Serie A this week end

godtabh

Preview

Serie A: Milan bid to stop the rot at Empoli

ROME, Nov 16 (Reuters) - AC Milan will be desperate for a victory to jump-start their stalling Serie A season when they travel to Empoli on Saturday (1700 GMT).

The Italian giants have lost four out of five league matches, including the last three against Inter Milan, Atalanta and AS Roma, to slip 20 points behind leaders Inter and Palermo after just 11 games.

With their title challenge in tatters, Milan's domestic objective has changed to a top-four finish and a place in next season's Champions League.

Even that, however, will prove difficult if they do not start winning soon.

Various explanations have been offered for the run of poor results, the failure of their strikers being the most obvious one.

Filippo Inzaghi, Alberto Gilardino and Ricardo Oliveira have mustered one goal between them in the last 10 Serie A matches.

Milan's ageing defence, built around the 38-year-old Paolo Maldini, has also come under scrutiny along with the hasty pre-season preparations to get ready for the Champions League preliminaries

A long injury list, including midfielders Gennaro Gattuso and Massimo Ambrosini, and defenders Kakha Kaladze, Serginho and Giuseppe Favalli, has not helped the cause.

Inevitably, though, most of the criticism has centred on coach Carlo Ancelotti, whose position has never seemed so precarious since he took over in November 2001.

'The situation is very delicate, but nothing happens by chance and these results are a sign that several things are wrong,' Ancelotti was quoted as saying in La Gazzetta dello Sport.

'We have spoken a lot about our summer preparations and the injuries. Now, however, we need to put these things to one side and start doing things in a different way.

'In my opinion the problem is not our style. The fact is we are paying a high price for the errors we make. We have to avoid making them, be less wasteful. Usually Milan pushes a lot of players forward in attack and at the moment that's penalising us a bit.

'We have to be more careful, but I think we will turn it around soon. It's not that I'm not worried. I am. But this team knows how to dig deep and shows its character when the need arises,' he added.

Usually, Empoli would be regarded as an easy fixture.

This season, however, the tiny Tuscan side have made a respectable start and are unbeaten in their last five games.

They even pulled off a shock 2-0 win over Palermo when the Sicilians visited the Castellani stadium in September. Another giant-killing performance would deepen the crisis at Milan.

On Sunday (kickoff 1400 GMT), Inter host Reggina, a team whose position at the bottom of the table belies the fact that they have overturned the 15-point penalty they received in the match-fixing scandal.

Even so, the defending Italian champions should be too strong. A stoppage-time goal by in-form striker Julio Cruz against Parma last weekend made it four Serie A wins in a row for Roberto Mancini's side.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic's suspension means that Cruz should start alongside Hernan Crespo up front.

Palermo, meanwhile, will be aiming to set a new club record of six consecutive Serie A wins by winning at Cagliari (Saturday, 1930 GMT).

They will have to do it without playmaker Eugenio Corini, who is suspended, and striker David Di Michele, who picked up an injury during last weekend's 3-0 victory over Torino

Empoli v AC Milan Stadio Carlo Castellani
19:30 UK Cagliari v Palermo Stadio San Elia

Sunday, November 19, 2006
TIME HOME AWAY VENUE
14:00 UK Ascoli v Fiorentina Stadio Cino e Lillo del Duca
14:00 UK Chievo Verona v Atalanta Stadio Marc`Antonio Bentegodi
14:00 UK Inter Milan v Reggina Stadio Giuseppe Meazza
14:00 UK Livorno v Parma Armando Picchi
14:00 UK Messina v Lazio Stadio G. Celeste
14:00 UK Roma v Catania Calcio Stadio Olimpico
14:00 UK Udinese v Siena Stadio Friuli
19:30 UK Torino v Sampdoria Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino

Milan will struggel. At best they'll get a draw at the worst they'll lose by the od goal.

Palermo will find it hard this week cause they are missing some class players.

Cruz is coming into form for Inter as well. He is a smashing player. When he played for Bologna he did a job there. Now at inter ( I think for 4 years) he is used every now and again but when he is used he is brillant. Nice to have a player to come in like that!

Roma have a tought game but they'll edge it

patmac

On a slightly related issue I see Juve have moved to 3rd in Serie B and Verona have slipped into the relegation play off zone:( Details:http://www.soccerway.com/national/italy/serie-b/

godtabh

I thought I read in the Sunday Indo they were in second place?

patmac

kearnsr wrote:

I thought I read in the Sunday Indo they were in second place?

I don't think Genoa played till Sunday click on the link for the table they are usually accurate.http://www.soccerway.com/national/italy/serie-b/

godtabh

patmac wrote:

I don't think Genoa played till Sunday click on the link for the table they are usually accurate.http://www.soccerway.com/national/italy/serie-b/

Must have been that. Or the Indo was talking through its arse

godtabh

Team of the day has to be Roma. What a win. Fair play. Again another sign the Italian football is boring!

Result of the day was Palermo losing!

KdjaCL

kearnsr wrote:

Fair play. Again another sign the Italian football is boring!

I watched the AC match............


kdjac

Bateman

Fair play to Roma, looking forward to seeing the goals from that game, which night do Setanta have their round-up on?

godtabh

KdjaCL wrote:

I watched the AC match............


kdjac

Heard it was bad.

I watched (bits of) the palermo game. Wasnt great either.

A lot more sendings off again this weekend

tdv

Ive been very impressed with De Rossi & Totti this season.
Milan have to many old legs at the back all quality players back in there day but there not able to perform week in week out anymore, they need to get a few decent players in the team in the January window or there not going to get Uefa Cup spot at this rate.

kinaldo

I see Roma are still without a kit sponsor...

might pick one up in the soccer shop later

godtabh

kinaldo wrote:

I see Roma are still without a kit sponsor...

might pick one up in the soccer shop later

Do you mean as in Barca or as in no company will make the jersey?

Just looking at their website and the home replica is made by diadora but there is no sponsor on the jersey.

Here is a list of theirsponsors so its not as if they dont have any and some of them are fairly big.

kinaldo

kearnsr wrote:

Do you mean as in Barca or as in no company will make the jersey?

Just looking at their website and the home replica is made by diadora but there is no sponsor on the jersey.

Here is a list of theirsponsors so its not as if they dont have any and some of them are fairly big.

Yeah I meant shirt sponsor ala Bilbao, not kit sponsor. Look much better without imo.

MrJoeSoap

Found it fascinating to read earlier that many people in Italy weren't happy about Roma scoring 7 goals against Catania, because they felt after 4 goals it was just like "killing a dead man". One of the players said he hoped next time they would meet a team with "more mercy".

godtabh

MrJoeSoap wrote:

Found it fascinating to read earlier that many people in Italy weren't happy about Roma scoring 7 goals against Catania, because they felt after 4 goals it was just like "killing a dead man". One of the players said he hoped next time they would meet a team with "more mercy".

Where did you here that?

I cant remember a score like that in a long time. Only thing that comes to mind was the 5 AC put past Inter a few years back.

MrJoeSoap

kearnsr wrote:

Where did you here that?

James Richardson's blog for The Guardian.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2006/11/21/theres_more_than_one_way_to_sk.html