Bologna v Roma

Preamble for this game won't be anywhere near as long as the Samp game since this is as straightforward as it gets. Bologna are awful right now and we are not. I think that will be more than enough to see us through today's game. They will put up something resembling a fight, I imagine, but it's not really going to be enough.

Here's the squad for today -

A.S. ROMA Starting XI: De Sanctis; Taddei, Castan, Benatia, Bastos; De Rossi, Pjanic, Nainggolan; Florenzi, Destro, Gervinho

Substitutes: Lobont, Skorupski, Torosidis, Jedvaj, Romagnoli, Toloi, Mazzitelli, Strootman, Ricci, Di Mariano, Ljajic

Manager: Rudi Garcia

I just read romagnoli plays for Bastos

Wtf was that , ljajic should leave the club that's it

I didn't see the match. What did Ljajic do?

Apart from being a ball hog , not communicating and have worse performance than a <insert some useless object> nothing

Just glad to get out of any away match with 3 points in the bag and still chugging along. Not the greatest match in terms of finishing, but a win is a win.

The type of win we needed honestly. I don't think past Roma teams would've been able to pull this off.

An average performance by any means, but it's a direct symptom of what Rudi was forced to do with the team selection. Taddei and Romagnoli at full-back severely limited our ability to attack from wide, which has been our preferred method. Instead, we had to attack centrally, through a compact and stubborn Bologna defense, who were rather good on the day.

I'd also say Romagnoli did very well on his first full 90. He doesn't have the legs for a full-back. This much we learned, but he took care of his duties defensively and he did it rather well. A huge learning experience for the young Roman.

Another player who showed his worth was definitely Castan, who finally had a better game at the back than Benatia for a change. The Brazilian was everywhere in defense, and didn't put a foot wrong all game. Excellent display from our unsung hero.

Another player I will point out is Destro. Did extremely well during the game and obviously snuff some of his chances, but I like that he put himself about and linked up with the midfield a lot more than he has been doing. He showed good feet and was a constant pain for the Bologna defense.

Last player I will point out is Nainggolan. What a display from him. All over the place and in a good way. Put in some shift as he hassled and harried the Bologna midfield and attackers all game and then got forward to good effect, especially on the goal. That was exactly the type of run I expected Michael Bradley to make in his time here, considering he did this so much with the USA. Love ghost runs like that.

This game just further highlights that we have enough to win against the team we should be beating, but I do worry about the full-back situation going into the Inter game. A display like this one could see us in a real spot of bother against them.