THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi II

[red]

[AS Collie]

Out of interest, what do the lads and lassies on here think of this article?

Describes the Roma project as that of a "high-profile owner with a novice foreign coach, a management team with some disdain for their own country, a quickly-assembled and inexperienced (in Serie A terms) foreign squad?"

http://joe.ie/football/european-footbal ... -0015416-1

Whatever you think of him, I'd say that Thomas DiBenedetto is low-key by Serie A standards. And the disdainful management team? Based on what? Disdainful of the cronyism of the last few years at Roma maybe. Inexperienced squad? Hardly. A few fresh faces, which were badly needed. Roma had the most "experienced" squad last year and it did no good!

[maro]

i would say those comments all look to be pretty much on the money. How can you not think that this squad is inexperienced (in Serie A terms)? Gago's almost incomparably better technically than Brighi, threadmund. The problem is that his most natural position would seem to be at the base of the midfield three since his strengths would seem to me to be almost based around playing behind the ball, making passes rather than runs.

[Lupa]

[giallo-rossi.ie]

I have no idea what has just taken place in this mercato. The squad was always a little thin in depth, but this is ridiculous! What the hell is the starting eleven gonna be? Who plays were? The whole thing looks like a mess. I'm gonna give it a go, assuming we want to give our new signings a run out. There's a lot of players getting left out here...

--------------------------------------Stekelenburg-------------------------------------


----------Cassetti------------Burdisso-------------Juan---------Jose Angel---------


-------------------------------De Rossi--------------Gago-----------------------------


----------------Bojan-------------------Pjanic----------------Perotta----------------


------------------------------------------Totti------------------------------------------


Subs: Curci, Kjaer, Pizarro, Lamela, Osvaldo

Left out: Heinze, Cicinho, Taddei, Borriello, Simplicio, Brighi, Rosi, Okaka, Nego, Greco, Caprari, Antei, and Verre

[Italiamia]

[AS Collie]

[maro]

Oh, yeah, I didn't read the blog. I've just skimmed it now and it looks annoying and worthy of a rant. I think the squad is incredibly light on Serie A experience - we could quite conceivably line up with a team which included Bojan, Lamela, Gago, Pjanic, Angel, and Stekelenburg, all of whom have no Serie A experience. And the policy has been to bring in very young players. If it works, it will be hailed as a policy, but I don't see how there can be much argument that the new players are collectively exceptionally inexperienced (Kjaer and Osvaldo at least have some experience of the league, but not lots). And I think you could certainly argue that the treatment of a number of the established players has been very disrespectful - this is certainly what I feel. On the other hand, the principle of bringing in LE as a mark of discontinuity is hardly per se disrespectful.

And certainly the emphasis on foriegn players hasn't impressed me overly; more to the point is the apparent lack of clarity in the transfer dealings and in the handling of a series of players.

The blog looks like a piece of tosh, but, per se, the points you picked out are ones I'm inclined to agree with.

[AS Collie]

I might have agreed with the points if they were made by someone who sounded like they knew something. But reading the blog, I just felt it was a Prem League watcher just having a pop at Serie A ... like they usually do. He also left out a lot of details that didn't suit him. Like Liverfekkin'wankscum buying Henderson and Carroll, both of whom are very young, very expensive and very inexperienced (I'm not giving Carroll his six-months of top flight football as experience). And Charlie Adam only had a year – at Blackpool. Not exactly the heights of the game. It's easy to twist these kind of arguments, and I just thought it was a bit of a dumb comparison to make.

I think there's a good mix of experience and youth now. The spine of the team has bags of it, but I agree that the young players is a risk, but I think it's a good one (not an Adriano one), and worth taking.

[vtec]

what is serie a experience needed for? i don't think it's to be able to play against serie a teams, as if you look anywhere in europe, serie a teams have been getting their asses handed to them by first time opposition. it's needed for integration within a serie a team. a team that plays like a serie a team. in roma's case, it is a moot point as the whole system is changing and players without an existing serie a system tattooed to their consciousness are actually at an advantage to those who are accustomed of doing things a certain way which is not the way going forward.

[AS Collie]

What he said.

[maro]

Whether or not Serie A experience is needed is a different question from whether or not this squad is inexperienced.

If I were De Rossi I think I would leave - out of loyalty to Rome and to Roma.

[djw1992]

The possibility of a centre back pairing of Juan-Kjaer is both brilliant and hilarious in equal measure

[AS Collie]

There's a joke about a pjanic-juan-kjaer there somewhere ... not that I do that kinda stuff.


MMMOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

[djw1992]

[vtec]

[AS Collie]

[romawi]

------------------Stek----------------
--Rosi---Burdisso--Juan----Angel--
-----------------DDR-----------------
-------Perrotta-------Pjanic---------
---Osvaldo----Totti--------Bojan---

4-3-3. Bojan and Osvaldo can easily switch sides (I think Bojan is left-footed). Cicinho for Rosi. And I have no idea where Lamela will fit in. If he's going to play as a winger, then Osvaldo will play through the middle and Totti will be benched. If he's going to play in midfield then it will be at the expense of Perrotta.

[romawi]

[AS Collie]