GIALLOROSSI YORKSHIRE BLOG
Well that was horrible. The final Derby of the season saw Roma outsmarted, outpaced, outwitted. There's now a long wait until next season to prove ourselves again as the best club in the capital. How could it have gone so wrong?
Lazio set up using the same 3-5-2 formation they had played against Roma in the Coppa Italia semi final clashes in March and April, although it was more resemblant of a 3-5-1-1. Roma opted for the 4-2-3-1 shape that has been reasonably successful of late. The game didn't actually start badly for Roma. For the first eight or so minutes, i Lupi had the upper hand in terms of possession and the creation of chances. Edin Džeko wasted a good chance early on, albeit due to a good save from Lazio goalkeeper Strakosha. However, as the clock turned to the 10 minute mark, the game began to turn in Lazio's favour. Roma's defence seemed to lack organisation and good reading of the game. Too many times in the first half, Lazio found Keita Baldé with huge expanses of space to attack. Keita's pace appeared problematic for Roma's centre back partnership of Kostas Manolas and Federico Fazio. Fazio especially looked in difficulty with the pace offered by the Lazio attack. Despite being a reliable rock at the back this season, picking up the nickname Il Comandante along the way, he was noticeably off the pace, and nearly gave away a penalty when he brought Lazio full back Jordan Lukaku down in the box. Maybe this game showed that Fazio is more comfortable in the middle of a back three than in a back four. He looked extremely, and unusually, vulnerable. However, it is far from reasonable to single out only Fazio as having a bad performance. As stated, Džeko missed a good chance early on, which set the tone for the rest of the game. He barely got a sniff in front of goal over the 90 minutes. In addition, star man Radja Nainggolan went by quietly in a game he would have been expected to perform in, as he has done in other big games this year. Tactically, on Roma's part, perhaps the two full backs played slightly too high up the pitch. (Given Roma were using inverted wingers, the full backs had to do this to create width in attack). The defence looked stretched as a result of this, and this is what allowed Keita to find so much joy - and Manolas and Fazio so much despair. The gaps between the defence and the midfield were also huge, even Daniele De Rossi foraging too far forward in the match. In contrast, Simone Inzaghi's tactic to deploy Lazio's three central midfielders very deep, almost in touching distance of their three centre backs, limited the space that Roma's equally quick and dangerous attackers could find. Hence, chances of any meaning were limited, causing Roma's midfield to (naïvely) push higher in search of a breakthrough, leaving the defence unprotected. A couple of counter attacks from Lazio, and the damage was done. Lazio's resolute defending was certainly problematic for Roma's attack, and the Giallorossi quickly ran out of ideas. With Lazio playing wing backs, it would have been expected to see Roma exploiting the width left in behind Dusan Basta and Lukaku. Mohamed Salah did indeed see a lot of the ball in the first half and was definitely Roma's best player on the day. However, as the game went on, Lazio's wing backs dropped deeper and deeper, cutting off the space in which the Egyptian was finding some joy, and formed something closer to a back five. This tactic had been used by the Biancocelesti in the two legs of the Coppa Italia clash, so it is surprising that Roma were unable to find a way around it. The tactic to sit deep and cut off the spaces for Roma's threatening attack by packing the midfield and defence was nothing new, yet Roma couldn't adapt. Roma's only goal came not from great play, but from an inexcusable dive from Kevin Strootman, who will have to take a long look at himself in the mirror after that. It has put a dampener on what has been a fantastic season for the Dutchman. If there was a game this season that sealed Luciano Spalletti's fate, it was this one. His self-imposed, hypercritical high standards have not been met, and to lose two derbies in a season is frankly not good enough. His constant refusal to talk about his future may be having an impact on the team's play and mental focus, and the negativity caused by his uncertainty is not what an ambitious club like Roma needs. His players may not have performed for him on Sunday, but he seemed to have run out of ideas by the end of the game. The switch to a back three at half time was the right decision, but it looked uncharacteristically disorganised and was quickly abandoned. By the end of the game, all three substitutes used, he seemed to have forgotten how to lead a team to a Derby victory. Roma should have been incredibly motivated to win this game after the disappointment of being eliminated from the Coppa. Those demons were not vanquished, and the team will have to live with the effects of this defeat for a while. Second place still looks possible, but Napoli's fantastic recent form has put them just a point behind, with a potentially easier run in as well. It would be a good achievement to come second, but Roma simply must do better in derbies next season. Because no Roma fan wants to see anything as shambolic as Sunday's pathetic performance against our most bitter rivals ever again.
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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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