THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi I

[Italiamia]

[SPqR]

[Italiamia]

[Pauly W. Nuts]

[Pauly W. Nuts]

[Pauly W. Nuts]

I Know that there's massive support for Aquilani, but I am one of the few that, given his injury-prone body (thus, his lack of playing time and development), and his poor attitude/demeanor, I would not have a problem if he decides to leave (which I doubt if it happens).

I'm sure that Aquilani's demeanor is not intentional, and all of the latest hype about his unhappiness after Sunday's game is nothing other than that, "hype," but he should know better. Hasn't he learned from Panucci?

Aquilani should truly snap out of that Principessa attitude, work on his fitness, raise his game, score goals and impress everyone, and maybe the ROMA suits will give him a long-term contract. In addition, he will shut-up the few unimpressed, like me, and we will all hail him as being part of the Holy Trinity.

[Pauly W. Nuts]

Hi everyone: I'd like to let you know that I have invited one of the better thinking and more rational tifosi from Theoffside. He goes under the name "Kshitiz" in Paris. He had disappeared for the last 3-4 months, and when I saw him post there again a few day ago, I made contact with him.

Anyways, I have no doubts that he will be a great addition to our team here. He knows our team quite well, since he has followed our team for quite some years. I hope you guys extend a big welcome to him.

Thanks!

[vtec]

if any of you have any strong opinions on the beckham affair, feel free to come over to the milan thread and join in the discussion.

[RomaShield27]

De Rossi leads Roma’s show of force as Genoa reduced to rubble
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/20 ... lo-bandini

Paolo Bandini – The Serie A title may be out of reach, but the Giallorossi are playing the best football in Italy right now.

On Saturday the champions put on a show of force. On Sunday last year's runners-up put on one of their own. Roma may have long since surrendered any hopes of catching Internazionale at the top of Serie A this season, but after their 3–0 demolition of Genoa yesterday they are more than just closing in rapidly on a top-four finish that once looked beyond them. They are playing the best football of any team in the division.

"We dominated the game for 90 minutes playing our football. When we're in form there's nothing anybody can do about it," glowed the Roma midfielder Daniele De Rossi afterwards and while such an analysis may have been unfair on a Genoa team who, despite the scoreline, were competitive throughout, it was certainly understandable. In the space of little over a fortnight Roma have played two opponents with serious Champions League ambitions – Genoa and Napoli – and demolished both by the same scoreline.

Between those two wins came a 2–2 draw away to lowly Reggina, but while that result cannot be dismissed altogether, there were certainly mitigating factors. With just about every attack-minded player in his squad absent that day through injury or illness, the manager, Luciano Spalletti, was forced to start Stefano Okaka, whom he would loan to Brescia a day later, up front. Even then his side looked to have tied up all three points before Simone Loria gifted Reggina's Ciccio Cozza the ball on the edge of the six-yard box with his first touch after coming on as a late substitute.

In all Roma have dropped just seven points since 8 November, one fewer than they had earned in 10 games to that point. Only Inter can match that figure and they had one game fewer to play. Although the Nerazzurri themselves won 3–0 away to Lecce this weekend, they have won just three of six since the beginning of January.

Indeed, the one team who might have challenged Roma's status as Serie A's form team before this weekend was Genoa. Coming into Sunday's match the Grifone were fourth, two points clear of Roma and hadn't lost since a 4–1 drubbing at the hands of Juventus on 13 November. Despite that result they had also proved more than once that they were capable of mixing it with the bigger sides, beating Roma and Milan on their own turf, as well as drawing away to Milan and Inter.

But Cicinho opened the scoring for Roma after 26 minutes, slotting the ball home from six yards out to cap a wonderful, sweeping, team move which he had started moments earlier in midfield. Not long after he was carried off with a knee injury, but Marco Motta, the Italy Under-21 captain who arrived from Udinese on 1 February, filled in more than capably.

Genoa continued to work tirelessly and at times controlled possession more than Roma would have liked but, despite boasting one of Serie A's most prolific strikers in Diego Milito, rarely looked like scoring. Roma, by contrast, may line up in a different formation these days, but look more and more like the rapid counter-attacking sides Spalletti has produced in recent years. Mirko Vucinic extended their lead early in the second half with a stunning first-time volley on his weaker left foot, and, after each team had a man sent off, Julio Baptista added gloss to the scoreline deep in second-half stoppage time.

The return of Francesco Totti hasn't hurt, of course, but he was far from the most effective player on display, showing his class only in the occasional neat touch or precise pass. De Rossi, by contrast was relentless and it was his angled ball forward that Vucinic dispatched for the second. His presence in the starting line-up is at least as crucial these days as that of his captain.

But the defence, too, should be commended. This was their fourth clean sheet in six games, no mean feat for a side who shipped 18 goals in their first 10 matches, and will have represented a particularly satisfactory end to the week for Philippe Mexès, who had started it with a lash to the face from the belt of a Lazio fan outside the Rome nightclub Gilda.

"It was a fair old whack, but it could've gone worse, as he hit me right near the eye," Mexès had acknowledged earlier in the week, reliving an incident which took place shortly after 4am on Monday morning. "I was waiting outside for my friends to bring the car round and I heard someone congratulate me. He was a Roma fan. Others were Lazio supporters and they were saying things that weren't quite so nice. Then someone showed a lack of respect in the middle of the street and I reacted. I know I was wrong to do so, but I couldn't take it any more. There were a few shoves but no consequences, apart from these two little marks on my face."

Mexès, who had been out with team-mates Okaka and Jeremy Menez, was also quick to make clear he had done nothing wrong by staying out so late, as there was no training the next day, and he "had permission" from his wife. As long as he and Roma keep playing as well as they are, nobody else involved with the club should mind too much either.

[maro]

I see the Poms are feeling obliged to take some interest in Calcio - for a couple of weeks, at least. I wonder what Mouldyknee's friend over on theoffside thought of DDR's performance over the weekend (or of Flamini's, say).

I don't know about Cicinho. I think, actually, I'm more sympathetic to him than most of you guys, though not quite so sympathetic as the dibdib who seems still not to have lived down his ridiculous claim that a third-choice right back was a 'must buy'. The crossing thing is interesting. The guy who commentates on the atdhe and bet365 streams has a thing about his crossing, too - that it's the weakest point of his attacking game - but I don't really see it. Sure he winds some into the stands, but he's also whipped in some pretty lethal balls and I'm sure he'd have many more assists than Cassetti does, the difference in minutes they've played notwithstanding. I also suspect that his best performances for us almost embarrassingly coincide with games which Taddei has been fit and played wellish. Taddei's sending off on Sunday was, of course, plain spupidity and not entirely uncharacteristically so, but I think he's quite well suited to that position. He's happier getting wider from there than Perrotta, say, is, or than Brighi would be on the right, but he's also happier tucked in at times than an out-and-out winger would be. I still think he's an important cog in the side and gives us a balance and a range of things that none of the other options in the squad give us down the right. Clearly, anyway, he complements Cicinho, giving him defensive support, but also giving Cicinho room to get down the wing outside him. The biggest objection to Cicinho for me is that he clearly doesn't take defending as seriously as attacking. He still has that schoolyard kid's attitude - you've got to try hard enough to make the other guy's success if he scores matter, but in the end you want to score more goals than the other guys rather than make sure they score fewer than you do. And so he'll bust a gut at times to get forward, but too often when he's caught the wrong side of the ball he won't immediately turn around and tear back in defence. In short, I don't think a clean sheet is something which he really prizes. For me it's a question of attitude as much as anything else - he doesn't take defending quite as seriously as Spalletti would like him too.

Still, I think he's done well of late and has probably been helped by having Riise on the other side - part of the problem with a Tonetto-Cicinho-Pizza trio on the pitch is that they leave us very short in the air and make it easy for sides to land diagonal balls onto the heads of strikers in the channels. Riise just changes the balance of that a little bit, as, no doubt, does having Brighi tucking in at times. I like Cicinho - I like his movement and his pace. I suppose one of the difficulties for his crossing is that we don't really have enough of an aerial presence through the middle - the easiest cross for a fullback to hit is an early one from deep but he can't really play that ball. He has to get closer to the by-line which makes it all much more difficult and he's virtually never going to be able to play a ball to the far-post, though perhaps Baptista will change that.

[RomaShield27]

[Jamoldo]

And to Tianjin of all places. You would have thought that Dalian Shide or the Shandong team (the two more well known teams in a rigged league) would have tried to get him. I wonder why he chose China's fourth largest city when (though I've never been and never encouraged to really go) that is apparently a concrete jungle and port, when he could have done with some decent weather or some culture (Beijing) or nightlife/access to foreign stuff (Shanghai)... I'm sure he could have gotten an offer elsewhere.

[RomaShield27]

Juan and De Rossi the only Romanisti starting tonight...

[Italiamia]

You know, I will never understand. How can we all watch Roma and see things so differently. With Cicinho, I realise his asset to the team is primarily offensive. That is where his skills are best utilized. All of us knew his defensive issues so it goes without saying that this was the weakest part of his game. So we can set that aside and say we completely agree on that point.

I have not missed many Roma matches since Cici came to the club. So, I will say that lately he has been very, very good from an offensive standpoint. But his body of work since he has been a Roma player has been far short of what we all expected. Therefore, I still maintain that his crossing has been below average overall and I found myself screaming at the television when he botched cross after cross. To me, the jury is still out on him. If he continues his current form on a consistent basis, then I will have no complaints. Yes, he still needs to recognise his defensive responsibilities but I can overlook that to a degree if he provides the offensive support expected by Spalletti.

Another issue is whether he gets the start in the CL. What is the risk vs. reward factor. He gives us a much needed offensive punch but is he a liability against a team like Arsenal.

[cg916]

[maro]

[Pauly W. Nuts]

Chris, or anyone, I dont think a concrete answer has been given on whether Motta can play LB? Can he?

In addition, how about this? Based on the hysteria, and intial display by Motta this past weekend, I wonder how threatened Cicinho is going to feel about having a regular postion on the starting XI?

I mean, its only been one game for Motta, but it's glearingly apparent that he surpasses Cicinho is defensive skill. If Motta works (and eventually succeeds) on moving up, and forward, as he did a couple of times on Sunday, I think Cicinho will have to raise his game, perhaps worry about his job.

If Motta pans out perfectly, and Cassetti comes back nice and healthy, what is Cicinho destiny?

[SPqR]

I would say that Cassetti has played his last game in a Roma jersey barring a miracle.

Cicinho is versatile in that we can play him in the mid as well as at RB so there would be no real reason to move him other than if he wanted to. Cicinho-Motta would be a deadly combo to have at RB.

I would just like to see what type of money we could toss at Villareal to snag Rossi. That would be the brightest thing we could do. Sell Baptista and Aquilani and you're on your way to funding a purchase for Rossi.

btw, this is the lineup that could win WC 2010:

------Cassano------------Rossi-------
-------------------Totti-----------------
----Aquilani----------------Perrotta---
-----------------De Rossi--------------
-Grosso--Chiellini-Cannavaro-Motta-
---------------Buffon------------------

[marco]

i'd do aquilani + cash for rossi in a heartbeat.

[cg916]