THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi II

[p_maldini_3]

you guys need somebody better than burdisso. he's a ticking time bomb.

[forzaitalia]

[maro]

tribalfootball? Do they have an Italian edition? romanews.eu and forzaroma.info were both running the same story, for what it's worth - which isn't all that much, I shouldn't think.

[DavidP]

[Lupa]

[romawi]

[DavidP]

[DavidP]

in all seriousness though, good points. i didn't think borriello would be so out of place, though - given our wingers aren't real wingers at all, but yesterday they did play wider than the previous friendlies (or that's how it seemed to me - the fullbacks definitely weren't the only ones being relied on for width this time), so maybe that's what constituted his poor performance. we shouldn't worry, though, as we probably won't see borriello as a right winger once the season gets going.

[pocari_fenrir]

Maro, i believe you're partially right about the Bojan dealings but i still think we were frugal to cough up 12mil instead of throwing a full 20mil at Barca. I suppose i would have to respect their wishes in not having another Cesc-gate but honestly, they're outright harassing Arsenal without putting concrete offers on the table.

Davit, i went back to review your summary of the game and most of it makes sense and i was merely throwing out what i can go by on an article to generate an actual witness' response on the game. Lucky for me, i had you answering and i was quite satisfied to find our panic button still in its glass casing. I must point out that #14 was music to my ears and #15 is a given hehehe.

[DavidP]

haha, grazie pocari!

[DavidP]

there has been a lot of Totti hate going around lately (everywhere except this place, love you SAF), so to provide proof that Totti, in actuality, is a God (and Pizarro his goddess), I present you the following screenshot from a BBC article published 2 days ago:




Pirlo? Xabi Alonso? Iniesta? Messi? Ronaldo? They can all kiss Francesco's ass. And tell me, during the time period in question (2006-2011), how many of the players in that top 10 list scored 80+ league goals? One. and that would be his Tottiness. The others? None of them are even CLOSE to 80.

1. Francesco Totti - 82 league goals
2. Frank Lampard - 65 league goals
3. Diego - 49 league goals
4. Steven Gerrard - 47 league goals
5. Nene - 45 league goals
6. Cesc Fabregas - 30 league goals
7. Xavi Hernández - 22 league goals
8. Stewart Downing - 20 league goals
9. Ryan Giggs - 16 league goals
10. David Pizarro - 9 league goals

And how many of those guys are THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OLD (Totti turns 35 in 1 month)?? From that list only Ryan Giggs is older than Totti, with Lampard at 33 - all of the other seven are 31 years old or younger! However, the most astonishing stat of all (for the time period in question, 2006-2011):


1. Stewart Downing - 172 league appearances
2. Nene - 171 league appearances
3. Xavi Hernández - 170 league appearances
4. Frank Lampard - 158 league appearances
5. Steven Gerrard - 155 league appearances
6. Diego - 147 league appearances
7. Cesc Fabregas - 144 league appearances
8. Ryan Giggs - 139 league appearances
9. Francesco Totti - 139 league appearances
10. David Pizarro - 132 league appearances

There you have it. Proof that He is a God.


full article link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/14491850.stm

[pocari_fenrir]

not sure if anyone saw this but some guy died watching his son score against us at Valencia
http://www.goal.com/en/news/12/spain/20 ... ching-son-

[maro]

Yeah, it's a typographical convention handed down from the type-writer days, Davit. It made reading a bit easier since it distinguished sentences from one another more clearly. It's outdated now, really, since the spacing of word-processors tends to be a bit clearer, but it's a habit I've no particular need to shake. It's not unrelated to the way one always tries to put footnote references at the ends of sentences (or, if absolutely necessary, at the ends of clauses): it makes things slightly easier for a reader in one way or another. I quite like it, though I have been asked by an editor in the past not to do it as it was no longer part of their press's style.

That Pizza was sitting for the set-pieces is no reflection of where he was playing during the game as a whole - one is always likely to place one's shortest players in those roles; the only reason Pizza hasn't always been used there for us is that you also want someone with a bit of pace - which is why I imagine Cicinho and Angel will always be asked to do that role when they're on the pitch. And then, of course, Pizza's also been used as the corner-taker since he's never likely to carry all that much threat in the box.

Yeah, I saw that, Pocari - very sad. For the record, had we thrown 20 mil at Barca I'm sure they would still have insisted on a buy-back clause (of 25, let's say). I'm not sure we'd have gained all that much from that.

Borriello and Totti will both have to adapt a lot to fit this new pattern of play; no doubt they'd be helped, too, by a more dominant midfield.

[pocari_fenrir]

Yah, id believe that. It's just like that ridiculous 70mil buyout they have on on David Villa (i think??). At least we got our man and he's fitting in nicely

[loazzi]

My assessment of our problems after watching the Valencia game (it also needs to be taken into consideration that we were missing a lot of important pieces):

As bad as the Valencia result was, it seemed like there were two main problems. 1) stupid, youthful, pre-season mistakes. I'm not worried about those. Those will stop. 2) The mid-field 3 all played rather centrally and the fullbacks played pretty far forward. That left the wings pretty exposed and Valencia really attacked those wings. When they overlapped on the wings, we were completely out-manned and had no answers. It looked like the defensive strategy when Valencia was attacking on the wing was to drop the DM back into the defense while pushing the CB to a fullback position. In theory and with a lot more practice, I can see this working but the kids need a lot more work on how to execute it (plus Viviani is way too inexperienced to be given that responsibility --- DDR or Fernando would be much better). From the way it looked to me, LE asks A LOT of his fullbacks and his defensive mid. While it might start as a 4-3-3 on paper, it seems like he expects it to be a 2-5-3 when we have the ball and when we get attacked on the wing, more of a 3-4-3. Its gonna take time for it all to gel. I'm worried about the RB position.

[DavidP]

[p_maldini_3]

you guys were playing really well until valencia's goal. after that it was just an issue of an immature mentality which possessed everybody. totti's antics didn't help either.

[pocari_fenrir]

[SPqR]

I agree about Fernando...dude looks psychotic but I can't figure where LE would use him.

What's a worse rumor: Nilmar or Osvaldo for 18m? Either of these guys for half of that may be a poor deal. Can we pool a few extra mill together to snatch Rossi (who seems like a natural 4-3-3 fwd)

[maro]

I thought you liked Osvaldo, -que? You might turn those questions around the other way, Pocari, and so they might give you more cause for concern - there might be good reason Porto are prepared to let him go and that he's not been involved in the national set-up, no? The obvious point, of course, is that a midfielder needs to be involved in both aspects of the game - going forward as well as winning the ball back. His natural position seems pretty clearly to be in front of the back 4 - where he made almost all of those tackles; I should be concerned that our interest in him is only actually cover until DDR signs his extension. DDR to Manchester for 25 mil, Fernando and Casemiro in for about the same - that sort of thing. I don't see how he would fit at all naturally into our supposed possesso palla 4-3-3 other than instead of DDR rather than alongside him (unless suddenly the idea of DDR as mezz'ala is resurrected).

Lavazza, I didn't see the Valencia game, but those observations fit with what I saw after the PSG 45 minutes: the fullbacks are asked a lot of; there is always likely to be space to counter against us once things break down; there's a lack of natural width higher up the pitch, which I'm sure LE thinks isn't a problem, but seems to be contrary to received wisdom, at least. And a fair bit of the media talk about our tactics has suggested that DDR falls back into line with the CBs, though the pieces have rather curiously suggested that this is when we go forward, which is probably a slightly lazy way of forgetting to add - once we've given the ball back away. Viviani clearly had a bit of a shocker, too, but it wouldn't be much fairer to judge him on that one performance as on the one or two good ones he's put in earlier in the summer. Presumably, too, so long as our front 3 aren't stopping the opposition fullbacks from getting forward, the system is going to breakdown.