Roma v Cagliari

Time to get back on track then.

I'll preface this by saying that the Olimpico pitch is going to look pretty bad for this game considering that a rugby match was played just a couple of days ago. I don't think this will affect us too much, but it's just something to think about ahead of this match.

Cagliari haven't been particularly good away from the Sant'Elia, having only picked up 2 points on the road. To add to that particularly poor stat, they are missing their Radja Nainggolan, considered their most talented player, through suspension.

Now while Nainggolan is the one that gets the plaudits from outside of Italy, I and other wannabe Serie A aficianados consider Daniele Conti to be the true threat going forward and that rings true given that he leads Cag with 4 goals this season. Beyond him, Victor Ibarbo and Mauricio Pinilla each have 2 while Marco Sau has 1. Defensively, Davide Astori leads a rather average backline, but remains a standout defender in the league as well as a long-term target for Roma.

As for Roma, the big news coming out of Trigoria is that Mattia Destro has been named to the squad and is expected to make his first appearance since April. He will join Gervinho, now fully fit, on the bench. Totti is still undergoing his own personal physio work, but has been seen training with the team so his return is highly likely to happen within the first couple of weeks of December. He has not been named to the squad for tomorrow. Benatia has shaken off injury and is expected to reclaim his place next to Castan in defense, completing the backline that won 10 games in a row, though Maicon and Balza are likely not 100% considering they were heavily used over the international break. Dodo and Jedvaj just might get some game time.

We need to win. To get our confidence back, to reclaim the top spot and to go 7 (!) points clear of 3rd placed Napoli, who lost at home to Parma.

Hopefully Ljalic will lead the line once again and this time will find the net. Was exceptionally good against Sassuolo, just didnt finish his chances off. Also, Im hoping that Boriello stays on the bench for most of the game.

No reason we shouldn't walk away with 3 points, and even if it's a bumpy pitch (great American website for limited edition soccer gear by the way) we're so good at playing in the long ball of the switch that scoring and fluidity shouldn't be a problem.

Flame, I'm thinking Boriello will probably start again with Destro coming into the game later.

Alternately, could see Ljajc again at False 9 with Florenzi and Gervinho flanking him.

I think that 2nd attackline is something everyone would like to see. I do think the first one is what we're likely to see though.

Waterlogged conditions , borriello should start
cagliari inst an easy match by any stretch of imagination , nianggolan will probably score one but hopefully the team can get the result from this game

 unrelated to the game but whats going on between palotta and unicredit
palotta made an statement that they arent after Chinese investors but unicredit said they are looking to sell their % , is it a war?

I wish Unicredit would sell their shares, because they dont invest anything or do anything to help Roma`s ambition in becoming a world-wide known club. China would be wonderful - a market with over 1 billion potential fans. Much better than a Arab shareholder.

AS ROMA (4-3-3): De Sanctis; Maicon, Benatia, Castan, Dodo; Pjanic De Rossi, Strootman; Florenzi, Ljajic, Gervinho

*bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep*

what a disgrace from ref . and how the hell the team cant score one from 15+ corners , we literally spent 60 min of game time crossing the ball having no one to use it

We are utterly useless without Totti.. thats for sure..

the team gets shattered after an hour mark, a bad sign for the future. Midfield and defence look exhausted

You guys shouldn't be so "fire and brimstone" honestly.

If we had Zeman, we would've lost this one and if we didn't have MDS, we would've lost badly.

Defensively, we looked ok. Midfield controlled the game, but the attack just couldn't finish our chances. That's the problem. Has nothing to do with Totti being there or not. His presence on the pitch isn't going to suddenly make Ljajic miss fewer chances than he did.

We are still unbeaten and lead Europe in goals against defensively as well as having a firm hold on a CL spot. That's always been our goal, not the scudetto. This is a time when our feet must be firmly on the ground. Winning 10 in a row tends to inspire the opposite.

Totti created chances that even Gervinho couldnt miss..

Also, I am happy with 2nd spot, but not the way we have dropped there. In last two games we were CLEARLY the better team and should have won. Thats what hurts. I think we could use a good centre-forward, but no-one will come to Roma if they know that they will be benched when Totti is fit.

And, we are a counter-attacking team, we find extremely hard to crack down a 8-10 men wall, that Cagliari set up.

On positive side, both Maicon and Dodo looked really good. Dodo`s crossing led almost to two goals.. and Maicon alsmost scored a dreamer.

Oh well.. I just hope we can cope with this pressure. The pressure is know on us after three draws.. can we win again?

I think winning 10 straight games has clouded the judgement of our(fans) expectations. Past teams would not have even got a single point from this sort of match. We have to keep in mind that we are still undefeated and that is reason enough for us to remain optimistic. Garcia will get this team back to winning its winning ways, I just think its useless for us to heavily criticize a team that has exceeded expectations from the get-go.

McLewis wrote:You guys shouldn't be so "fire and brimstone" honestly.

If we had Zeman, we would've lost this one and if we didn't have MDS, we would've lost badly.

Defensively, we looked ok. Midfield controlled the game, but the attack just couldn't finish our chances. That's the problem. Has nothing to do with Totti being there or not. His presence on the pitch isn't going to suddenly make Ljajic miss fewer chances than he did.

We are still unbeaten and lead Europe in goals against defensively as well as having a firm hold on a CL spot. That's always been our goal, not the scudetto. This is a time when our feet must be firmly on the ground. Winning 10 in a row tends to inspire the opposite.

well i expect the team do something about corners and ljajic looked out of place and completely out of the game,its not only about goal scoring in second half team barely could make goal scoring opportunity .Cagliari tried to push the team to the sides and succeeded

i didn't get why Garcia got sent of ,what did he do?

 i didnt make thread for the last 3 games and Roma didnt win any of them , i shall make the thread for next game ,dont make please