Serie A 2021-22 (53 Viewers)

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Hist

Hist

Founder of Hism
#2,801
Jan 18, 2009
11,616
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s4tch said:
with this squad? based on what exactly?

inda have by far the strongest squad, and it's not even close. we have one single mid with barella, brozovic, calhanoglu quality. i can't see them losing the scudetto.

juve winning all remaining matches :baus: gotta love turk's touch with reality.
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We brought in a top coach in place of an amateur, thought he'd take Chiesa to the next level, Kulu would improve, he'd get more out of Rabiot and Ramsey and fix the defense who had just won the euros. Added locatelli to the roster.

Inter in financial crisis. Lost their top coach, sold two of their best players and a third had a heart attack. Bought some elders and freebies to replace them.

Hindsight is 2020 you're taking it for granted now but inzaghi is actually doing a brilliant job, Inter had all this change and they look just as good if not better than before.
 

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Strickland

Strickland

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#2,802
May 17, 2019
5,859
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s4tch said:
with this squad? based on what exactly?

inda have by far the strongest squad, and it's not even close. we have one single mid with barella, brozovic, calhanoglu quality. i can't see them losing the scudetto.
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I expected first place based on the resources available to us, our wage bill is 50% bigger than Inters, our revenue is considerably bigger and we should be at least competing.

Then as I said the blame is shared between mgmt who didnt give Max the best squad with those resources (man were they slow in summer, Inter picked 2 key players on a bargain and we have a ton of players who couldve been sacrificed for them or someone like Pjanic), players like Woj who cost us tons of points and Max who continued to insist on ideas like "Rabiot can add 10 goals / season and should play as a winger".
 
Post Ironic

Post Ironic

Senior Member
#2,803
Feb 9, 2013
42,253
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Strickland said:
I expected first place based on the resources available to us, our wage bill is 50% bigger than Inters, our revenue is considerably bigger and we should be at least competing.

Then as I said the blame is shared between mgmt who didnt give Max the best squad with those resources (man were they slow in summer, Inter picked 2 key players on a bargain and we have a ton of players who couldve been sacrificed for them or someone like Pjanic), players like Woj who cost us tons of points and Max who continued to insist on ideas like "Rabiot can add 10 goals / season and should play as a winger".
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Since week 4, when Woj stopped costing us so many points, and the team finally started to move forward from the shock of losing Ronaldo… we are picking up points at the 2nd best rate in Serie A. If we had sold Ronaldo early in the window, brought in Vlahovic possibly, or just even had a settled squad that had the preseason to start adapting away from Ronaldo-focussed tactics, I have no doubt we’d still be in the scudetto race. Going through all of pre-season with the idea Ronaldo would be leading our attack really fucked our attack over. And now, without a preseason or any non-competitive period to adjust we had to shift away from 3 years of Ronaldo focussed attacking play.

Post-week 4 table looks like this (going into this current matchday):

Inter: 43 pts
Juve: 40 pts
Milan: 39 pts
Napoli: 37 pts
Atalanta: 36 pts

That’s kind of what I would expect from this team and its make-up. An ~80 pt season. 2nd place. Had we got Vlahovic to replace Ronaldo in the summer, I’d probably expect us to take on Inter for the scudetto. But 2 pts in those first 4 matches really fucked up our season, and we’re still struggling to recover from that as far as the table goes. We can have a fantastic 2.5 pts/game pace (95 pt full season) to finish the season and we’ll still only finish on 80 pts because of that start. Finishing above 4th requires Milan and Napoli to have mediocre finishes to the season.
 

Mokku

Senior Member
#2,804
Apr 17, 2019
2,718
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No, we have a limited capability squad. There is a lack of skill and a lot of players don't perform. We should be able to count on players like Kulusevski to create and score but we'd rather sell our remaining winger for an unproven Zakaria. We've done well considering we have no style or identity. A lot of teams below us are capable of scoring beautifully crafted team goals, we're miles away from that. Inter are solid, Milan have talent, Napoli and Atalanta have style. We've done well to keep up.
 
s4tch

s4tch

Senior Member
#2,806
Mar 23, 2015
33,656
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Strickland said:
I expected first place based on the resources available to us, our wage bill is 50% bigger than Inters, our revenue is considerably bigger and we should be at least competing.
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the wage bill argument would stand if our players were paid according to their worth. but when you have arthur as the 3rd most costly player of the league on a seasonal basis, and squad players like berna or rugani are paid more than some key players for other top4 clubs, then you have to forget this argument.

just remember inda post 2010: ageing, overpaid, unbalanced squad no coach could fix. highest wage bill too. we have (had?) the same issues. i somehow trust bini&bene based on this winter, but this squad is nowhere near the quality we were used to when we dominated the league. vlahovic and locatelli are good additions, we still need a transfer window or two to fix all issues. ffs mds is our best left back, who are we kidding.

PARATICI :baus:
 
Orgut

Orgut

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Dec 31, 2002
19,326
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Post Ironic said:
Since week 4, when Woj stopped costing us so many points, and the team finally started to move forward from the shock of losing Ronaldo… we are picking up points at the 2nd best rate in Serie A. If we had sold Ronaldo early in the window, brought in Vlahovic possibly, or just even had a settled squad that had the preseason to start adapting away from Ronaldo-focussed tactics, I have no doubt we’d still be in the scudetto race. Going through all of pre-season with the idea Ronaldo would be leading our attack really fucked our attack over. And now, without a preseason or any non-competitive period to adjust we had to shift away from 3 years of Ronaldo focussed attacking play.

Post-week 4 table looks like this (going into this current matchday):

Inter: 43 pts
Juve: 40 pts
Milan: 39 pts
Napoli: 37 pts
Atalanta: 36 pts

That’s kind of what I would expect from this team and its make-up. An ~80 pt season. 2nd place. Had we got Vlahovic to replace Ronaldo in the summer, I’d probably expect us to take on Inter for the scudetto. But 2 pts in those first 4 matches really fucked up our season, and we’re still struggling to recover from that as far as the table goes. We can have a fantastic 2.5 pts/game pace (95 pt full season) to finish the season and we’ll still only finish on 80 pts because of that start. Finishing above 4th requires Milan and Napoli to have mediocre finishes to the season.
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I dont think Inter are really in reach as they have a comfortable lead and are probably the best in Serie A (until our whole system gels properly).
2nd place - We can get to Milan but we need some luck on the way.
3rd - Definitely possible and also what I expect us to achieve.
 
Xperd

Xperd

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Jun 1, 2012
34,973
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Milan for two years straight are punching above their weight. Apart from 1-2 players, they are still largely fielding journeymen and young unproven talent.

This obviously comes down to mentality and to a large extent, continuity with Pioli.

Top 4 is bare minimum for us. If we didn't get top 4, normally I would say sack Allegri but the lack of continuity and stability at this club has been a huge problem. A 4th coaching change in as many years can be devastating for any club.

This is the primary reason why many people including me prefer Allegri to stay even if this ends up being another failure season.

That said when I see Pioli impressing with Milan considering the personnel he has, we can do much much better than where we are currently. The key thing is Milan gave Pioli the time who initially, wasn't fancied to become the long term coach of Milan and look where they are now.

Our squad needs fixing both on a quality level as well as on a mentality level. Let's hope we can quickly get back to where we were.
 
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