MD34: Juventus - Roma (April 22, 2012) [R]

litch did the "4 e via" at the end of the match...

 

Too bad Lamela's spit didn't hit his eye. I have 0 respect for the player, ex Lazio current Juve... SMD.

I wasn't able to watch this match (thankfully) due to work but I saw our 4-0 win and Totti's gesture years back. Totti made the gesture in response to Juve players complaining to the ref and it came off as "look at the scoreline, it's over, shhh" than just a taunt... were our players swarming the ref when Stephan (dumb name, right back, non goal scorer) did it?

IDK what was more upsetting, watching the scoreline or reading about how the second and third goal were scored.

 

I mostly agree with this. Keep the big picture in mind, as well as the context.

 

Pretty good post, imo, and it touches on what I've said all along.

We, as fans generally don't want to accept what this season's goal was: to lay the foundation for years to come. League expectations-wise this basically means not being relegated/not fighting for relegation and showing a few glimpses of promise. The main focus of this first year was to set a tone in how the club would be managed and run under the new owners. You can see our new transfer policy/idealogy. We can see the work being done for a new stadium. We can see the heirarchy of club rules and behavior>player (De Rossi's suspension, Osvaldo's suspension, obviously both pretty key players for our side). It's this new discipline, mindset, and order from the top down that is the goal for this season, and it's been mostly accomplished as I can see. Along with those suspensions, the week-in-week-out drama of Totti being bigger than the club has subsided; hopefully this is because Totti has accepted his position at the club of that as a legend, but also as a human who can no longer play 90 every game and will not play 90 every game.

Echoing what Roma_NY said here, and what I've said before, we have a team full of young "potential" and "hype". We have a lot of "in a few years" kind of players. Take a real look at our squad, who do we have that is a real champion quality player? De Rossi? Surely, but now he's having to cover at CB. Totti? He has his days. Stek? Was touted as world class when brought in, but has been left with basically no chance countless times this season. I'd say we're unable to fairly judge him. Beyond those players, we have nothing at that level. Osvaldo, while good, is certainly not at that level right now. Pjanic looks like a real star in the making and is already the best player for Enrique's system, I believe. But again, he's young and not consistent in controlling the game with his distribution. Lamela? Very young, very raw, loads of talent. Angel? Who the hell knows what happened to the player from the first few games, but unless he magically recaptures that form, he clearly is not the answer at LB for us right now. Gago? He's ok. I could do this for all our players, but I think I've made my point.

The fact we're even somewhat seriously challenging for CL this year is a big achievement and, I think, would have been taken by us ahead of the season.

"This season, the club will re-introduce discipline. Players behavior will have consequences and they will understand that they are players and management is management, and management trumps. The club will bring in many "talents" with longer term, lower salary contracts. The club will also attempt to rid itself of a few terrible contracts from the exiting regime. This will lower Roma's wage bill, and allow more flexibility in the coming transfer markets. Management will also be working on finalizing details of the construction of new, club owned and operated stadium while also working on/against other policies a la league revenue sharing, tessera del tifoso, etc. Despite all this change, some of the young players either not cutting it (ex: Angel) or taking a while to settle in (ex: Kjaer), despite having to rely on a defence with De Rossi as CB alongside a young Kjaer and flanked by two totally underwhelming fullbacks...despite all this, Roma will challenge for CL."

We would all take this before the season, as most of us preached patience and acknowledged that this year's performances would be a bit bumpy.

I'm not here saying I know Enrique is the man to lead us for 5-6 years and have us challenge for CL titles/win a few scudettos, but I do know that this year is not really about him, and thus is not really anything we can really judge him on. Give him some wingbacks that are at least decent, one more good CB, and one more good MF, and we'll see where he's at after next year.

Many of us have lost perspective. We've essentially overachieved this year, and now people are calling for heads because we're inconsistent. Duh we're inconsistent. Look at our squad and all the club's changes objectively. We're in a pretty good position, all being considered. Sometimes, you're too close to the forest to see the trees.

 

Now about this game specifically, we got thrashed, plain and simple.

Juve is better than we are at the moment. That's the long and short of it. This has little to do with Enrique, they're just a better side. A more fair result would have been along the lines of 2-1 today, but it was always going to be considered a huge win and an upset for us to beat them, and would have been considered a good point if we had drawn.

First goal, not much to say. Horrible give away in midfield and Vidal finished well. Second goal probably should have been a foul and free kick for us, but it wasn't given; Vidal's finish was nigh unstoppable. PK? I guess? Realistically, the attacker will just about always get that call even if they initiate the contact while the keeper pulls their legs back. It's shit, but the way it is. Red? Terrible decision. To give a red when Juve is already 2-0 up, is receiving a pk, and the keeper tried to avoid contact only to have the attacker create contact? BS. Fourth goal? 10 men against Juve, do we really expect them not to score again? Pretty decent finish by Marchisio.

I was disappointed by the way the game went today, but I'm not disappointed in how the team played; this wasn't a Lecce performance. Even down to ten men, the guys played decently and kept their heads up, which is all we can ask them to do, as it shows a sense of pride, both in their own play and for Enrique as coach.

Juve was better anyway, it was unfortunate the ref helped them when they didn't even need it.

 

Well said shiboboo. I have been saying the same thing for a while now. The human race has never been good at looking at the long term.

 

As I said on day one, if LE to fail here...you blame the guy who hired him in first place.
The day I heard Luis Enrique will be our coach, I thought it was just a joke.
If you wanted to change the philosophy of the team, its style...at least hire a foreigner with experience.here you got a foreigner with zero experience, and zero knowledge of the league.

it was bad choice to begin with..and a WTF move...

 

I want to see Enrique get fullbacks worth a damn, and another midfielder to combine with Pjanic. I want to see Enrique get a full off season with a few players that are good.

Should he get something that resembles a talented defense, and an entire pre-season where some of these young players will be going into year 2 of his coaching, then I can start to judge him. As of now, I just don't feel I can judge him on this season.

Same as I said over the summer, before Enrique was hired, Bielsa was my number 1 choice. I hope a new defense and a pre-season makes all the difference because the inconsistency frustrates me as well, but if it doesn't I'd still put Bielsa and Spalletti as my top choices.

 

IMO you can never seperate yourself from the enivorment your in.Hence why, you get a manager who is performing in the league, knows Roma and knows serie a.I believe Falvo was one who pointed this out before too.
Like Spalletti who made the jump to us due to similar success Mazzarri Guidolin & likes are enjoying now

 

Not everything is Enrique's fault, but many things are. Like frozing out Henze, and putting De Rossi as a CB - it did not made our defense more secure, but finishe off our midfield.

First of all, as it seems the team has the same problems as the last two years, minus goalkeeper: defense and midfield. The defense is weak and mainly instabile, the midfield is unable to help the defense and the attack.

It was clear in january, we need a CB, but Roma did not brought one? Why? we have problems of CBs, and full-backs, still.

Secondly Gago and Pjanic...Gago is a way too soft player to do de Rossi's job when he's playing CB or off. And even when De Rossi is there, he tends to overtake the passing in the midfield and slows the game down with backward and horizontal balls. Pjanic had some great games at first, but was overplayed a bit, and also, he doesn't have the character to drag the attack alone (aka without Totti or de Rossi on the field). And I don't think he can be a very effective treq in the Serie A, as contrary to the French championship.

The young players lack character, it is amizing to see how much Totti's presence adds to the mentality. And also find it's a bit sad, that the kind of committed players seems to disappear from the football fields, and there is a flow of young, talented, but committed only to themselves (in the best case) type of players. this fore placed individuality (in everything, not only in sports) goes against the spirit of this game based on a group's mentality.

Bojan, I don't know what to say, and Lamela needs a lot of time yet to grow up.

So I think, as much of some decisions are clearly Enrique's fault, I think not everything. He cannot certainly change the character of players during even one season - on the other hand, I also think tactically he is still no learn enough for the Serie A.

 

I agree to some extent, this is why I said you hire one with experience 2 posts above if you want someone from a different enviroment .Mourinho is the prime example, he adapts to wherever he goes.

 

Alright, ya'll want another manager, fine. Just for bantz lets hear some names.

I love Zampa so I won't speak ill of him but who realistically are we going to get to come in now?

I haven't heard any suggestions I'd feel confident of coming in and taking up the project Enrique started, building on the squad we've started to build.

 

At this point I think even myself can manage this roma better.At least I would play people in there normal positions.

seriously, henchag > LE..

 

Considering AVB was our first-choice manager but we could not afford his buy-out, why not give him a chance to prove the critics wrong? I mean, at least the guy is well educated in terms of tactics and our management is not Abramovich and except for Totti we do not have any more old senators in our team

 

Read a few posts, but not all yet. All I can say is, after initially wanting him gone almost straight away, I was told to have patience and you guys were correct. Now, most want him gone. I honestly think he should get one more season with a defence, at least one more midfielder and an experienced player to play in totti's role.

He has not got the players to really play what he wants. Unless Spalletti is coming back he can say in my eyes. If he fails next season, with a complete squad then he has to go. But everyone knows this Roma squad is about 55% 65% complete.

 

I'm not really going to question what Enrique's reasoning for team selection is every week. There are a myriad of reasons that go into every decision each week. It's easy for all us armchair managers to say "such and such was a terrible selection, even I knew that!" Hindsight is 20/20.

We play Rosi and he sucks and everybody cries out that Taddei should have played because at least he can somewhat defend. Next week Taddei is picked and makes a mistake/gets beat for pace and everybody bitches that at least Rosi is physical and has some pace.

I don't know why Totti wasn't picked, be it a knock, rest, tactical, etc. Overall though, I didn't have a huge problem with the team selection. I don't think I'd pick Perotta to start, but I can understand where the selection came from. Obviously it didn't work out, but then nothing in the game worked out, team selection didn't have much to do with it.

I understand having Rosi, Kjaer, De Rossi, and Angel as the back line because it provides the most pace in defense. I personally like Pjanic in midfield better than at treq, but I can understand moving him up, resting Totti, and trying to clog up the midfield with another worker in Perotta. Borini starting right away? No issues with it. Really, I don't see the big fuss in the team selection, just another thing to bitch about after the fact because people are frustrated by a few results this year. Had the second and third goals/ref decisions not been so Juve favorable, and we squeak out a 1-1 draw or a competitive 2-1 loss, Enrique's selection of Perotta would have been a "great example of his adapting to Serie A. Enrique now understands going on the road and seeking out a hard earned point." But instead, because it didn't work out for whatever reasons (beyond the potential reason that Perotta probably wouldn't have added much) it's now some big deal.

And for the style we're "trying" to play, yes our defense really is that bad, which is the fault of management.

My personal opinion is that Enrique has somewhat departed from his strict vision of football in order to try to garner some short term points and secure EL, and perhaps just eek out the final CL spot because he doesn't feel the current squad would be able to do so playing how he really wants to. My guess/interpretation of this is that management and he are on the same page about this. They want him to play as close to his style of football in order to keep things uniform with the new players who will be going into year 2 next season and to keep the vision of the project going. However, they'd also like to secure some sort of European football for extra revenue/player development in big time atmosphere, not to mention it's a positive when trying to bring in quality new players.

My guess is they've told him try to finish as high as possible and get European football, and they'll re-evaluate the squad in the summer. He'll get a full pre-season with the players and work on fully implementing his strict ideology, instead of what we're seeing right now. I too have noticed a lot more aerial long passes the past few games, as opposed to the strict short ground passing when he was trying to ingrain that into the side.

That's my take at least.

 

I'm not so sure about AVB anymore. Yes, he tried to revitalize Chelsea by not playing some older players and that's what Chelsea needs to do if they want to fight for trophies in years to come, but in doing so he made enemies all around the place which ultimately proved to be his undoing. Also, he didn't show much tactical maturity. The guy tried to play a high defensive line with the likes of Terry and David Luiz. Of course it failed miserably.