THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi II

[p_maldini_3]

de sanctis.

i'm waiting for your twitter feed to come out with a 'just jk, lolz'.

[AS Collie]

[DCGweez]

Tancredi:

: PSG have contacted Roma for Pjanjc, according to tomorrow Gazzetta edition. Roma would make a trade for him only in a swap for Pastore

[AS Collie]

[red]

[AS Collie]

[red]

I just don't see how to fit Pjanic into the Roma team in a way that gets anything like the best out of him.

Pastore, on the other hand, I see as someone who would fit naturally into a three-man midfield ahead of a couple of more defensive players.

[AS Collie]

[maro]

This is the story I read, Collie - which suggests you might have things slightly the wrong way round, as it were:

A proposito del rivedersi, una chiamata del Psg ha fatto balenare nel d.s. Sabatini la prospettiva di un riavere un suo pupillo: Pastore. Ovvero, il giocatore da lui scoperto e portato al Palermo e valorizzato così tanto da essere venduto ai parigini per 42 milioni, anche se quella cessione è entrata poi nel mirino della magistratura. Il contatto con i francesi è nato in questo modo: al Psg piace parecchio Pjanic, la risposta della Roma è stata questa: per Garcia il bosniaco è incedibile, ma se voi siete disponibili a darci Pastore, noi siamo pronti ad aggiungere a Pjanic anche dei milioni. Di sicuro parecchi, pare circa una quindicina. A spanne, quasi tutti quelli recuperabili dalla cessione di Osvaldo.

http://www.forzaroma.info/2013/07/26/la ... ore/246387

[AS Collie]

[red]

[AS Collie]

[DCGweez]

Anyone watch the match? How did Lurch look? For 20 mill I hope decent.

Tancredi: Praticamente la Roma non ha pagato niente Maicon, e gli dà 1.30m€ all'anno. Non mi sembra un affare malaccio...

[DavidP]

buying washed up talent for peanuts and having them fill in here and there throughout the season is fine. heinze is a good example, however unlucky we ended up being with the first-choice centre-backs. buying de sanctis and maicon with a belief that they will turn their careers around and nail down the starting spot isn't right. if we don't sign a RB and a GK i'll call this a bad mercato.

[maro]

I watched a chunk of the game. Strootman looked tidy - technically good, but perhaps a bit short of pace: precisely as foretold, then (I forget who it was (someone from Dutch football) who, a few days ago, when asked to comment on Strootman praised him highly but said that was the side of his game he still needed to work on; the comparison with Tachtsidis is amusing, as one of you punks also observed a few days ago). Certainly it was one of the most technical Roma sides I've seen for ages - very confident keeping the ball on the deck and in tight spaces. It ran the risk of the toothlessness of LE's possesso palla, at times, but the ball-speed was good and I like watching a technical Roma. I don't really know much about the quality of the opposition, but it was attack vs defence for most of the first half, which I thought was fairly impressive when playing away. Pjanic looked like he enjoyed playing with Strootman - another genuine ball-player in midfield - and with DDR I think they might make a pretty technically good midfield three. There were also one or two lovely bits of patterned team play which sent a fullback clear and showed some signs of the pattern of play.

Caprari looked pretty sharp; it's a pity Gervinho is going to steal his opportunity, it seems, though if he comes with Garcia's backing then it's fair enough to trust the coach (and to condemn him in due course if he's wrong). I know DCG's cornered the market on Caprari smoke-blowing-from-arse, but I do like his (Caprari's) mix of movement and technical quality. He made some excellent darting runs as well as having one or two sharp touches on the ball.

The second goal was also quality - straight out of the Zeman play-book. If I had to take a punt, I'd say that at its best, Garcia's Roma is going to look like Zeman's Roma at its best and at its worse it's going to look a heck of a lot healthier than Zeman's at its worst. I think Garcia gets how to use his midfield runners, whereas I was never convinced Zeman actually did.

I don't think I agree on Maicon and De Sanctis, Davit. For one thing, I think Torosidis is already a step up on Piris, much as I admired Piris's grinta (that he played as a CB for Andreazzoli tells you something about his qualities going forward) and Maicon has been bought after some very sure evidence of his physical qualities (at the medical, etc.). More, it seems to me pretty likely that two of Maicon, Dodo, and Balzaretti are going to have very solid seasons and if they do then the fullback positions are well covered. On De Sanctis, I've never liked the way the twat carries himself on the pitch - he's a ridiculous over-reactor, whinger, provocateur, etc, or so I've always thought. The way he's left Napoli and expressed his affection for the fans, though, is top-class and I've been reading a few things about the way he's respected as a man. Those are fine qualities to add to a dressing-room, I'd say. And I also think all Roma needs is a reliable keeper and he's been that for Napoli (in his own profoundly eccentric way). Too much, in Italy, is made of individual mistakes and individual brilliant games. De Sanctis is probably the second-best current Italian keeper; that's fine by me. We shall see, but both of those buys make sense to me. If nothing else changes and we keep DDR and Osvaldo, then, for me, whether or not it's been a bad mercato will depend almost entirely on how good Benatia and Jedvaj prove to be. And Strootman as an addition, rather than a replacement for DDR, is surely only a good thing - and certainly from what I saw last night he's a technical midfielder rather than a properly defensive one.

[red]

There's no way De Sanctis is a better keeper than Marchetti.

[maro]

I almost added a caveat that if anyone wants to insist that Marchetti or Sirigu is better the point remains essentially the same.

[AS Collie]

[maro]

Of course Maicon's game has been rather more built on his engine than Pirlo's, though I certainly accept that the comparison with Cafu is more promising.

There's been so much talk about the Gervinho move that I'd be surprised if there's not fire behind the smoke. I've never liked him for Arsewipe, as I've said, but perhaps it's partly that he's utterly not an Arsenal-style player (he's too direct, not a natural pass-and-move-type player) and every fine side is built around different kinds of elements contributing different things. So just maybe Garcia thinks he can contribute off the ball and defensively in ways that will complement the rest of a more technical pack?

[AS Collie]

Maybe. If he's cheap, it wouldn't be the worst signing. Didn't he play wide right for Lille though? Not a bad squad player, I suppose.

Interesting your comparison with Zeman, btw, because the biggest criticism of him in France was that he only knew how to play one way and is unwilling to adapt to the opponent's tactics. Let's hope that changes at Roma.