Benching Ronaldinho

Ronaldinho

Milan 1 Fiorentina 0

Benching Ronaldinho isn't an easy choice. Managers rather have him sold than warm the bench during games and rock the clubs at night. For Mister Allegri to show Ronaldinho the bench is indicative of the man's guts. He is no pushover. He demonstrated that yet again when he decided to start Ronaldinho in his jump suit for perhaps the fourth time in succession.

The new Milan side has come to be recognized as a team that hits the ball running from the start and Fiorentina experienced just that while they played catch up in the initial stages of the game. Milan played wide with a lot of the attack coming down the channels. Robinho played off Ibrahimovic but positioned himself on the left side-line. Fiorentina maintained a deep line which was sensible from Mihajlovic. His defenders weren't the fastest and wouldn't be able to keep up with the pace of our forwards. The deep line successfully stifled our forwards for space. Seedorf and Co. could not find the killer ball due to the congestion in the Fiorentina half. As mentioned earlier, our attack was running down the flanks and one man in particular had enough opportunity and time to thrive on the room provided. That was Daniele Bonera. But the full-back's crosses were awful and reflective of the fact that he is a centre half and not a wide-man. Robinho's movement was splendid throughout, even if he did precious little otherwise. He has demonstrated some rather surprising intelligence when off the ball and Ibrahimovic has thrived from this partnership. If the Brazilian improves with his final ball and shooting, he could be lethal. After knocking for 45 minutes, Ibrahimovic finally blasted open the door. The goal arrived from a splendid overhead kick. Such was Ibrahimovic's jubilation that he injured his elbow while celebrating.

After having faded towards the latter part of the first half, Milan returned in the second looking a lot sharper. The midfield three were working very hard, running up and down the pitch to assist the defense. This new functional midfield has given Milan great steel in the centre of the park making it very hard for teams to penetrate. Our attack began to flow from the back with both our centre backs taking shots at target. The confidence was beginning to ooze from this side. The shape of the team started to shift to a 4-3-2-1 in the second half. Robinho dropped deeper to from a line with Seedorf leaving Ibrahimovic alone up front. Though Viola played a wide 4-2-3-1, they attacked mainly through the centre. The wide-men were receiving the ball and cutting in instead of running down the flanks and crossing into the box. If they had adopted a crossing game, they would have exploited Milan's biggest weakness and tapped into their biggest strength. Allegri spotted the wide-men's movement and dropped Robinho deeper to close the spaces that Fiorentina were finding, thereby hindering any fluidity in their movement. Gilardino was being eaten alive by a two headed monster called Silva-Nesta which urged the striker to drop deep to collect the ball. This enabled his wingers to get into the game and make the runs into the box. Ljajic was quiet for most of the game by being boxed in midfield and with Gilardino dropping deeper, he got more space and room to charge up front. He was released on one particular occasion in the 83' and if not for Abbiati's block, Mihajlovic side would have leveled. Milan played out the rest of the game in a no nonsense fashion to close the game and bag the three points to go 3 clear at the top.

Milan - Ibrahimovic 45'

Fiorentina - /