking point for Leonardo who should have used this International break to reassess and revaluate the direction of this club on the pitch. In terms of players his options are limited and the never ending questions surrounding whether Ronaldinho should play or shouldn’t, start or shouldn’t, will most definitely continue. Evidence for or against is completely inclusive; we suck with him we suck without him! So his playing time will most likely be a game time decision.

In the midfield expect to see Pirlo flanked by his country mates Ambro and Rino, with Nesta hopefully returning in defense, and Silva still trying to find fitness to return to the starting lineup. Abate should get the start at RB and Zambro most likely on the left, which will probably open the flood gates for Roma to attack Zambro. Vucinic is always dangerous at the San Siro and this match will be no exception, he is a on a goal drought and will be hungry to beat Storari a feat that is harder than we all expected.

I would almost push for Milan to play defensively and counter a weak defense that has the potential for leaking goals, but we all know it takes pace to counter and it will be funny to watch Abate tear up the right with Pato in tow while Dinho and Seedorf hoof it up the park. Ideally Leo will play Dinho up top with Seedorf behind the two strikers and let the other seven players sort it out defensively with Seedorf applying pressure in the attacking third…at this point there is little left to lose and anything is better than the status quo.

So here we are, at home, underdogs to a team that arguably is worse off than we are economically and personnel wise, with little or no chance to win…oh how we have fallen…