I think Roma could have won if they had a more clinical counter attack. There were passing channels that De Scantis had on quick throws that would have absolutely punished Barca had Roma been more decisive with their wide spaces going forward. Salah, Florenzi, Ninja and Falque were perfectly able to match Barca for speed and quickness - it was ultimately wasteful passing and poor decision making that cost Roma the extra 2 points. A draw is good no doubt but Barca took some unbelievable liberties with their offence and should have been made to pay several times over.
Dzeko's presence was solid in this game, but his touch was terrible. Looked like the game was moving too fast for him.
Great result!! The boys done us proud. DDR, Manolas and Rüdiger did well to silence Suarez and Messi. Florenzi made Neymar invisible, spectacular performance from the boy. Oh yeah what a goal!! 52mph from 60yards, perfect technique. Dajee Alessa!!!
My boy, have never doubted Flo! Garcia won against LE in tactics, and if not poor decision making we could have hurt them on the counters. But, considering we both had penalties and neither side really had a handful of opportunities, draw is a fair result... I'm proud of Roma and thanks to St Mapou!
Some mammoth performances tonight. Standouts were Manolas, Rudiger after the first 15, Florenzi and DDR. Between De Rossi and Flo for MOTM. Salah too looked very dangerous whilst doing a lot of covering back. Amazing watching him tear past Alba in a straight-out 60m sprint, shows how incredibly fast he is. I know they worked hard but for me Dzeko and Falque offered nothing on the ball tonight whatsoever, two disappointing performances. Dzeko in particular played several sloppy simply passes under little pressure at what could've been promsing breakaways. One thing I will say is that Dzeko did at times bring the ball down beautifully with his chest but I expcted more from him.
Have to be proud of the boys. That was painful to watch until the final whistle, but they didn't play scared and fought to the very end. Fantastic result. The backline did a tremendous job, Manolas was a rock, Florenzi was our best player and Rudiger aside from some issues with keeping the line played a strong game.
Yeah he didnt have his best game but I think he did enough at helping relieve some pressure. Certainly moments were we needed to launch the ball and he was their fighting for it and often controlling it. I cant imagine how much extra pressure we would have been under if we went with 3 wingers.
Proud performance. Top notch defensive organization from Garcia, really impressive. Could've done better with our counter but can't be greedy considering less than a year ago we lost 7-1 in similar circumstances. The team is growing, Garcia is learning, can't ask for more. Huge confidence boost. Just hope the boys aren't too tired for Sassuolo. Also hope Szczency's injury nothing serious.
I think we were also somewhat lucky in the sense Dani Alves was missing. Messi found Alba overlapping on the left in the box about a dozen times. That is the situation that looked like they could score from. Sergio Roberto didn't offer that run once. Alves at RB tonight would've offered it just as much as Alba. No surprise we get a 1-1 draw haa! One thing you can say about Rudi is that his teams know how to keep their shape as good as any Roma side I've seen.
Rudiger didn't put a foot wrong, very promising performance from a newly acquired defender. Great result in the end. We missed that creative spark in the middle in the rare occasions we had possession, due to the lack of Pjanic and Totti. Hopefully Szczesny is alright and the knock isn't serious. Dzeko provided great aerial outlet for long balls to relieve pressure, yellow to Pique is also a great thing, hopefully he can earn a suspension for our rematch. Considering we played against Barca and how badly we frustrated them, I am really happy with the performance.
Messi also had some looks that he generally puts away. This isn't one to pick apart, this is one to take our 1 point and politely ask Barca to get the ******* out of our city. Let's use this to create some momentum and belief in our game, and let's go on a run. Then, let's add Pjanic back and dream of the day that Strootman gets back to whatever his new normal is.....take it and run.
I thought the same thing!!! Morgan especially had the opportunity to quick throw/punt but at the same time...He slowed the game down to get that point
I feel like Rudi moving Florenzi to RB will be compared to Spalletti moving Totti to the false-nine role. Both were done pretty much out of necessity but turned out to be tactically genius.
The beauty is, with the way he plays, he may not jump out in certain games, but he never hurts you. And he plays with a wee bit of passion. Side note, how about DDR's self control today? He deserves a gold start for letting us play with 11 the entire game.
Don't agree with the criticism on Dzeko , him winning every single aerial ball helped us a ton , if we had went for 3 wingers ALL of the long balls would've been Barças , and we could forget about the few chances we had.
What is also nice about this is that you can 100% expect Barcelona to be ruthless next game versus Leverkusen.
There's no question, but you have to admit, he couldn't pass today. He clearly helped, I was just saying I wanted more form him, his passing was horrendous when he was trying to free someone to goal. His decisions left much room for improvement in my opinion. I love the man, just looked like things were moving fast for him when he got out in space.