THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi II

[Italiamia]

Edzo, the bottom line is that we have no scoring and he must be the guy to lead the team in that regard. He has had glorious chances to get himself going only to blow those chances. It has become psychological at this point I believe. Ranieri did say last week that he is struggling with fitness. But the chances he is getting requires him to score without regard to his fitness issues.

[marco]

shield, if you are checking the roma sites you'll see there is plenty of criticism emerging toward ddr. to date, i think the media have definitely cut him some slack (compared to others) due to the obvious but i think even the 'untouchable one' is no longer exempt from being subjected to criticism....and rightly so.

[Italiamia]

[Carlo Romano]

[maro]

[stefano]

[maro]

[Carlo Romano]

[romawi]

[stefano]

[romawi]

[romawi]

[Carlo Romano]

Steve, up to now and for another 18 months hopefully our Capitan' will continue to be just as you say and I agree he certainly has been effective. It's nothing short of tragic that this season, having got the excess weight down and regained much of his old form (if with less pace) he should suffer this latest setback. Sky Italia showed us footage of him at Trigoria this morning kicking a ball away in frustration and trying to put a brave face on. I feel for him. I'm sure we all do.

But I'm talking beyond next season. He will not be top level effective beyond that.

[Italiamia]

[Carlo Romano]

Fahad...in our case we will know what our particular "Tecnical Director" does, if and when he does it!

[maro]

I'm not especially trying to defend yesterday's performance; to be honest, I think the greatest wodge of blame has to go to Ranieri. It reminded me of that infamous semi-final against Monaco in the CL when Chelski had Monaco exactly where they wanted them only for Ranieri to make a couple of bizarre substitutions and almost single-handedly lose the tie for Chelski. The team was playing quite well in the second half yesterday - had Burdisso scored that header and Vooch taken either of those gilt-edged chances then we'd have been looking at an ordinary performance against a very poor side. Then Ranieri made his bizarre moves which completely upset the balance of the side. That, of course, also after he'd started with Faty as trequartista and Perrotta alongside DDR, an arrangement he quickly had to change, and after bringing Menez off. And Guberti, of course, should have started anyway. Those final twenty minutes were absolutely atrocious. Of that there's no doubt. I just don't buy the idea that it was an atrocious performance from an atrocious team. I also don't buy the general attitude to Fulham around here. It's the mirror-image of the English media's astonishment when Liverpuke got rolled by Fiorentina in Firenze.

[maro]

I'm also not convinced, Chewna, that even on paper we have a squad to finish in the top four. I should think there are other clubs on the rise where we are on the wane. I think we will struggle to get ahead of the five clubs who finished ahead of us last season and there will, no doubt, be one or two others who are up there as well - Samp, Udinese, Napoli, Palermo? I don't know who it will be, but I should think at least one of those guys will have more enthusiasm more luck and as much quality as we have this season.

[Carlo Romano]

Tommaso, you know we're only doing what from time to time is the norm for Romanisti...having a good old moan because things are not as they should be! That's really the bottom line, irrespective of the reasoning behind the fact(s) and trying to debate them.

Some things just never change!

[romawi]

I don't know, but I guess we'll have to wait and see, Tom. I mean the biggest problem we had last season was all the injuries. Those led to a dismal start, and a horrible end to the season, but I still thought that team was good enough. There was a point where we were in 4th last season, but again we lost a few key players to injury and we slipped up again, never to recover. So has the team changed all that much? The injuries are still there, although to a lesser extent, and we've added a little bit of depth to the roster. So not a lot has changed. You could be right, however, and maybe I'm just not willing to come to terms with the fact this team is just not good enough.

[romawi]

----------------Doni----------------
Cici-----Mexes------Juan-------Riise--
-----Perrotta--DDR---Pizarro--------
---------------Menez-----------------
------------Totti------Vucinic----------

I just have a hard time believing that a team with a starting XI like that, and with some quality on the bench, has a hard time finishing somewhere between 2nd and 4th place.