Champions League 2018/19 | Group G

Viktoria needs to pull through tonight, last game was close, please Czech brothers make Madrid's dream of winning the Europa Leauge possible, solely for banter purposes of course

Lol, I know it’s only a typo, but good to hear a Barca fan hoping our Madrid dream is “possible”.

Roma at CSKA

Olsen; Kolarov, Fazio, Manolas, Santon; Cristante, NZonzi, Pellegrini; Kluivert, Dzeko, Florenzi

Manola goal. Go figure.

Utterly demonic atmosphere in the VEB Arena and Chaska are a rather impressive team with their young manager.

Exciting game.

Dzeko has looked off and disillusioned as of recent so hope to see him come off the mark. Pellegrini and N'zonzi their best tonight. Roma to seal it if they hold the lead.

Only watched the second half, CSKA are impressive. Even with 10 men.

Dzeko really is off form, Under came in well, Pellegrini playing like a stud.

Zaniolo has some balls

Dzeko has that Zlatanism in him.

Ever since his unreal time in Wolfsburg, always known as the player whom if he had his mind and body more within the game it definitely would have resulted in even more than what he has amounted in within his immensely impressive career despite being highly underrated.
Regardless a constant man in big moments throughout and for Roma.

Deserved win but harsh on CSKA.

Good win. Ugly, but good. The result is all that mattered today and that's something I really don't like saying.

It's clear that the CL is the priority (for some reason) for this team. I don't think we're making another deep run, but we're hellbent on winning our group again. 1 more point against Madrid at home and that happens.

Unfortunately, Dzeko has hit a dip in form and Schick also can't seem to score to save his life right now. Under's form has hit a dip as well though he can still pull out some magic at the most unlikely of times. SES has always been very inconsistent. Florenzi continues to blow hot and cold (Definitely cold today), Santon's form is cooling off and Kolarov is clearly gassed due to Luca Pellegrini being injured again. Only Lo. Pellegrini and Kluivert were the highlights today along with Olsen, who continues to impress me.

We're punching above our weight again and results like this paper over some really obvious cracks that will exposed by much better teams further down the road. Not gonna be pretty when that happens.

That ship has sailed. You need to beat Madrid 4-0 to win the group, assuming they beat CSKA

Right

Either way, Madrid look like their old selves under Solari now. People will say "oh it's just Plzen", but I think the change in how they played this week versus just 2 weeks ago under Lopetgui against this same side, and at the Bernabeu no less, is very striking.

Make no mistake about it, we'll be meeting a Madrid team with a new lease on life at a time when our best player in this comp last year is in dire form. I see us finishing 2nd in this group. At this point, I just don't want to see a hiding.

An in-form Kluivert and Pellegrini simply aren't enough.

McLewis wrote:Either way, Madrid look like their old selves under Solari now. People will say "oh it's just Plzen", but I think the change in how they played this week versus just 2 weeks ago under Lopetgui against this same side, and at the Bernabeu no less, is very striking.

Make no mistake about it, we'll be meeting a Madrid team with a new lease on life at a time when our best player in this comp last year is in dire form. I see us finishing 2nd in this group. At this point, I just don't want to see a hiding.

An in-form Kluivert and Pellegrini simply aren't enough.

We've played Plz, Melilla and Valladolid since he took over. Among them, Valladolid is the strongest side, by far. I'm really glad that we're winning, and more importantly, the winning streak helps to increase morale, but I can't honestly say that we've already turned things around. Valladolid are not a strong team, and we were lucky to leave that match with 2 goals scored and 0 conceded. I don't know how everyone else viewed that match, but we had the exact same weaknesses in both attack and defence, yet we somehow came out on top. Having a change of coach may have injected a burst of morale into the team, as it often does, but I don't think we're quite "our old selves". At least not, yet. "Oh, it's just plzen" is a valid argument, because their lack of quality and discipline allowed us not to worry about our offensive or defensive deficiencies. Valladolid exposed us more, but they didn't manage to capitalize on it.

Point taken. What I'm going off of is even under one of the worst managers in recent memory, Madrid still comfortably beat us. Not just that, they shut us out. Again. Outside of that iconic win against you guys roughly a decade ago, Madrid have been utterly dominant against us home and away so with Solari stabilizing you after Lopetegui and our current woes going forward against capable defenses, I don't see us getting much from this encounter.

I say this fully knowing we took points off Napoli and Fiorentina, 2 of Serie A's form teams, and beat CSKA twice so on paper, we're not doing all that bad. Look a layer just below that and you'll find that we're not really playing anywhere near our potential at the moment. Lots of complacency, lots of lethargy, no real aggression, grinta or desire. Quite a few guys just going through the motions and a coach that can't seem to get the right reaction out of them at the moment.

So Florenzi, Manolas and Olsen are back for the Madrid game. DDR and Pastore are still out and now Lorenzo Pellegrini can be added to that list too. DDR and Pellegrini are huge losses for us. Most worryingly is that Dzeko has picked up a knock in training and is now a major doubt to start the match.

No Dzeko up front in the CL is a massive blow though against a side like Madrid. Pellegrini has looked the most comfortable playing in the trequartista role so losing him is big as well and then we still don't have a good pivot partner for Nzonzi with DDR out so we're in trouble before we even take the pitch. Advantage Madrid.

No Pellegrini and no De Rossi means no midfield control. Apparently EDF will play Florenzi I'm the middle to fix it a bit, with Santon RB.

Expected lineup (if Dzeko makes it)

That looks like a 3-1 Roma victory squad tbh.

Doc wrote:That looks like a 3-1 Roma victory squad tbh.

Just realized that talking about Roma-Madrid today, we are strangely talking about the 6th La liga team vs the 7th Serie A team.

Amazing that this match is still 0-0. Madrid can and probably will knick this, especially after that horrid Under miss. Just not our night in front of goal.

How did he miss that lool

Roma have themselves to blame for not having scored 2 in the first half. It's all Madrid now.

One of these days, Benzema will learn that being caught offside multiple times in a row means that one should probably make more of an effort not to be offside

Serie A Roma finally found its way to the CL.

We deserve this loss fully.

I like EDF and I still support him, but this might just be the real beginning of the end for him.