Roma: part II

I wrote relatively recently about the club and had a halfway decent response to it, plus I have a home kit from 2010 or so that my sister bought in Rome, so I figured I'd do a part two. The initial thoughts here are based on this season, as they sit as underdogs in the Europa League semifinals that start today. Domestically, the season's been underwhelming. Not a disaster, but obviously not good, as I wrote about previously, having zero wins against good teams within Serie A. I give the side a 10% chance of advancing. That's how uneven this matchup with Man United is. The only hope is to park the bus and hope to win 1-0 at Old Trafford, or nick a draw, and then win in Rome. So, with that said, and the large deficit given the early part of the season in the top four race, I'm looking forward to next season. Sarri has been linked to the job.

Games to look at- away to Cagliari (L), home to Atalanta (D), away to Torino (L), both legs against United (unless they get destroyed in 1st leg)

Fonseca issues - I mentioned a bit of this with the first piece and the fact that they don't beat good teams, but there are various issues at play. Some will say it's down to the personnel, which is partly to blame, but it's also the tactics. At Shakhtar, the club that Fonseca gained his rep, he played 4-2-3-1 pretty much exclusively. Starting in week 30 of the 19/20 season, the side has only played a back four three times, usually going 3-4-2-1. Bryan Cristante of all people has been playing as one of the CB's this season, and that's part of the issue. I'll look more in-depth at the games I listed above, factoring in the semi's, before making further comments on Fonseca.

"Player trading"

Another issue at the club is simply recruitment. I may or may not have said this in the other piece, but Monchi was really poor at Roma, which is crazy seeing how well he's done at Sevilla in both stints. Like most Italian clubs, loans are utilized regularly. Outgoings include a bunch of youngsters, as well as Florenzi (PSG), Kluivert (Leipzig), Under (Leicester), and Nzonzi (Rennes). The two young wingers haven't cemented anything resembling a starting spot, so you could say their loans have been useless, and they (almost certainly) will return to Roma in the summer. The older guys have started in France at times, but let's be real, if Roma wanted them, they wouldn't be on loan. Nzonzi is free in 2022, so that's not a huge deal, and he'll either go somewhere cheap or just rot on the bench. Florenzi is more of an issue, if you look at it that way, given PSG would be silly to take up the option and his Roma contract lasts until 2023.

Looking at incomings, Kumbulla has had a torrid season after joining from Verona. Technically it's a loan with obligation, so I assume they're stuck with him. Mancini also came in permanently from Atalanta. Mayoral has done decently well, and may be bought from Madrid. Wouldn't mind that, but he's not a "top player". Bryan Reynolds is a "project", coming from FC Dallas in the winter window.

Lastly in this section is the "dead wood". Dzeko, Peres, Santon, Pastore, Pedro, Fazio, Jesus. All need shipping, as they say. If a new manager comes in and the loanees come back, who knows, they may get a shot. If not, if Fonseca were to stay, having loaned them out, they'd be sold I imagine as well. Goalkeeper is another issue, with Pau Lopez having flopped miserably after Olsen was meant to replace Alisson. Just think about that. Jeez.

Post leg one update:

Where to begin... It was like Déjà vu of the PSG-City game, in that the scoreboard was not reflective of the quality of the sides. Sitting back (mostly) worked in both games, until it didn't. Mirante is not good and Keylor is, plus the team gave up, as opposed to PSG who more or less held on for dear life for the final half hour. It's not like Roma were good in the first half, aside from literally the moments they scored the goals.

I was going to wait until the second leg, but let's be real, it was over when Mirante and Peres entered the game. I started a post about Sevilla, but they actually have a chance at winning a title, which is crazy, so I figure it makes sense to see how the season finished before writing about them. The reason I mention that is clubs this size, not competing realistically for anything year in year out, kinda have to choose what their aims are. CalcioLand explained this pretty well a while back, maybe when Monchi was still there, but Roma have a jacked up squad. Genuine quality players in their "prime" are few and far between, and you simply don't win things that way. Hell, look at the dead wood I listed above, most are well past it or just not good, and then you have the list of young players. I look at the Sarri links, and while that sounds romantic and all, and I think he's best at "second tier" clubs, this is not a good fit if the talent to play his style isn't brought in. If you bring Sarri in, or any other manager meant to be competing on the highest level, that requires investment or it's bound to fail. Simple as that. That's one option, but as I said, it requires money, and no Champions League football for another season isn't a good start.

The second option, what I would do, is actually build a core, mainly of young players. It's like, Atalanta are in a top four spot, and Juve, both Milan clubs, and Napoli have far better squads. If four of those five get CL, they're already ahead of you for next season, and potentially the near future. Thus, it's time to rebuild. No BS "let's bring in a bunch of washed up ex-Premier League players and mid-bottom table Serie A guys. No. A real rebuild.

Pau Lopez is first to discuss. Mirante is gone after a couple more games, and Fuzato clearly isn't good if he's third choice. The question then is do you trust Pau, or look to sign someone else? He's only 26, and if you're rebuilding, it doesn't make sense to invest a bunch in another keeper having only bought Pau recently. Bring in a cheap backup, or let Fuzato be that. One shout I'll give is Florian Muller. He's on loan at Freiburg from Mainz and his deal ends in 2022. Mainz may well go down, and I wouldn't expect Freiburg to buy him becuase they're a tiny broke club. His stats look good, as he leads the Bundesliga in post-shot expected goals, which is a metric that tells you how many saves a guy is making compared to what he "should" save. Muller is at +3.8, and next highest is +1.9.

Speaking of contracts expiring, Mkhitaryan is up this summer. I'd let him walk. Especially if you can't get rid of Pastore. Fonseca is going, might as well start fresh. Jesus and Peres are gone as well. I'm pretty sure I addressed Dzeko and Fazio above, as theirs end in '22. Pellegrini is up then as well, and that's a discussion to have. The ballsy move is to sell him. You have a decent number of midfielders at hand, and he could go for a good profit since you're rebuilding. That said, he's the captain and a starter, so you'd be hurting the team in the short term.

The defense is alright, actually. Smalling just arrived and Mancini, Kumbulla and Ibanez are all young. Karsdorp is only 26, Reynolds is super young, as is Calafiori, and Spinazzola is the least of the team's problems.

Moving forward, the midfield and wings are actually alright as well, if the guys on loan come back. Perez and Under on the right, El Shaarawy and Kluivert on the left, Mayoral and a new signing up front. Of course, that's all contingent on the loan guys actually coming back. I don't see why you wouldn't, given the expected drop off that happens when deciding to rebuild. What's the other option? Loan them again? Sell them for a loss? The center of the park is well stocked with the aforementioned Pellegrini, Cristante, Diawara, Veretout, and Villar. Zaniolo is the big question. He's had two injuries pretty much back to back after breaking out in a big way two seasons ago. How will he look next season?

Speaking of loans real quick, I despise the Italian way of hoarding all these players with no intention to ever feature them in the first team, so they just loan them to lesser sides. I looked on TM at the guys Roma have out on loan, and most of the ones of value are barely even playing. Makes zero sense.

Two other positions I'll look at to bring a guy in are CM in the case that Pellegrini is sold, and striker, given Dzeko will leave.

Raspadori is one I'll mention for center forward. He's a totally different player from Mayoral, and that can be a positive. Italian, obviously, and I think that's a bonus. Could possibly be sold on the cheap before he really makes a name for himself. Another Italian owned by Sassuolo is Scamacca, who's more in the Dzeko mold at 6'5". One other big lad to look at is Jonas Wind at Copenhagen. He's just signed a new deal, which is leverage for his club, but he'd be competition for Mayoral and is at a good age, having just turned 22. Another option could be to loan a player, such as Eddie Salcedo or Sebastiano Esposito, both of Inter.

For central midfield, I'm looking for someone to backup/rotate with Diawara, as well as a potential Pellegrini replacement. Using stats, well, the comparable players feature on fbref, I found Vincenzo Grifo and Romain Faivre as similar players to Pellegrini, which is interesting. I guess it makes sense as Fonseca has Pellegrini as one of the two behind the striker. It would be interesting to see if either of them could play as a #10 in the Sarri mold, like he had at Empoli, and both could play on the wing if one or both of the loan players were discarded. In a more conventional midfield setting, the "similar player" tab shows Wirtz, Amiri, and Demirbay, all of Leverkusen. To put it bluntly, Wirtz should be the most expensive of all these players. He could seriously be good, very soon. The others are kinda meh, but I like Grifo and he's similar in many ways, one of them being his nationality. One other young Italian to mention as a "project" is Samuele Ricci of Empoli. He's only 19 and his side are most likely coming back to Serie A next season. One to watch.

At DM, since I didn't address Diawara and the need for a backup, I'll do that now. Funnily enough, Villar pops up as a similar player, so maybe you just play him in that role... Honestly, he's a "regista". If you want a more tenacious player there, Nzonzi is in house as well.

One thing with a rebuild is you do need winners who've been there and done that to instill values. Two guys with expiring contracts I'd be looking at are Javi Martinez and Edinson Cavani. Yes, it is true that they'd be on big wages. It's also true that Javi is washed. However, if you could get them for a year or two, let's say a trident up front of Cavani the OG, Mayoral the Madrid reject, and Raspadori the kid, would work well. Javi would be a better DM for the squad than Nzonzi, potentially, especially for the Sarri style if he's to come in. Oh, and with the keeper thing. One other option to consider is a return of Woj from Juve if Donnarumma joins them from Milan. The Pole is way better than anyone currently at Roma and already played there, plus he's won things at Juve and would raise the level. That does go against the whole rebuild idea, but I could see the club go into denial and try to milk the squad to try and win when that's not gonna happen. I mean, you'd have to bring in a guy like Belotti to score goals, improve RB and CB, maybe even LB, and depending on what Sarri wants to play, you'd need legit wingers. I just don't see it.

In conclusion, the club needs to go all in and decide which direction it's headed. My take is they should rebuild. Fonseca goes, don't bring in Sarri because at this point that's not what he's about, and find a hungry manager who will work well with youngsters (maybe Italiano, or De Zerbi, or Matarazzo). Bring back the loan players because none of them will have their options taken up (Kluivert and Under in particular). Get rid of the dead weight and older players. They don't want to be there or aren't good enough. Build a cohesive unit with players who want to be there. That will benefit the club in the long run.

ANOTHER UPDATE

Ugh, something told me to hold onto this until closer to the second leg, and it looks like my instinct was on point as the club announced Mourinho would be replacing Fonseca next season. Fonseca going was inevitable, but this is not a good hire. It's as if clubs have just ignored every single falling out Jose has had, and said "but look at how many trophies he's won". He LITERALLY got out of a similar situation TWO WEEKS AGO, look how that went. I'd say Spurs are in a much better place, actually, because of the new stadium and annual PL money. The only possible hope with this is he's somehow able to instill his "winning mentality" in a team that desperately needs it, and maybe having a group that hasn't been to the same heights will make that possible. Add to that the stereotype of Italian football being slower and more defensive, maybe his outdated style can yield results. I'm reaching here.