A couple of facts before my review:
1. Massimo Oddo has never started a professional game at CB.
2. Zambrotta played emergency CB for Italy in Euro 2008
3. Albertazzi, highly rated Milan youth product, high off some silverware is on the bench.
4. Palermo’s CB Kjaer, is two years older than Albertazzi, and is a second year starter and one of Serie A’s best CBs.
So the immediate question is what on Earth do those facts have to do with today’s game, everything, frankly. The minute I saw Oddo at CB to start the match, I should have cancelled the DVR, and pretended that there was no game today. The mere fact that Leo chose Oddo over Albertazzi, or worse Zambrotta who is the smarter, wiser, and better built of the two to play CB is for me the defining moment for both Coach and Club for the season. A proverbial village of fools…
It certainly doesn’t help matters that Palermo’s first goal, from a set piece, saw Silva and Oddo share confused looks because the makeshift CB was out of position and left Bovo in acres in space. Regardless of being a CB or not how is there any excuse for two players to move to the same spot on a corner!!! Then the second goal came, and I thought it couldn’t get worse than the first…it did, because in the 69th minute he was the man at fault yet again…three goals, all on Oddo, can someone tell me why this choice was made?
Not only did Leo let us down in the back, he let us down in the front as well. For the past few days I have had to listen to people to tell me to go easy on KJH. I was told today would be the day, he wold prove me wrong, good thing I didn't hold my breath! Couldn’t we try and grab a little lightning in a bottle and give Zigoni or Verdi a run, as I stated in the preview? Surely it would have been better than the phantom Dutchmen, who in the 51st minute got an earful from Pirlo for not making a proper run! He is a consummate professional with an impeccable scoring record in Holland, a big money move to Madrid, a great goal per minute average in Serie A, but yet he can’t make a simple diagonal run in front of the CB’s. I rest my case, if I knew anyone would want him I would pay for his ticket out of Milan.
If you couldn’t already tell me from my ranting and raving I am immensely frustrated. I am exhausted from the long season and the emotional roller coaster that it has put us through. I am frustrated that our management can’t make a simple choice of seeing a young player live over watching an old player die before our eyes. So as we watch Inter march onto the CL tropy, and Roma seemingly toward the title, while we are going nowhere fast, so please forgive me if I came across as irritable. I am going to end simply with this, Leo thank you for your year of service, but you have failed at the unenviable task of moving Milan into the future. You were the man that was supposed to make this work, but instead you proved the same as your predecessor who clearly left at the “right” time, now I simply ask for you to do same. Unless of course you have already resigned by the time this post goes up, because I have no intention of going near any Milan news at the moment….
Hopefully I will be back in a day or so with a level head...