So.. when we go into this international break, I see two clear problems for us. 1. Injuries - Nothing we can do about this except wait. 2. Lapses of concentration - The instances of this is getting alarmingly high. Certain players are particularly prone to this issue, but it is largely a defensive problem as such - involving every player with defensive responsibilities.
On a tangential note here, I admire most decisions made by Galliani but for me, one of the rare miscalculations that he has made in recent years has been making someone like Mexes the central figure in defence. Feels ironical saying this, because he's one of my favourite players in this team (also when he was with Roma) but he's not dependable. He's far too temperamental and 'individualistic' to be the one that holds your defence together. And top level teams do need someone to do that role.
This central figure in defence is significantly responsible for ensuring concentration and alertness throughout the 95 minutes. This could be the goalkeeper, but Abbiati is far from capable of this role. We miss an organizer in defence (again, this need not be a defender but a midfielder or a goalkeeper).
Transfer market is far away, so is there a tactical solution to minimize these errors that we make other than hoping some good rest would increase the alertness of individual players?
One thing in my mind is the position of midfielders in a 4-3-1-2/4-3-2-1 (basically any 4-3-3 variant with a narrow trident and no wing forwards)... The biggest defensive risk here is naturally via wide positions. The formation is narrow and the workload of your fullbacks increases and hence, the side midfielders have to be capable of defending very well.
Nigel de Jong has been one of our best players since he was signed, and he excelled in the central midfielder role in a 4-3-3. He continues to do the distribution work well in the same role in a 4-3-1-2, but how does this affect the defense?
The side midfielders in a 4-3-1-2 need to do more defensive duties than those in a 4-3-3 (because in a 4-3-3, the wide attackers help out the fullbacks in defending in the wide areas - like El Shaarawy and Niang/Boateng did for us last year).. If we move de Jong to the side and shift Montolivo back to the center, will this work better? On paper, this looks more balanced to me. Montolivo can distribute as well or better than de Jong. de Jong can help the fullback in defense better than Montolivo can.
This is actually not a solution to the problems we currently face - they are purely lapses of concentration and the lack of an organizer as I mentioned earlier. But this, I think, is a way we can defend better when out of possession. And for the moment, any way to defend better should be welcome.
Regarding injuries, yes right now there's nothing we can do cause what's done is done, but with better training methods we could reduce the number of injuries to our team.
We have some injury prone players in the squad, but at the moment it seems like anybody who's training with Milan risk getting injured very often.
Tactics, its clear our team is not title challenger material, its way to unbalanced for that so my opinion is that we should play it to its strengths. If we play this:
------------------------Balo-------------------------
------SES--------------Kaka-----------Niang-----------
------------Muntari----NDJ--------Monto-------------
-----DES-----Zapata----Mexes-------Abate-----------
-------------------Abbiati------------------------
Our attack should start 90% of the time from the left side. There is no point in trying to force attacks down the right as the full back there is not capable of a decent cross.
If we need to switch the ball to the right side, Monto or Niang should look to pass it KaKa instantly. At this point Niang should move up but Monto and Abate should stay behind.
There's always a huge gap in our defence whenever Abate decides to go forward, we need to limit that. Since 90% of the time his actions don't produce a viable attack chance for us, he should stop doing it period as he is not worth the risk.
This will also provide extra cover for our CB duo who are not really the brightest defenders out there. What i also want to see is Balo putting the shoulder in more often, the dude has a great body for a Target man, he really needs to start using that to his advantage and start bullying defenders.
This will give Kaka more space for a shot, and while he lost a lot of speed the guy can place a shot like a sniper. All in all we need someone that can motivate and organize this team to play to the best of its ability.
Top coaches know how to mask player weakness, this what we need considering we dont have a world class squad available at our disposal. Would be nice if we could convince SAF to take us over for a year or two.