review- AC milan vs tottenham

crouch's calm finish ensured the win for spurs

milan legends andrea pirlo and filipo inzaghi, who is also th second highest goal scorer in champions league history missed out for the italians. they were however still able to call upon a very experienced side with the likes of 4 times champions league winner clarence seedorf also featuring!....allegri went with his preferred 4-3-3 with abbiati in goal, abate, nesta, vepes and antonini in defence...gattuso(captain for the night), thiago silva and flamini in midfield and seedorf playing 'in the hole' behind robinho and the man currently in th form of his life, zlatan ibrahimovich....this system however did mean that all their attacks would be concentrated down the center and they didn have much width which in the end proved to be their downfall as well!

tottenham had a quite changed team from the last time they visited the san siro in what was a classic against inter milan...theyr star that night gareth bale missed out this match through a back injury and luka modric who had had a hernia operation 10 days ago was on the bench!...spurs went for a more wide 4-4-1-1 formation with gomes in goal...corluka, gallas, dawson(captain for the night), assou-ekotto in defence...palacios and champions league debutant sandro in the middle...with lennon and pienaar providing the pace down the flanks and van der vaart playin in his favorite position, behind peter crouch....

spurs started very well with an effort on goal in the first minute after a good passage of passes!....milans front 3 playing very narrow meant that essou-ekotto and corluka had full licence to get forward at will and especially th latter was quite a menace for milan to handle and regular crosses were coming in from spurs' right hand side towards the tall target man, peter crouch!..infact tottenham had most of the early chances of the game and milans first real attack came on 20 minutes when corluka lost out possesion to robinho on the left hand side and th brazillion played the ball through to ibrahimovich who did pretty well to get away from dawson and put a cross in but it was too close to gomes and he hooked it away with his hand...abbiati meanwhile was carried away on a stretcher wearing a neck brace after a nasty collision and i certainly hope it wasn too serious and he has been quite a rock at the back for them this season!...marco amelia was brought on to replace the big italian...

spurs meanwhile continued with their all-out-attack approach which harry redknapp had promised and they had a quite clear strategy throughout the game....get the ball to the flanks and then combine the full back with the winger to create a 2 v 1 situation in order to get crosses in....they continuously flooded the box and crouch was again and again getting th better of the centerbacks because of his height...but their attacking wasnt the only notable point of the game...they defended excellently and the strikers werent given any space at all....in the system allegri was playing, all the attacks were to go through seedorf....if you watched th match however you will have noticed that at times he was nowhere to be seen....palacios had an excellent game marking him and as a whole spurs defended very very well and gomes had very little to do during the first half

SECOND HALF CHANGES

allegri brought on pato in the place of seedorf in the hope to cause the spurs back 4 some problems who till that point had had a relatively easy match!...spurs continued with the same team and basically the same strategy....expose the flanks to the pace of lennon and pienaar...this very nearly led to a goal in the opening minutes of the second half as lennon bursted down the right hand side, put in a cross to v.d. vaart who instead of passing square to pienaar tried an audacious but quite brilliant chip over amelia that was JUST wide of the post...th whole of milans defense was caught off guard and if it had been a few inches to the left it wouldv definitely gone in for what wouldv been one of th goals of the champions league!...at the other end a few min later gomes pulled off one of the saves of season after following a corner situation gattuso pulled the ball back into the box and yepes got up above everybody to put in a towering header which the whole stadium mustv thought was certain to go in but gomes took full advantage of his height and somehow reacted quick enough and put in a strong hand to get the ball clear which was heading for the top corner!....

milan certainly picked up from there and started playing better but a disgraceful challenge from flamini ruined th mood at san siro!....lunged in two footed on corluka and it shouldv been a straight red card for the frenchman but he was very lucky to escape with just a yellow!...corluka had to be taken off with a strapped ankle cox of that and was replaced by woodgate!...during all this gattuso had also pushed joe jordan, the spurs assistant and tempers were flaring all around!...gattuso went crazy and started pushing any1 who he challenged with and really shouldv gone off for a push on crouch after an battle for a high ball....

then came the moment as following a couple of crosses into the spurs box, the londoners finally got possession of the ball through sandro who squared it to modric...he took a touch and played th ball through to lennon who had miles of space to run into!....the lightning bolt as i call him broke at full pace...brilliantly got past yepes leaving him for dead and then squared the ball to crouch who had a simple tap in!...it was counter attacking football at its very finest and well spurs did deserve that goal and the win...they'l go into the second leg knowing they have that priceless advantage of an away goal and with the believe that they can charge their way into the quarters now!....

it proved to be a very eventful game and lived up to all the hype...tottenham even without their starlet bale were the better side on th night and deserved th win!...