First match of the year, and I am already down. This is worst roma squad for last 10 years. Old players with zero motivations. At least Okaka was lively..
Come on, don't be such a drama queen. This is our talented, but one dimensional squad, we've been accustomed to last 5 or so years.
Don't panic, it's just a start of the season and it's evident that we are not fully fit to play... Menez, well don't tell me that he had a great game...he even didn't try his dribbling skills today Vucinic, I would say better than against Inter or any pre-season match, but still needs to rediscover his form... Totti, much better in the second half where he tried to save our asses from getting a draw...Probably, the most in form player at this moment DDR and the others - Need to Wake Up! The good thing is that we had to play against Cesena today, otherwise we might have lost our first game (90% probability)...
If Cesena had someone better then bogdani in attack, they would have won. How is bogdani a starter in serie a is beyond my imagination!
Damn it. Dropping points at home against teams we should beat is why Roma didn't win the Scudetto last year. Terrible performance.
couldn't watch the game today and i'm kind of thankful. i would have gotten very angry. terrible result to start off the new campaign. hopefully this lights a fire under their asses.
Without Vuci last season we would've been lucky to have even finished in the top 4, let alone come within an eyelash of winning the scudetto. Aside from Juan, he was probably our most valuable player last season, and quite frankly I don't understand where you come to the conclusion that he's somehow being "selfish". As for you feeling sorry for Totti because of the "garbage" players around him, I think you need to be a bit less one-sided. Totti once again today acted very selfish himself when he took that unnecessary booking for getting his hand in the face of that Cesena player. A 34 year old CAPTAIN should know better than to take such ill-tempered bookings, yet he never seems to learn. He is way too valuable to this team to risk missing 1 match due to unnecesarry suspensions, but instead of realizing this, he chooses to occassionally act like a child.
As for my analysis of today's match, it's more or less the same thing that I'm accustomed to from Roma at this point. Over the last few years I've gotten used to them showing little or no motivation against weak/weakER opponents. Sometimes this team has show its mental weaknesses, and this match was a prime example of that. At the same time, it's the first match of the season, and you could tell that a lot of these guys are still trying to find their legs. There was numerous occassions where some decent through-balls or long-balls were provided, only for the attacking player to be unable to catch up to it due to a lack of pace. Fast forward to a few months from now, and I can guarantee you that most of these passes would've resulted in some quality scoring chances. Secondly, we gotta give credit where credit is due to our old friend Antonioli. I don't know if ex-Roma players simply have a tendency to turn into superman whenever they play us, but that was definitely the case with Antonioli tonight, as he made some brilliant saves to maintain the scoreless tie. Anyways, just gotta sweep this one under the rug and move forward. Still a lot of football left to play my friends, and we've had worse starts than this before (last season for example)!
You know, this game reminded me so much of Italy vs. New Zealand a few months back... and that speaks very badly of Roma... Anyway what's done is done, we gotta move forward and hope Adriano can get those goals in... as no one else seemed to want to in this game... thoguh I'm not so sure about him, he's all we've got... and we've gotta stand by him... As for subbing Menez WTF??? Taddei played well, but subbing Taddei for DDR vs. Menez would've been a much better choice, Menez and Totti seem to be the only players with any motivation in our crap games... That shot of Menez begging the rest of his squad to move forward is all the proof I need... These are the results that have cost us the Scudetto in recent campaigns... and that we will be looking back and lamenting in 9 months...
If we were a real club we would try to get Borriello or Huntelaar on loan from Milan. However we aren't so I doubt anyone else is coming before January.
Quagliarella just went to Juve and Trezeguet was let go and went free to Spain. They could have given them a look. Borriello or Huntelaar on loan would be good too.
I don't care for Quagliarella, he's being overrated because of his 45 minutes in the World Cup. Trezeguet is heading towards retirement. I only said Borriello and Huntelaar because the Ibra deal makes it very very possible to get them on loan.
at least yesterday Cassetti was no worse than the others, so I hope people will stop criticising him for the near future... A loan deal for one of Milan Strikers would be ideal, as seing Adriano in pre-season, then on the stands, just makes me think he will play some 10-15 games this year and no better than Tavano
So because of one bad game we are suddenly a team that is unable to score goals? If anything our attack the deepest aspect of our squad at the moment. We just need fatty to get into shape and start earning his paycheck is all...
Spalletti wanted a striker every summer for 3 consecutive summers, never got one. Ranieri wanted one in January as soon as he got his first mercato at Roma. And he wanted one this summer (he did not want Adriano and was forced to accept it) and Roma still need a striker. Again......... still need one. Saying our attack is the deepest in our squad is merely an charge against our squad in mid and def, not showing a strength in attack. And Quags was an azzurri player and expensive buy from Udinese before the Slovakia game. Double figures every season in serie a the last four years. When we throw on Brighi, Taddei and Okaka to win a match last night, you realize we'd be lucky to have Quagliarella. I'd trade those 3 plus Fatdriano for Quags
Throwing on Taddei and Brighi were just bad choices on the part of Ranieri (although ironically, Taddei created a great scoring chance, while Brighi almost scored as well in injury time). I am very convinced that he was actually playing to preserve the draw at that point, as it makes very little sense to sub off one of your best attack players in menez for a work-horse like Taddei. I'm not sure as to why he didn't give simplicio a shot instead! As for attack, once again, I still think it's the strongest and most dynamic aspect of our squad. If we can be one of the best attacking clubs in Serie A last season with the dinosaur Luca Toni leading our attack, then we can surely do it with an in-shape Adriano, or a hungry Stefano Okaka. People here are merely getting overly-skeptical based on a typical poor first game performance by Roma.
Cassetti will always have the occassional good match, especially against a team that has virtually no talent in attack like Cesena. It's against the squads that actually have some quality in attack that he usually turns out to be a disaster defensively. People really need to stop evaluating players based on one or two games (whether those evaluations may be positive, OR negative).
I agree that we shouldn't go all crazy about one game, but... it's these games that have cost us the scudetto the last couple of years
Very good observation...I actually was thinking to myself while watching the match that Cassetti was having a pretty good game - but like you said, it was against Cesena - he should look like he's a level above. I will be very surprised if he does that against better teams.