Pirlo is NOT average. God, some people are pathetic. You can say he's overhyped, that's possibly true. But what he does well, there are maybe 5 players in world on his level in terms of range of passing, and pace setting from CM.
World class post The Bear. I think you're all missing his point on 'take creative focus' off pirlo. Pirlo is our ONLY ball playing CM. Seedorf can do it, but he doesn't play CM anymore so he's not really relevant to topic. Flamini, Gattuso, Ambro? No way. Ambro and Flams may have some ability, but neither can distribute ball under pressure or really in general. Just simple 5 yard passes, which is fine, it's not there role to distribute
In 2003 we had seedorf who was mobile, rui costa, and sheva. Then came kaka. All these players tended to drop into midfield when needed. Rui would go deep, seedorf would be everywhere. Sheva would fall back deep too, along with kaka....
We have NO players on par with these players in terms of attacking mobile and dropping deep for creativity to eleviate pirlo. Ronnie has the creativity, but he plays too high to really get involved in build up. It's also just not ideal to bring him in the build up anyway cause he doesn't have burst to get from there into the box nor does he work like a CM.
Pato is just fast, and a great finisher but in terms of creating... not so much yet (which is fine, he's 20... let him do what he does well). I struggle with idea of him as second striker, cause the likes of del piero, sheva etc who played it at a world class level tended to drop ALOT deeper EFFECTIVELY than pato. Pato does his best damage making runs and finishing plays. Perhaps it's team milan decide to make him #9 and deal with fact he's gonna be overmatched physically at times.
Seedorf, i love him, but he just can't cover the ground he used to....
The team is a 1 man team (pirlo) in terms of mounting an attack. If he get's supply cut off (like v. Arsenal in 2008 or Inter this year) Ronnie doesn't even bet the ball. Thats what the better teams realized. The smaller teams don't press as much, but bigger squads who don't need to defend with 10 men, realize press Pirlo, and ball never gets to attack for milan.....It's that simple. Even the addition of a DM like yaya or de rossi, would make a huge difference cause they can play the ball as well with pirlo, and it wouldn't be same store of win ball, give to pirlo, watch him try to make a decision while being pressured.
Finally people will constantly compare to Xavi and say this doesn't happen to him. You can't just cut off barca's supply by marking out xavi... why? Because Iniesta, Yaya and Keita can advance ball from defense. And ALL are better than every CM milan has. Xavi doesn't have to touch a ball for barca to score 5 goals. Pirlo does, and that doesn't make pirlo better than xavi at all.... only that milan is wayy too dependent on his passing to move the ball forward