Roma veterans slam Enrique
By Football Italia staff

Ex-Roma star Ruggiero Rizzitelli has slammed Luis Enrique’s tactics. “It’s not possession football, it’s keep-ball.”

The former Barcelona B Coach is under fire after two consecutive defeats and fans called for his resignation.

“It hurts my heart to see Daniele De Rossi stuck among the defenders. It’s not possession football, it’s keep-ball, but in training you get a point for every 10 touches,” Rizzitelli told the Gazzetta dello Sport.

“Football is very different to a training exercise. It’s only natural the fans are starting to lose patience, especially in a demanding city like Rome.

“Either you give this ambitious project with many young players to an experienced Coach, or you do it outside of Rome. A side that has to win needs a solid skeleton and here the players are all out of position, disoriented and without certainty.

“If Enrique doesn’t want centre-forwards, then why do they have Marco Borriello? In defence the Spaniard wants people who can play the ball, but instead signed Simon Kjaer, who is a great marker with terrible feet.”

Another former Giallorossi great, Picchio De Sisti, also expressed his frustration with Luis Enrique.

“Keeping possession and never having a shot on goal will get you nowhere. The constant changes can only destabilise the squad, while using De Rossi like this is a total waste.”

Tough, tough words especially from Rizzitelli....there's a grain of truth to it though.

Maybe this is what Camurria was getting at. If so, I would agree.

Sad but true

He's completely right all possession but doing nothing with it.most of the time it's in our half.

Example I watched Chelsea - Valencia last night,guess what Valencia had 66% possession for most of the match and lost 3-0...

Possession is no good if you don't do nothing with it...

And he's spot on about DDr I also said that earlier in the season,though he does a good job and I would much rather see him playing more forward hitting those screamers from a mile out,the DDR that would ghost past players with his dribbling skills.

Also one last thing,we need to ditch this highline that we've being playing this season our CB's are way to slow and have being caught out god knows how many time already.

The Fonz wrote:He's completely right all possession but doing nothing with it.most of the time it's in our half.

Example I watched Chelsea - Valencia last night,guess what Valencia had 66% possession for most of the match and lost 3-0...

Possession is no good if you don't do nothing with it...

And he's spot on about DDr I also said that earlier in the season,though he does a good job and I would much rather see him playing more forward hitting those screamers from a mile out,the DDR that would ghost past players with his dribbling skills.

Also one last thing,we need to ditch this highline that we've being playing this season our CB's are way to slow and have being caught out god knows how many time already.

LE should take a page out of this (http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/12/06/chelsea-valencia-villas-boas-deep-tactics/). villa boas loves his defenders playing high but he proved he can be flexible with his tactics unlike LE

i also mentioned eariler in the season that i'd prefer de rossi in midfield. his work rate, stamina, determination, and drive are what makes him such a great player and all that is wasted by playing him as a sweeper

schnix wrote:

The Fonz wrote:He's completely right all possession but doing nothing with it.most of the time it's in our half.

Example I watched Chelsea - Valencia last night,guess what Valencia had 66% possession for most of the match and lost 3-0...

Possession is no good if you don't do nothing with it...

And he's spot on about DDr I also said that earlier in the season,though he does a good job and I would much rather see him playing more forward hitting those screamers from a mile out,the DDR that would ghost past players with his dribbling skills.

Also one last thing,we need to ditch this highline that we've being playing this season our CB's are way to slow and have being caught out god knows how many time already.

LE should take a page out of this (http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/12/06/chelsea-valencia-villas-boas-deep-tactics/). villa boas loves his defenders playing high but he proved he can be flexible with his tactics unlike LEi also mentioned eariler in the season that i'd prefer de rossi in midfield. his work rate, stamina, determination, and drive are what makes him such a great player and all that is wasted by playing him as a sweeper

I was going to say that lol..

Chelsea last night *Defence* sat much deeper and were hardly troubled at the back and it payed off...

sometimes you just gotta hit the default button, its that easy

Well, doing something with the possession you have is the hard part. It's not that hard to keep the ball, but doing something with it is difficult, especially in Serie A. That's the part of our game that needs to improve, obviously, but that can't be done quickly. It's a slow process, especially for Italian teams who are used to having a different mentality. In this respect, I'm all for giving Luis Enrique time to get the team playing the type of football he likes.

But, if there's something to criticize Enrique about, it's his lack of flexibility. He's stuck on that 4-3-1-2 which won't always work. He can't be afraid to practice new set-ups. He obviously likes having that one anchor man in midfield to sit back and form a 3 man backline, while having two full backs push way up. He tried having our full backs stay further back against Udinese, but then we had difficulty going up and breaking through their 5 man midfield. My suggestion, like you guys said, would be to have our backline sit further back to avoid those constant one on ones. We would also need a lot more movement off the ball in midfield, something Perrotta and Simplicio are more accustomed to than Pjanic. But of course this is a whole tactical change that Enrique wouldn't go for...

McLewis wrote:Tough, tough words especially from Rizzitelli....there's a grain of truth to it though.

Maybe this is what Camurria was getting at. If so, I would agree.

What do you mean?
I thought you didn't agree with this.

With all due respect to Rizzitelli and De Sisti, I doubt they have even witnessed one of Enriques training sessions so its hard for me to take this seriously.

Id love to see what they could accomplish leading a squad with a backline consisting of players who are either too old, too young, or midfielders.