i guess the title says it all. let us evaluate this season in three levels: 1. managment (owners and staff) 2. coaching 3. players at the end of discussions we should try to have a positive review of our season, present suggestions for next season, and perhaps someone can have them send to trigoria where they will never read them. this is my way of coping with the coppa italia final result. denial, and getting busy with something. still would be a chance to have a good discussion.
There was nothing positive about us this past season.Just another failure like the year before,and I won't be surprised if I'm sitting here this time next year posting the same damn thing.
2 years in a row we missed europe, there is nthg more to say. the current serie a is weak, and missing europe is inexcusable. if we keep baldini, sabatini we are back to same cycle.change players, change coaches, try new style of football... the american owners are busting their ass off, and the project to me off the pitch is going fine. but its about damn time baldini/sabatini deliver us a team on pitch ffs
i actually blame myself. not the team. i blame myself for letting myself expect a different result and a different season ending to what most of us knew it would be. from day 1 we knew we had problems, serious problems. but we never had the will or the guts to fix them. yes this season was disastrous and a failure, still we learned a few things about ourselves, about the team and the managment. hopefully we can still dream of la Magica next season, a Rome we all deserve.
this season was a disgrace... i'll be spending the next 3 months walking around with my head down. this is going to be the longest offseason EVER.
The positives, Totti broke another record. Marcos. The negatives, our best players apart from Marcos are Lamela, Bradley and Florenzi
Staff needs a shake up or at least a new vision. When Baldini and Sabatini were first hired, nobody questioned it because it was obviously a good decision. Hiring Enrique was an interesting but foolhardy decision. Hiring Zeman was a flat out mistake. And you can tell from the support he still has how much of a mistake it truly was. Zeman has never won trophies. Zeman's tactics will never win trophies. The top teams do not need to employ such tactics. Firing Zeman was the right call and AA did a decent job. Coaching was bad. Zeman had a string of good results and then a string of bad. The team was never consistent. Zeman's faith in Tachtsidis and Gogo (can't spell the ********in guys name) was his ultimate downfall. AA did ok, he was willing to change tactics and we won some games. Our team just never truly meshed. The Osvaldo thing was a real distraction when he was having a decent season. Now he is almost certainly gone. He couldn't win the big game, but so what that happens. Klopp lost too. Coaches lose. The amount of hindsight bias by the fans has been staggering. I expect an experienced Serie A coach next year. We need someone who will get the team motivated for the bottom feeders, because that is how european spots are won. Some surprises and disappointments. Marcos is obviously the breakout star. Lamela had a good season but he is weird sometimes. Comes in and out of games. Totti had a good season but how long can we rely on him? And how long can we keep him in the lineup? I think it is obvious that Totti and Pjanic occupy the same space. People want to get rid of Pjanic now. Destro just isn't a star yet. You have to hope that he will be some day. We need a guy like Klose. Someone who is always in a good position to score and who is a real poacher. De Rossi's season was mediocre at best but poor for his standards. He never truly dominated a game or for a series of games as we needed him to. Bradley struggled early but after he was slotted in the DM spot by AA he settled in and had a run of consistent games. at best. Florenzi is a bright prospect and will probably be a mainstay in our team. We need better midfielders. We need more dynamic players. I think Castan is a good CB. Balz was meh. Burdisso is gone. Piris worked hard, I would probably give him a chance as a backup. Dodo is an enigma - no idea what he truly is. And the goalkeeper situation is a real mess. I am not a person who is going to engage in hindsight or call for irrational changes like blowing up the team again. This team can win, but they need winners. We can't get close to the title with young talents, you need a few seasoned veterans who know how to win and know how to close out weak opponents. I fear that Roma lacks a winning culture. Hopefully the right coach is hired and the right moves are made. No more experiments. We add some seasoned players to our team, and we can be back.
I agree with some points Roma_NY We are doing very good job off the pitch.In terms of getting a stadium, trying to higher revenue etc etc. But its clear our american owners lack knowledge on the game, so they have given the whole keys of the club to Baldini.And up to now he failed miserably. To me thats where the problem lies. You change Baldini, a new sporting director comes instead of sabatini.. a solid coach comes in... and we recruit the right players. At hindsight Baldini seemed like the right guy for the project, but this project doesnt depend on one guy... If Baldini isnt the right man, we can continue the project with another guy at the helm. AA is getting much stick, to me he is no top coach.But he also did well under the cicumstances. I think out of the 3 LE, Zeman and AA...AA got the most points per game. IN A League well known for counter attacking football, and managers like Mazzarri, dellio rossi , guidolin who live and die on counter attack game... we need a coach who gives a shit about defence.A coach that puts emphasis on defence, and gives balance to both attack and defence. I dont wanna end up with another coach next year and with another absymal year in defence. I hope we get right man once.
The problem in my opinion is the ownership that doesn't have the money to entice a proper coach. Plain and simple. Roma is not able to sign their first choice coaches. We didn't arrive at Luis Enrique first. He was the last choice when it was either him or the french man. The same goes for Zeman, who was selected strictly to sell season tickets and raise the value of the young players of "promise." The signs are everywhere. Villas Boas turns down Roma twice, but he wants to bring Baldini to Tottenham. That says a lot. Guardiola, who has a very good relationship with Baldini, turned us down. They spent month trying to entice Mazzarri to Roma, only to see him push his way into Inter. Ancelotti was and is available, you don't honestly think that a phone call was never made? Baldini has been operating with one year contracts so you wouldn't even need to fire him, but the owners continue to confirm him. Perhaps it's because they are aware of the limitations he's working under.
If anyone in the management should be criticized it's that Laziale Sabatini, who's created a revolving door of mediocrity. With players coming in on loan, stinking up the place, and then sent on their way. Kjaer still name drops Roma on every possible occasion in hopes he can sneak back into Trigoria.
This management has one more year to prove they are adequate for their job. Roma and their supporters need a proof of brighter future to maintain their faith in this group. 1. News on stadium. Once the first brick is laid, nobody will ever criticize ownership. 2. Improve your core-product. Nobody is going to watch this silly nonsense of wannabes and has-beens. 3. Get proper coach. You simply cannot get it wrong this time, when you have so much evidence of why this team keeps failing.
On the pitch, this was a waste of season imo. It doesn't come off right saying Totti is holding us back, because that's not truly what it is. Totti is still a good player on his day. But this club needs to move on. Because Totti is who he is and has his status at the club, the team defers to him, and I don't see that being good for our current play or the development of the new core. The entire team's tempo changes when Totti (and DDR) are not out there. With Bradley, Florenzi, Lamela, Destro, Pjanic, the transition from defense to attack is much quicker and more varied. It may not be better at this very moment in time consistently, but we're doing ourselves any favors by running Totti out there 90 minutes every game no matter what. The team needs to develop it's own cohesion without Totti, who can be a spot starter/sub. I'm completely convinced DDR needs to be sold, both for the club's benefit as well as his. Stek and Osvaldo also absolutely need to go. I hope we keep hold of Taxi, or at least don't let his 50% go. I still think we have a decent enough squad at our disposal. We need one more quality cb and midfielder (Benatia and Obiang would be dream market). A nice lb would be great as well, but I think we could make our lb situation work for another year. RB we're ok with Toro + whomever. The biggest problem we have from this year is that we don't truly know where we stand with our players. What's Pjanic's position? Is Pjanic really capable of the next level with us? Can Dodo begin to put it together and become a real threat from the outside? We've all seen the glimpses and moments...We know we have the kids, but we didn't stick with them. And now we're here in limbo. THE KIDS NEED TO PLAY. Good, bad, ugly, they need to play an extended run of games together. They need to grow together. And if after 1/2 to 3/4 of a season, they haven't shown improvement, then we'll at least know who needs to be replaced and moved on. But we don't know any of that now, and that's why this season was a waste. Edit: I'd like to see both Baldini and Sabatini stick around. I believe the ownership/management has a done a good job in regards to the actual club's stability. Obviously, I wish we were a bit better on the pitch, but overall the club is trending up still, and for that, I'm encouraged.
But there are still some solid coaches around. we dont need to look at tier A. A nobody like AA achieved better results then LE/Zeman.And I love Zeman.Cant argue against him. We keep hiring coaches for philosophical reasons... Damn it, I want to see results. I want to see us collect 6 - 8 points more in standings.Let it be the most boring football in the world, i rather those 6 - 8 points then this entertaining style we keep looking for. We aint supposed to sit down and leak goals left and right all year. Thats entertaining to neutrals, but damn sure its not entertaining for a roma fan.
AA marginally did better than Zeman. Let's not exaggerate on that. He did marginally better and no more. One could even make the case that AA was around to receive some end of season favors, like against Fiorentina. While ZZ was around at the start of the season and received the usual round of calls against. The first game of the season comes to mind, with our opponents scoring two offside goals.
The whole idea of breaking it down to a average points per game has one major flaw. Zeman tried to make a squad, a team mentality but was up against a wall and when some major players such as DDR play against him it was never going to work. AA came in and basically licked up to the players and let them have their way. And so they seem to pick up more points, do you not see what is wrong in that? Is that the team AS Roma want? So the points argument is void imo, one tried to build something, a proper team, the other let the generals have their way. Now, in the short space of time, it was probably best to do this as an interim manager but it is certainly no way to look to build a team. When Totti openly speaks before a major final about the squad lacking aggression, will and desire to win that says it all really.
I think Andreazzoli and the club paid dearly for this. I don't think even in the short term it looked correct unless you fixated on the results of individual games. And even if you do these matches ultimately proved to worthless as we are out of Europe again. The reality is that once Zeman was removed more or less everything he said was confirmed. You had Osvaldo stealing a penalty in front of Totti, leaving the entire staff on the sidelines with their jaws open. Then running off on vacation at every opportunity. You had Steklenburg who not only proved to not be a phenomenon, but also kept himself out of matches. Just the same as he did with Zeman. You had De Rossi, who is a shell of his former self. Even Pjanic, through no fault of his own, you couldn't figure out where to use him. In the end nothing really changed. The play become more boring. They lost some, they won some. But it's not like Andreazzoli proved to be the cure that was needed. The troublemakers continued making trouble, and unfortunately a lot of players ** cough ** Lamela ** cough ** regressed significantly.
Yes and no. I don't think the actual hire itself was a mistake. The mistake was in the fact that he was never given all the tools he needed and he was never backed by management when he needed it the most. Sabatini threw him under the bus in a disgraceful way. Great post though. Well thought out. Thank you.
Lets address this shall we? What players did Zeman select that weren't brought in? Fans may argue Verratti but we were never going to compete with PSG for him. If he matched their bid, they would just continue to increase it. Do people remember why Osvaldo stayed and Borini left? It is because Zeman favored Osvaldo in pre-season. So whose mistake was this really? And here is the big elephant in the room - Totti. Totti 2012-2013 doesn't fit Zeman's tactics at all. Sure, he played pretty well during the season but that is because Totti is Totti. It doesn't mean that the tactics actually worked. This is the biggest reason hiring Zeman was a mistake. He couldn't see his tactics to fruition with Totti on the pitch - but he couldn't get away with not playing Totti. It was a recipe for poor results and that is exactly what we got. At the beginning of the season, I was optimistic as I was before every season with Zeman. But his hiring just made no sense. He is not a top tier coach. Sure, he dazzles us with goals and wild results, but there is a reason that no coach for the top clubs employ such tactics. So in the end, I do not think that "support for Zeman" would have mattered. It is a cop out for people who would rather say the problem is the players rather than the tactics.