Milan Derby

One of the games of the season, even with the somewhat failing Italian League, blue and black versus red and black. The Milan derby is usually an interesting match in one way or another. After The Special One lead Inter to the treble they are struggling to spark their season into life under Rafa, however for this fixture the line-up looks more likely to be closer to Rafa's first 11. AC Milan go into the match top of the table despite having a mixed start to their campaign, the so-called fab-4 have left Allegri scratching his head with regards to team selection, some would say pressure from higher places has lead him to playing overly-attacking sides. Today's selection see's only two of the fab-4 starting, Robinho on the bench and Pato out of the squad, with both teams playing 4-3-1-2 the game was set up for an interesting encounter.

Milan had a chance very early on with Abate making a very good run and an equally good cross to a semi-marked Seedorf, who headed over the bar. In the fourth minute Milan broke with Zlatan Ibrahimovic sprinting from inside his own half, taking on two defenders as he got inside the Inter box, a cute little backwards flick caught Materazzi out who took out Ibra with a hanging leg. The swede got up, brushed himself down to take the penalty, which was calmly slotted in the left corner after sending the keeper the wrong way. There was little celebration from the striker scoring against his former club in his first derby in red within five minutes. As well as the first goal, Milan got the first booking of the match after Abate made two fouls on Samuel Eto'o. A second goal was on the cards when Ibra was allowed through on the right-hand side, hint of offside, he had Flamini open in the centre of goal, who surely would have slotted home was it not for an excellent last-ditch intervention from Cordoba.

After the inevitable Gattuso booking, just inside the twenty minute mark, Ibrahimovic nearly doubled his tally with a Di-Canio style cross-goal volley, after yet another Milan attack. A few players in red are treading dangerously with regards to getting a second booking, namely Gattuso and would imagine with an early booking Abate will be getting pin-pointed for the rest of the match. Inter haven't been in the game, nothing has really came off, they have been giving up a lot of space in midfield and not really challenging physically. Joel Obi was forced to leave the field 10 minutes before half-time, Cambiasso was stripped and ready to go, however Rafa changed his mind and put Coutinho the 18 year old attacking midfielder/winger on. The Brazilian started Inter's best attack of the match, not that there was much to beat, he also finished it with a scuffed shot very wide of the Milan post. A few minutes later, Gattuso should have picked up his second yellow when he took down Sneijder just outside the box. The wide free kick struck by the Dutchman made the net bulge, but only because it hit the outside of the side-netting on the way past. The half-time whistle blew after Inter had a few more attacks, nothing too noteworthy, but signs of encouragement for the second half.
Milito's game was over at half-time and Goran Pandev replaces him, not such an attacking move as we would expect. Milan joined in for the half-time substitution fun, replacing red-card threatened Gattuso with Pirlo.

Inter started the half well with a few attacks, ending not so well however. The crowd were showing their unease when Eto'o decided to try and gee them up. Although Milan have had lots of chances, the first notable save of the match was made by Abbiati, after Ambrosini mis-timed a tackle on Eto'o in a wide area. The free kick was well placed for a cross, all the big men were up for Inter and Sneijder thundered a shot towards goal for Abbiati to parry the ball to Ibrahimovic, who cleared. Shortly before the hour mark, Abate went off on a stretcher, only to come back on a minute or so later, the cynic in me would say he was breaking play when Inter were building a little pressure. He instantly got involved with Pandev who pushed over the right-back, resulting in a yellow for both players meaning Abate was off with 30 minutes left. Robinho made way for Antonini to replace the Abate(swapping flanks with Zambrotta), leaving Milan with Ibra alone up-front.
Shortly after the sending off Rafa changed system to a 4-3-2-1, shuffling the pack after Materazzi took a knock from Ibrahimovic forcing him off and Biabiany came on to play an right sided attacking midfield role. Milan make the last substitution of the match, taking off Seedorf after an excellent 70 minutes and bringing on Kevin-Prince Boateng, which should give a little more steel to 10-man Milan. With a little more than 10 minutes left, Inter set in wait around the Milan box and eventually make a chance with Sneijder placing a bullet cross along the 6-yard line, but nobody was there to take what would have been the simplest of goals. Ambrosini broke an Inter counter and took a booking for the team, from the resulting free-kick at the half way line, Pandev combines with Eto'o to put the striker through on goal before Tiago Silva covers and makes a great tackle to put the ball away for a corner.

The full-time whistle was edging ever closer and Milan seemed to be sinking towards their own goal, Inter had a lot of pressure but hadn't been able to carve that great chance as yet. Pirlo and Ibrahimovic wasted some time in the corner, with some good holding off, I,nter then broke and won a free-kick just outside shooting range, a teasing ball was played in by Sneijder but a push on Silva halted play. Flamini started the four additional minutes running towards the corner flag and eventually gave an Inter throw-in. Milan were able to see out the remaining minutes with little problem, Milan jumped back to the top of the table, one point ahead of Lazio, and 6 above Inter, although there are a couple other teams in between. According to our mate Silvio  the league is over, not sure I'd believe that, but it was a good win for AC. The words to describe this match definitely go along the lines of ugly and turgid at times, although there were a few really good performances. The front three for Milan had great movement which had the Inter defensive unit baffled at times, Ibrahimovic gave one of those performances that Barca fans would never believe, full of work and held the ball up and linked play excellently. Robinho provided a constant threat with his pace, receiving great passes from in the main Seedorf and Ibra. Despite a lot of good positions, you could count the number of saves in the game on one hand, double finishing training for both sets of players is required it seems. A few weeks ago I thought Allegri was under a lot of pressure for his job, but if he can keep players happy while not playing(Ronaldinho and Pato) while not in the team he may have the correct system to win the league now. A lot of people are now saying Rafa is heading for the door, I am in two minds, he was never going to produce the same as Jose, the players don't have it in them but he still has a lot of quality in the squad and has to deliver. Whether he gets the January window to strengthen, as he would like, I am not so sure, he may be a gonner by then.

Football Derbies

Well last night at the City of Manchester Stadium we were served up a bore 0-0, I'm not sure if the players forgot it was a derby and played it out. The papers are filled with Manchester United quotes saying that Mancini played so defensively that it spoiled the game, or words to that effect. The City side definitely set out a strong defensive stall, which is fine, I feel they should have attacked more in the last 20 minutes or so, players like Johnson can do wonderful things in attack but were instructed to play from deep. In saying that City were defensive, they still had the two best chances in the match, one being a free kick saved by Van Der Sar, United offered little going forward, again in the wide areas were poor, possibly not helped by both United Full Back's were substituted through injury. The television man of the match was Nemanja Vidic, which is hard to argue with, he has come a long way since his error-prone start at Old Trafford. However, I would have personally given the award to Michael Carrick, he has been known as Side-ways Carrick, like Back-pass Barry(Ferguson) but tonight looked forward a lot more often, and only failed to complete 2 of 61 passes. Although, in my opinion, he will never be as good as Paul Scholes (Who will?) if he could churn out performances like tonight time and again, he will ease a few of United's worries for the future of what already seems a weakening and ageing squad.

Although not seen as one of the fiercest derbies, Chelsea Vs Fulham definitely produced a fierce derby style tackle, from a seemingly unlikely source. Michael Essien, not known as a particularly dirty player, jumped in with two feet, extremely dangerously on Clint Dempsey, instant red card, and probably worth an extra ban. The Stamford Bridge team started the season in free-scoring mood, and have stuttered somewhat, although 3 points is 3 points. Although Schwarzer definitely did well to keep the blues to one, his opposite number Cech did have a couple hairy moments, and Fulham could have grabbed something. At the end of the day, the bore draw in Manchester combined with Chelsea's home victory has given them a 4 point lead at the top of the English premiership. Although not invincible, I can't see the Blues being caught at the top, they may even lose as many if not more games than last season, so it's more of a case that other teams are far to inconsistent to take the title from the Bridge.

In Spain at the weekend Real unsurprisingly demolished an Athletico side, and the Edinburgh derby was another poor affair, not exactly a shock with the two sides form. There was a strange night in Scotland last night, with Hearts winning at home to a poor Celtic and Rangers apparently not being able to complete a pass in losing 3-0 at home to Hibs. Although it grab the headlines, my result of the night was St.Mirren winning 2-1 at Tannadice, despite Dundee Utd missing a few players they should have enough to see off the team which was bottom of the SPL.

This weekend serves up another derby, hopefully it will be create a big bang in Milan. (Sorry) AC Milan are have just taken top spot from Lazio in Seria A, and are looking a lot better, it seems Massimiliano Allegri is not as clueless as once thought. The Milan side are shaping up slightly differently, I will still give the gaffer credit, despite changes being enforced by pirlo's injury, it will be interesting to see if he slots straight in when fit. A different story for inter, dropping two points to Lecce in a 1-1 draw, a very silly goal from a set-piece cost them. However, Inter have many injuries and Milito was left on the bench and Eto'o was all alone up front, and created very little, Milito came off the bench to give his side the lead. I think AC Milan will come out on top to put more pressure on rambling Benitez.