It's official. Roma are exhausted. Or to be more specific, Roma's regular starters are exhausted. One need look no further than the 3-0 mauling by Lyon in the 2nd half last Thursday to confirm this. Roma now need to produce a close to perfect performance in the 2nd leg of that tie to progress. If that's to happen, the likes of Radja and Stroot simply have to sit this league game out and look only to Thursday, because those two players, perhaps above all others, will have to be firing on all cylinders for the full 90 mins if Roma are to prevail. Palermo are rubbish. They've managed to one win game at home all season and look destined for relegation. Of course there are no guarantees that a heavily rotated Roma line-up will get the job done, but they would likely have as much chance of securing the win as a fatigued, regular line-up. The biggest problem for Roma is midfield. If Radja, Stroot and DDR are all rested here, then what do you do with the midfield? This is an issue of squad depth and it takes us back to the January transfer window, when Roma failed to plug the hole that was most likely going to come back and bite them. Grenier was brought in, but hasnt been used. His signing was fine, but not enough. More depth was required, in particular a serviceable DM. Think of a Seydou Keita of a couple 2ys back. Perfect. Exposing this squad weakness all the more was the season ending re-injury to Florenzi, who has been greatly missed during this period. For this game I say rest the following 8 that will start on Thursday: Manolas (suspended anyway), Fazio, Emerson, DDR, Stroot, Radja, Salah, Dzeko and put out a starting XI consisting of: Szczesny, Rudiger, Verm, JJ, Peres, Rui, Paredes, Grenier (Gerson), Perotti, El Sha, Totti With this line-up I would play 4-2-3-1 with Verm as a DM.
I don't believe Spalletti will rotate that much, if at all. He just doesn't trust anything other than the first eleven. Maybe De Rossi will get rested, and perhaps one of Nainggolan or Dzeko, but not more than that. As you said, we messed up the transfer strategy in January and as a result we can't afford to rest all three midfielders. Frustrating.
If we are to stand any chance against Lyon then players have to be rested. There are no ifs or buts about it. Even a line-up like the one above has to have a decent chance of beating Palermo. To be honest I'm not convinced it would have any less chance than our fatigued regular line-up. The result tomorrow is important for Serie A but not critical. On the other hand we have only one chance on Thursday.
I agree with that, no doubt. But will Spalletti agree too, with his obvious reluctance to rotate and rest players?
I'm all for rotation but a midfield duo of Verm and Paredes is just ........ Due to lack of options, Strootman will have to start. Expecting little changes from the team on Thursday, Rudiger coming on for suspended Manolas, Paredes for De Rossi and Perotti/Shaarawy for Salah.
Only Spalletti knows why the attacking trident of SES- Perotti- Salah hasn't been tested at all this season, it's what got him wins and points in the 2nd half of last season.
Time to let Grenier have a go and see what he can do. If not now then what is the point of his signing. No doubt he had the ability to play a decent role for us but seems to be a strange one so far.
That will probably change since Perrotti is injured. I could have seen a return to the Perrotti-SES-Salah trident, but now who will lead the line?
Spalletti's mistake was made throughout the season. All during the season he should have rested 1 or 2 players at a time against lesser clubs. Maybe Ninja and Peres vs Palermo, Dzeko and Strootman vs Empoli. Do this against lesser clubs in the EL and SA and before you know it those players have played 4-5 less matches to this point. You don't want to do wholesale changes just inject 1-2 reserves throughout the season. Its too late now but I think Spalletti has run too many of them into the ground and there is no rest insight.
If LS insists on starting either Stroot or Radja, well that's understandable. But only one should start and the other should replace the starter at half time. We need those 2 firing on all cylinders on Thursday if we're to stand a chance. Grenier should defintely start as our CAM. Dzeko needs to sit this one out. The injury to Perotti is unfortunate. I'd start with Totti.
Fazio starts. I would have taken a chance with Verm tonight and rested Fazio. Radja starts with Stroot on the bench. I hope the idea is for them to play a half each. Grenier and Rui start. Will be interesting to see how they get on. Salah starts, probably forced with the absence of Perotti.
Huge pressure on us; due to us been abysmal for sometime. Napoli ahead of us and Roma as good as out in all competitions. This could be the beggining of the end of our season...... Hopefully the players instead of cracking underneath the pressure, which they so far have done - will turn up.
I believe Perotti injury is only a concern, not worth the risk so they pulled him. Smart decision, we need him and will hopefully be ready for Lyon.
I'm interested in seeing SES playing in a ST role. I think he's better suited to that position than out wide. Technically he's fantastic and he really knows his angles. Despite his speed and dribbling he's not as creative in the final third.