Quick thoughts: Shaktar is a very good team. There are name teams left in this round of 16 (Beskitas, Porto, Sevilla, Man United) that may not be as good as Shaktar. This was always gonna be difficult, and keeping a clean sheet vs this team was gonna be nearly impossible. I would want to throw my laptop across the room every time I would read a Spalletti quote last season (or anyone) talking about Roma's "mentality." But dear god. The body language after the equalizer from DDR and Manolas was horrendous. I knew then we were done. Sometimes the hot takes and cliches are true. That said 1-2 isn't a terrible result. This is still there for the taking. However we are unlikely to keep a clean sheet at the Olympico. Alisson is only one man. We are likely gonna need three goals next meeting. We did that vs Chelsea (******** you, Conte!!!). Since then only Spal and Bennevento. I'm hopeful, but not optimistic.
It's hard to imagine Karsdorp could be as bad as Flo/Bruno but I'm wondering if we'll ever even find out...
Last thing we need is to rush Karsdorp back. I really don't see a great deal of difference in quality between Florenzi and Peres. They should rotate more in my opinion to at least keep them both fresh and match sharp.
Everything but the evolution of full-backs. They are generally far more attacking-minded ,yes. But to suggest we can't afford better options than Bruno is false. I dunno how you can think that when we have a guy on our team (Kolarov) who we paid half the amount for. Or that we just sold one (Emerson) who we bought for under a million. Both are significantly better players. We can improve on Flo and Bruno , man. We likely already have.
Dear god these quotes from DDR and EDF post game are infuriating. EDF: "In the first 50 minutes we played to hurt Shakhtar, in the second we played to control – what we were supposed to be controlling, I don’t know." DDR: "We put in a very good first half performance, but after conceding the goal with a mistake we shouldn’t have made, we stopped playing." This is a coach who made no change until the 72nd minute, and our longest tenured player and captain. How does every misfortune send this group into existential despair? We have 3 tough games coming up before the 2nd leg. Milan, Napoli, and Torino. Does this sound like a group ready for those games or the second leg?
With an attacking MF that comes from a league where Altidore scored 39 goals in 67 games? Like I said he's going to likely not measure up to many here. Kolarov is one of the best LB in the last 10 years and we got him cheap because of his age and because MC spent 150 mil on FB last summer. Also, Kolarov started off great but he's been fairly pedestrian the last couple of months. People on this board complained about Maicon, then they complained about Florenzi and swore Peres was going to be the answer.. they said Peres was a homerun signing. Now Peres sucks and its Karsdorp that will be the savior. This isn't a knock on Karsdord rather people's expectations. Fact is Peres is a lot better than last year and Florenzi isn't nearly as bad as you paint.. not even close. He along with everyone else has been poor the last couple of months but he has not been substantially worse.. that is all just nonsense and mostly just groupthink.
Pfff stop. If Bruno played the minutes Florenzi did , there's every chance he would have been just as shit. Him flicking his foot up while lying on his ass doesn't change anything.
Florenzi is solid and he's going through a rough patch. But he's not a FB. He just isn't. Bruno is brutal and we can find an upgrade , no question. I wasn't happy when he was signed either--for the record. If Karsdorp flops , he flops, that doesn't mean what you said isn't false. It is. I'm going to put that one on the list of Java-isms like , "a gk is the final piece", "we should ignore FFP" and "never spend more than 10 million on a kid."
I admitted I was wrong about the young kid (but I don't think I said 10 mil). The others I was right on and stand by. Alisson will never make us a great team, he'll just make us suck less.. like today and like Hand at Inter. I didn't say Karsdorp would flop, you haven't read anything I said. I said people's expectations are irrational and they'll be disappointed because of it. The fact is he is a converted MF and he played in a league that where defense is an afterthought and he's coming of major knee injury. That doesn't mean he can't become a world class RB, it just means that it's not a sure thing like some suggest. That all said, I'm done, I'm not going down this rabbit hole again.
I've said it from the start flo won't cut it. At the top level you have players specialised in a position all their life. You don't just pick up on years of technical training at the very top and expect to be comfortable. Kardsorp was that attacking mid in his youth but that's long changed. How he picks crosses out, head up reading the runs is testament to his early days as a midfielder. He's a very smart player as well as being a powerful unit down that wing. He is barring knee problems 100% the real deal.
"For a modern day FB Roma can afford"... that means what exactly? I don't wanna go down a rabbit hole either. I still love ya , Java, and I agree that we have a tendency to overrate/underrate based on recency bias. Fact is , we can and will improve upon Bruno. He's been an exceptionally poor return on investment . There's no hiding from that. If people continue to be harsh even if we get a much better RB, that's on them.
I have little to no faith we turn this tie around. We will definitely concede, and I don't think this team has 3-4 goals in them at this point.
That's the spirit! Haha but yeah , I feel if we do win the tie , I doubt it will be because we won 1-0 in Rome. Which makes it seem more unlikely of happening. We'll see though. We have some big games in between to worry about.
Agreed. Even the English commentator called him out for making no difference defensively and said EDF will be furious with him.
i cant believe we topped a group that had Chelsea and Atletico Madrid only to be flushed out by Shaktar. I really dont have a lot of hope for the return leg, pessimism or seen the same movie all too often?
That second half performance scares the shit out of me. I don't know what got into them, but we can't afford to play like that in the CL. 1 goal doesn't seem an insurmountable obstacle, but this is Roma we are talking about. We have a tendency to crack under pressure. Remember Porto. Sorry to be negative, but for me, Shakhtar are favourites for the second game. All they need is one goal to tilt us.