GIALLOROSSI YORKSHIRE BLOG
It was another poor display from Roma last night as the long winless run continued.
Sampdoria came out 1-0 winners, with Duvan Zapata getting the important goal. It's clear that Roma are having problems currently, but what were the three main downsides of yesterday's loss? Wrong Players Brought Off The substitutions made by Eusebio Di Francesco killed the game for Roma. For reasons only known to him, he chose to remove Roma's three most dangerous attacking players in the game. The replacements weren't necessarily the wrong choices to bring on, but they should have come on for other players. For example, Gregoire Defrel should have replaced Edin Dzeko, not Lorenzo Pellegrini, because the latter was growing into the game and breaking forward often. Dzeko, on the other hand, was once again a passenger. Cengiz Under and Stephan El Shaarawy were also incredibly unlucky to be brought off - they were both playing well on the wings and should have stayed on, as Roma were building momentum until the changes. Nainggolan Was Dreadful Radja Nainggolan looked a far cry from the player that many have described as the best midfielder in the league for the past couple of seasons. Too many times, he gave away possession, and had virtually no impact going forward. He's been better this season than many have suggested, but yesterday his critics were absolutely right. As an experienced member of the squad, he should have done much better. Failure To Exploit Width Often With Sampdoria playing a narrow 4-3-1-2 formation, there was a great opportunity for Roma to create pressure down the flanks. The visitors' full backs could have been exposed in two-v-one situations, but Roma didn't utilise this tactic often enough. As stated, the wingers played well, but they could have had even more of an impact if they had been picked out more frequently. And when the ball was wide, the crosses from the full backs were rarely successful. Once again, a lack of creativity in attack damaged Roma's chances of getting a result. Final Thoughts All in all, Sampdoria deserved their win, and Roma clearly need to change something. Young players such as Under and Pellegrini did well, and perhaps they should be seeing more action as their seniors underperform. That will be Di Francesco's decision, and one that he will need to get right in order to avoid embarrassment against Verona next week.
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samuel bannister
Founder and editor of Giallorossi Yorkshire, who is also a columnist for Roma's official website about the women's team. Categories
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October 2019
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