Catania 1 Milan 1

If there was a weekend, a match, or an opponent that Milan would drop points against you would have to expect this was going to be it. Merely a few days from a monumental trip to Camp Nou, against one of Serie A's hottest teams in the hostile grounds of Sicily, there should be no excuses, but it appeared Milan was going to play as conservative as possible. In fact I can't give enough credit to Catania who played their game for 90 minutes and while some are saying Robinho's goal was over the line, I can't agree, and it was Catania who was wronged by the crossbar in what would have made for an interesting result. Now we wait for Napoli to give Juventus some trouble and hope we can retain our lead.

The issue I had was that Milan's couldn't hold a 1-0 zero lead. They attacked in spurts, and maintained possession, but they simply couldn't deal with Catania's counter's in varying areas of the pitch. In fact it was a quite the performance for the little team from Sicily in the attacking third and simply listening to their fans cheering them on attack after attack and you knew they were ready for the occasion where it appeared Milan was not. Abate and Aquilani both looked out of sorts in their first match, and is often the case when players seek fitness. Ambrosini is beginning to show the exhaustion of to many matches and Zlatan may have deserved a rest in this one as he appeared to never really get into gear. El Sharaawi provided an instant boost but the inclusion of Maxi could have come sooner against his old team to channel some of the emotion of the moment. I can understand and appreciate the need to keep the players in a routine and not allow them to get rusty prior to the midweek tie, but the issue is always how do you replace players who don't have replacements on the bench?

So in true Milan fashion, instead of making things easier, they only find a way to make things harder. Now we watched this afternoon's match with great interest and hope Napoli can lend us a helping hand, then again best we deal with our own business, is it not?