Roma...

1-1 Totti from a free kick. 223rd league goal. Legend.

Lamela's had a couple nice dribbles.

Legend.

2 more goals to go past Nordahl

I said it before loooong ago Zeman is not the man for Roma, and that they'll suffer a lot against teams like Catania and Caglari ...

Dante wrote:Watched Roma-Palermo last night and i was highly impressed by Roma.

In my opinion , Zeman has put some interesting ideas tacticaly and he's been using most of his players effectively , except maybe De Rossi , and the players seem to react well so far , but since their most crucial moments in the season hasn't yet come , it is quite soon to draw conclusions.

Overall , their simple but smart play and the abundance of talent available is what i really like from this Roma . I am not sure how high they may end this season , but if they keep on the right track whilst not neglecting their defensive duties , because their workrate needs to improve , next season they could be even fighting for Serie A .

Zeman should guarantee his players will gel with his ideas and spare Totti for crucial periods in the season , something i am sure he understands very well , and none will be able to call him a flop come May. Signing a good defender would be nice too . Whilst defending is not just the backline's job , a special defender is always needed if you want to take that step further and Roma lack that. Someone like Barzagli would do Roma a world of good.

i knew i wasn't crazy

and even though they didn't get Barzagli. They got Benatia , which still did a world of good. They also improved their workrate as a team and defend as a unit this time.

Is it far fetched to say that without Zeman's mark last season's Roma wouldn't be the same team today ? Because i am pretty sure many of the stuff they do on the field these days , not with regards to defence though , have been used and practiced since last season. They just flurish this season because they defend a million times better i believe.

My respect to Zeman , imo set some seeds for a really great Roma to blossom , even if he couldn't water them himself and enjoy the goods. This Roma is just nuts , i am pretty sure they will set new hights for the league if they continue like this.

Roma finished 6th last year... 15 points back. This year, they're first with a 5 point lead and set the Serie A record for best start after 9 games. They also sold both Marquinhos and Lamela.

The style of play is completely different and the personnel has changed. You can't really compare.

You are quite right in that Zeman laid some foundations, but I don't think those foundations are at all tactical. That's all Garcia.

If anything, Zeman's rigourous training regimes are his lasting impression. Beyond that, this Roma is unregonizable from the one last year.

To put that into context. By the time our 9th game was done, we had already conceded over 20 goals. Compared to our current ratio, it's astounding.

I don't think anyone's seen a Roma like this before. We may not see one again either. I know we're going to drop points here eventually, every Romanista knows it. We're just enjoying the ride until that inevitability happens. I just hope it happens against a worthy opponent.

Is Rudi Garcia the best coach in the world? What he did with Lille was incredible, and now doing it again with Roma...

Games against Chievo, Torino, Sassulo and Cagliari next. So only Torino seems dangerous. The run might go on until the game against Viola.

i wasn't speaking about tactics in the last post , though perhaps i should have been more specific. What i meant really was , that Zeman made Roma enjoy themselves and that stuck with Roma imo . Haven't seen Roma having fun like that in years. The value they showed for the ball , the offensive stance , the co operations in the field , stuff like that. Simple but essential stuff Roma have been using this season , tactics may change from 1st half to 2nd , not to mention under a different coach .. and Rudi , at least according to Mclewis , uses different methods and in any case it shows on the field that Roma is different to last season , not even discussing this , but i've seen certain elements from Roma since last season that i was sure with a better defensive stance and attitude , they could be aiming high .  

Sports , i didn't even hint on comparing .. just saying , what i saw from last season even , imo it wasn't a fluke ; they just weren't ready mentally and seriously lacked defensive discipline and if you want , the desire to defend wasn't succesfully instilled under Zeman , (even though his credits lie up elsewhere). That was witnessed easily , either in games or just by statistics .

To be honest , they will inevitably drop points at some point during the season . It's Serie A , everybody gets it. But i bet they will drop points when nobody expects it. One team from the bottom , bottom half i don't know which , will set up to halt them , this way or the other. But the real case with Roma is , that they have serious quality and determination under Garcia and i am quite positive when i say it may take a while really . Even if they drop some points , i expect them to finish the first half of the season undefeated .

Anyhow , the defence aspect apart , Rudi took what mostly Zeman left behind and built a great project at hand. You can see how serious he is and he has instilled that mentality into his players . But that's not near enough to take 9 from 9 in Italy. I believe Zeman made them fall in love with themselves since last season and it shows , at least to me. Players like Pjanic , Bradley , Totti felt younger again , all the effort to controll games and give answers to the opponents both in attack and defence.

If they can make one two additions in January , just for depth or simply for precaution ; there's no doubt in my mind who's winning the Scudetto this season. I like this Roma like no other Roma side in the past , they have almost everything i like to watch in a team , and Totti

Defense is 50% different though.  Last year is was Balzaretti, Burdisso/Castan, Marquinhos and Piris.  This year, it's Balzaretti, Castan, Benatia and Maicon... you can't say Maicon adds anything defensively lol.

The big differences are this:
-  The new keeper De Sanctis is much better than St---berg
-  Strootman has made a huge difference and Pjanic is being used properly (grossly misused until this year imo)
-  Llajic and Gervinho do a better defensive job than the wingers last year defensively and they've also done great on the attack.
-  Just the cohesion of the lines is fantastic, like all Garcia teams.  All the players work for each other as opposed to themselves.

Not saying Zeman is a bad manager or anything... but i actually thought Roma were giving Garcia a raw deal in the summer by selling a lot of the top young talent and replacing them with lesser rated players. But he made it work.

Totti and De Rossi of course.

The tactics are entirely different and 6-7 out of the 11 starters are different from last year.  You can't really say much mentality has carried over when you have that amount of turnover...

Just promise me one thing....

If you were to get 30 points from first 10 games like we did don't choke it all away like we did.... it still hurts and i wouldn't anyone to experience it.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Just promise me one thing....

If you were to get 30 points from first 10 games like we did don't choke it all away like we did.... it still hurts and i wouldn't anyone to experience it.

Only way that happens is with injuries and it's already started with Totti and Gervinho... i doubt it. But given that Roma is not deep at all, there's a possibility.

It's a blessing for them not to have European play imo.

Dante wrote:i wasn't speaking about tactics in the last post , though perhaps i should have been more specific. What i meant really was , that Zeman made Roma enjoy themselves and that stuck with Roma imo . Haven't seen Roma having fun like that in years. The value they showed for the ball , the offensive stance , the co operations in the field , stuff like that. Simple but essential stuff Roma have been using this season , tactics may change from 1st half to 2nd , not to mention under a different coach .. and Rudi , at least according to Mclewis , uses different methods and in any case it shows on the field that Roma is different to last season , not even discussing this , but i've seen certain elements from Roma since last season that i was sure with a better defensive stance and attitude , they could be aiming high .  

Sports , i didn't even hint on comparing .. just saying , what i saw from last season even , imo it wasn't a fluke ; they just weren't ready mentally and seriously lacked defensive discipline and if you want , the desire to defend wasn't succesfully instilled under Zeman , (even though his credits lie up elsewhere). That was witnessed easily , either in games or just by statistics .

To be honest , they will inevitably drop points at some point during the season . It's Serie A , everybody gets it. But i bet they will drop points when nobody expects it. One team from the bottom , bottom half i don't know which , will set up to halt them , this way or the other. But the real case with Roma is , that they have serious quality and determination under Garcia and i am quite positive when i say it may take a while really . Even if they drop some points , i expect them to finish the first half of the season undefeated .

Anyhow , the defence aspect apart , Rudi took what mostly Zeman left behind and built a great project at hand. You can see how serious he is and he has instilled that mentality into his players . But that's not near enough to take 9 from 9 in Italy. I believe Zeman made them fall in love with themselves since last season and it shows , at least to me. Players like Pjanic , Bradley , Totti felt younger again , all the effort to controll games and give answers to the opponents both in attack and defence.

If they can make one two additions in January , just for depth or simply for precaution ; there's no doubt in my mind who's winning the Scudetto this season. I like this Roma like no other Roma side in the past , they have almost everything i like to watch in a team , and Totti

As far as Zeman goes...the man instilled zero defensive tactics into our players. It's hard to do that when he's constantly telling the attackers to mob the other team's goal with abandon. This left the defense high and dry so many times so as much as the attackers loved Zeman's play, I'm sure the defense hated it just as much and it's hard to blame them for that.

Contrast this with Garcia, who has equally melded together an incisive, unpredictable attack with a cohesive, structured defense. It would've been a different story if Zeman had even tried to do this, but he's Zeman.....he was never going to try. He was just going to attack, attack, attack and as great as it was to see us up there at the top of the scoring charts. I never forgot the price for those goals. That makes the feat we've achieved so far, MUCH better.

Individual players such as Lamela and Totti probably enjoyed their time under Zeman, but if your Burdisso, DDR or Pjanic, it's highly unlikely that was the case. Ask any of these players under Garcia now and you can tell they love not only playing for this guy, but they love playing for each other. That's something none of our last 3 coaches could get out of this team, regardless of the turnover.

Garcia has to be one of the most sought after coaching prospects out there after what he built at Lille and now the foundation he has laid at Roma. Considering we go through managers like water, I think we found the right one, and I hope we can hold onto him.

tbh, Puel built Lille.  The were already top of the table in Ligue 1 (no trophies though) and played in Europe.  Went to the CL from 2004-2007 with Puel and got to the elimination rounds in 2007.  A bad season in 2007-2008 forced Puel out.  But there were some foundations.

Garcia took them to the next level by winning the double.   But they were very, very bad in CL under Garcia... truly poor.

I'd wait to see how he does in CL before passing true judgement.  Conte was the golden boy too until CL.

Lost a little respect when they basically through Lamela out the window, but they've done well so far. Hopefully it continues for both their sake and the Serie A. You don't want any team to win the title 4 times in a row...

 I Still think that Zeman was a victim , that mid season game and after players ganging up against him now seems like a nightmare .

Red Alert wrote:Lost a little respect when they basically through Lamela out the window, but they've done well so far. Hopefully it continues for both their sake and the Serie A. You don't want any team to win the title 4 times in a row...

Juve have only won the title in the last 2 seasons. Milan won the season before that.

Red Alert wrote:Lost a little respect when they basically through Lamela out the window, but they've done well so far. Hopefully it continues for both their sake and the Serie A. You don't want any team to win the title 4 times in a row...

We did not "throw" Lamela anywhere. Napoli wowed him with a 3.5 million a year deal that we were never going to match. Had we not sold him to Spurs, he (or rather his agent) would've forced a move to Napoli and Sabatini was having none of that.

So off to Spurs he went. He got the wage deal he wanted and we got cash to fund moves for some of our best players this season.

As good a deal as we could've hoped for.

i think that's going to be the issue with Garcia at some point too... he's already said in the French press that his ambition is to someday manage the elite players in the world at a top club.

If Roma want to keep him, the club is going to have to show ambition and finance it. Otherwise, if Garcia has the opportunity, he'll leave.

Very good manager but also extremely ambitious.

Tbf Sports on Conte he took Juve to the Quarters last year....

Which is about as good as they could have hoped for in reality... remains to be seen what he will do this year but its not like he has flopped or anything.

sportsczy wrote:i think that's going to be the issue with Garcia at some point too...  he's already said in the French press that his ambition is to someday manage the elite players in the world at a top club.

If Roma want to keep him, the club is going to have to show ambition and finance it.  Otherwise, if Garcia has the opportunity, he'll leave.  

Very good manager but also extremely ambitious.  

Well the Roma brass keep saying that they want to get this club to the level of the current elite so it seems to me they and Garcia share the same ambition, albeit along parallel lines. Garcia wants elite players, the club want elite status. One begets the other.

I agree McLewis... but actions are going to speak, not really words. When Roma sold Marquinhos and Lamela, Garcia was not happy privately according to french media although he always said the right things in public... you can't do that if you're going to be elite.

Its like that saying that goes, " Sometimes you have to lose to win." Roma lost some potentially world class talents but responded by using the money from those sales to fund moves for some established talents. If Roma continue on this winning course they'll only increase their value and gain additional funds to purchase high profile players. It's a process that needs time to flourish and it's way to early to speculate on these sort of matters

Forza wrote:

Red Alert wrote:Lost a little respect when they basically through Lamela out the window, but they've done well so far. Hopefully it continues for both their sake and the Serie A. You don't want any team to win the title 4 times in a row...

Juve have only won the title in the last 2 seasons. Milan won the season before that.

I meant 3. Typo, sorry.

McLewis wrote:

Red Alert wrote:Lost a little respect when they basically through Lamela out the window, but they've done well so far. Hopefully it continues for both their sake and the Serie A. You don't want any team to win the title 4 times in a row...

We did not "throw" Lamela anywhere. Napoli wowed him with a 3.5 million a year deal that we were never going to match. Had we not sold him to Spurs, he (or rather his agent) would've forced a move to Napoli and Sabatini was having none of that.

So off to Spurs he went. He got the wage deal he wanted and we got cash to fund moves for some of our best players this season.

As good a deal as we could've hoped for.

Is there any real truth in that?

I'm certain he refused to go to Spurs and then cried because he was forced to leave. He also vowed to play Roma again in the future.

Erik Lamela has been crying at the training ground today. He doesn't want to leave, but Roma need the money... Money is killing football

That was on the telegraph's website when the Bale moved stall again because Spurs were adamant to get in a replacement before Bale was sold.

“It was a painful sale for all of us,” Sabatini, who preferred to move him on to a foreign side, noted on Friday.

“At the beginning we didn’t think we could sell Erik and we didn’t want to. Then some new factors came into play and as time went on we started to consider the eventuality.

“A club made him an offer that we didn’t and couldn’t match. And rather than trying to win a war that we probably wouldn’t, we opted to sell.

“When that Italian club offered him €3.5m a season, as well as a €2m commission to his agent father, we knew we had lost the player.

“His people started pushing for a renewal and that is when I started moves to sell him. Had we begun negotiations sooner then we probably could have sold him for an even bigger fee…”

- The words of Walter Sabatini himself.

Roma did not want to sell Lamela initially. His greedy pappy forced their hand. Lamela himself had very little say in any of this, which only added to his frustration.