Champions League: AC Milan vs CELTIC, 18th September 19:45 kick off, live on SS2

OK, mate, you've clearly seen more of Juve than me. You're probably right.
It's clearly silly of me to try and analyse Juve based on my impressions in two games that I was heavily emotionally involved in 9 months ago. To be fair I keep wanting to watch them again to see if my memory of them is correct, but it's too painful.

 

Thanks for that

I'm not going to pretend I know much about your squad, Samaras is the only real familiar name in the team and I know a bit about his style. What type of player is Commons? Is he a target man? Or is he more of support type forward that's able to drop back?

 

Where did I say that. Read my posts. You will also see that I admit they were better than us.

I was actually arguing that, far from it being the referee's fault, they did their homework better than we did. Most refs from Nothern Europe would have given us a penalty and probably sent Lichsteiner off; but then Juve would have played differently with a different ref.

 

Commons is our Kaka :smiley-laughing002: Check out his goal against Shakhter Karagnady...he is very technically gifted but slow

 

Well, maybe you do remember the game more clearly than I do, as I was mostly an impartial observer, and maybe I don't remember certain events as clearly. But I do remember very clearly thinking that it was a perfect away performance from them. They're just infuriatingly good at times and you just have to bow down and admit it.

It's mostly just trashing average Serie A sides so I wouldn't bother watching if I were you

 

He tends to play just behind the striker, which means he offers a good support option from midfield but can also get forward and offer an option as another striker. His main role in the team is as a creative force, he has a very good left foot and can put really good balls in behind the defence given the space. Also has a cracking shot on him, you should have a look at his goal against Shaktar Karagandy.

 

Just saw it on youtube, great goal.

Just wondering why he doesn't play behind Samaras though. Wouldn't he be better closer to midfield and linking up play between midfield and attack? Or does he not have the vision to play there?

 

That wasn't how they won though, they won by allowing us to have a lot of the ball, soaking up the pressure defensively and hammering us on the counter attack, especially Marchision and Vidal because we were paying far too much attention to Pirlo.

The cheating at set pieces happened, it's not what won them the tie though.

 

That's where he usually plays for us but can play either wing, where you'll probably see him deployed against you.

 

Commons is a similar style of player to van der Vaart or Juan Arango, an attacking midfielder who is better at passing and shooting than dribbling or running with the ball and good with set peices. Quite creative but probably more goalscoring.

 

Well that's something that's expected from certain teams, especially when you're at this level. Barca are whining cheaters as well but everyone kisses their @sses all the time. I'm pretty sure you'll be non too happy about the way we'll play you.

Mario will dive around every time someone touches him, people will pull and tug shirts when defending set-pieces, tactical fouls will be made if necessary. Italian teams have made this an art, the others just followed a bit later but still criticise Italy for doing it.

Ah ok, was asking Ciarin why he isn't played there because some of you guys are placing him as the furthest player on the pitch with Samaras in a more retreated and wide position

 

On that occasion him and Samaras were playing behind Stokes in a 4-3-2-1 IIRC. As I said, I'm not entirely sure how we'll line up because I've not seen our new signings, we may play Pukki as a lone striker with Samaras and Commons behind him, one may play behind the striker and one in the wing, or Samaras may play as a lone striker with Commons behind him.

 

It's not cheating though, Hammer. Different countries interpret the rules differently- in Italy they consider some of the tackles we consider perfectly fair as blatant cheating. In a European environment where refs from different countries are going to interpret the rules differently from each other, doing your homework on the ref is not cheating but good preparation. We should be doing the same.

 

It's cheating, it's against the rules. It's not interpretation it's set in stone. That was cheating.

That isn't the bit that should be focused on though, that isn't how they beat us.

 

Cheers for that guys

 

What juve did at parkhead was scandalous and blatant cheating,it's a corner not a scrum..

What's even more scandalous is the ineptness of the Spanish referee who in my opinion was a disgrace!

 

Juve did kill us tactically in my opinion. Aye, the referee was a shitebag overall but we can't take the win away from Juve, it was fully deserved. We played well and had a few chances n couldn't take them, Juve had a few chances and took every one. They were very lethal. It just seemed to me they were happy for us to have the ball, and once we made a mistake, or once one of our men were caught out of position, they simply exploited that with great effect.

I actually expected them to put up a good fight v Bayern, really think this Juve team is a top side.

 

Aye, thanks for the clarification on that. I've seen so many different line-ups and formations in this thread I was getting confused

 

They probably knew before a ball was kicked that we weren't good enough to break their defence down in open play and that set-pieces would be our main threat. Given that this is how they defended set-pieces and that their game plan depended on soaking up pressure, I'd say it was a pretty big part of how they won the game.

That sort of defending, against the rules or not, is the norm in some countries including Italy, so I still don't see it as cheating anyway.