Daje Emerson! €2m, what a steal http://www.football-italia.net/99053/official-palmieri-roma-permanently
Another stealth pickup by Sabatini! Add in Fazio and this was a fantastic market. Pjanic who? I forgot all about him with the way Strootman is playing. Hopefully Monchi arrives this summer to continue where Walter left off, but add the team building aspect.
From what I've been noticing over the past few years, is that Palotta keeps hinting towards the Boston Celtics organization these past few years, from Rudi making that remark after leaving the meeting, to Monchi taking that picture courtside. From what I expect, Palotta wants to find his Danny Ainge, the Celtics GM. For those unaware, Ainge has been known as someone who capitalizes on teams' misfortunes and has been building an extremely competitive team while having low cost, high talent players while being fiscally responsible. They are a top 4 team in the NBA while at the same time hold the worst team in the league's draft picks for the next two years. I assume this is the type of strategy they're going for.
Just sort of perusing for CB's, Dragovic is a good one. Very comfortable playing the ball. One that's blipped my radar recently is Atleti's Jose Gimenez. He was fantastic on their run to the CL final last year. His reps are down this year, so the value could be there. He's more of a like for like Manolas replacement than a ball playing type. I swear Kolasinac would make a good ball-playing CB, but I don't think he's played there a day in his life. He'd have to be a capable LCB in the three man back line though. Are we really? They've been a money-splashing, rudderless ship for a couple years now. Now some new guy comes in, and the papers assume they're gonna throw even more money around, but so what if they do?
Love, love, love Kolasinac and would be perfect in a 3 man back. I think his contract is up in June and I'm not sure what's going on with him . He reminds me a lot of Manolas in that he has good speed and plays with a lot of attitude. Next season we could start with JJ, Fazio and Rudiger along the back and work Kolasinac in.
I'm just going to leave this here. http://www.football-italia.net/99133/inter-go-strootman Note to mods, we need a summer transfer thread.
More people assuming Inter are to be reckoned with. Strootman has another year on his contract, so I do expect his rumor mill to be spinning this summer. It'd be naive to think any player has a shred of loyalty to us, but I think Strootman's move would be to England. De Rossi's pay cut could allow us to give Strootman whatever he wants though.
While I think loyalty has limits I do think that Strootman has a LOT of loyalty to Roma and would never go to a direct competitor. Like any other year I expect 99% of the stuff printed never to come to fruition
At some point you have to scratch your head and wonder what some of these players are thinking. A guy like Kolasinac would not get playing time there. Our old friend Benatia has played a grand total of 10 games in all competitions for them last time I checked. Players always do this. They go to big clubs then 9 months later are complaining because they aren't playing.
It's simple, be the direct back up to the best left back in the league in the best team in the league in a UCL competing team al the while being paid better than most
It's probably not even as complex as playing time, club status, etc. It's wage and whoever will pay off the player's agent. It's pretty rare that a player lets his contract run out without an idea of where he's headed, and Juve have been known to tap up a player or two and get them on a free. They could even run Alex Sandro in the LM slot on their more conservative days like they do on the right with squishy face and Dani Alves.
Keep Strootman, he is the only real world class mf we got now. Nainggolan plays better to be a LCF, DdR is getting old fast and should be moved as vice-Fazio and midfield backup option, Paredes is trash, Grenier and Gerson are invisible to Spalletti. We need Kessie and Pellegrini this summer, Paredes, Gerson and Grenier are goners. Pellegrini Strootman Kessie (Florenzi, DdR, Radja, add one more for backup maybe)
This is my one complaint about Spalletti, he relies far too much on his first 11 and never works in other players. There are plenty of opportunities against bottom teams, weaker EL teams and CI to work in Gerson, Totti, SES and even Grenier since his arrival. Hell, Napoli started the kid Rog yesterday. People always want to sell/loan our young players but playing in 3 competitions like Roma have been lately there is more than enough games to play and develop them. Instead we go into the season with 4 MF one who is 33, 1 real ST, 3 wide players. A team like Roma can't afford to have 5 quality, established MF or 2 quality ST on its roster. They need to have a guy like Sadiq that they can throw in against Palermo and give Dzeko a break or a guy like Pellegrini who can play against Empoli and give Ninja or Strootman a game off. Radja, Dzeko, Strootman, Peres, Fazio and Manolas all have played over 2500 mins (Ninja and Dzeko over 3,000). That doesn't even include Salah who has played 2,000 but that doesn't include his time at the ACN.