Imprudent? Perhaps.
Knee-jerk? Likely.
Somewhat inaccurate? Yup.
Insane? Why not.
Temporary? Possibly.
That doesn't change the here and now. A day we've long known was coming.
At current, at this very moment in time, we can say with little pause that...
Daniele De Rossi is AS Roma.
As he goes, the club goes. The midfield cannot seem to consistently - no, not every game requires his absolute presence for them to perform well, but the scale tilts significantly - function without him, and the midfield is the crux of this team. Maybe it will be rectified over weeks, or maybe the torch has finally been passed. Nonetheless, for the current, even if brief, Roma is there.
Welcome to the future.
Less Provocative Stuffs
- The Simon Kjaer of Monday is hardly to blame for the penalty for which Mattia Destro put on his speedo and climbed up to the tippity top platform.
The problem is the Simon Kjaer of the rest of 10-11 just might be. How far gone is his reputation among referees? Will a stiff breeze ruin his career? That, much like the thought of Menez trying to win another Serie A foul outside of being slashed in the face by Jason Vorhees, is a rather frightening thought for the future.
- At the end of the game, ten of the eleven players on the pitch were trying to break down the world's first most recent 0-2-8 as new signings to Roma, while also having spent last year somewhere other than Serie A. Aleandro Rosi was the only gentleman from Roma (delicious), with Kjaer and J. Depp the only other to've played a minute of top flight calcio in the past - the former playing out of position at the end, the latter making a post-injury cameo.
Mere hypothesis, but it's certainly straight up bad juju.
- I'm not entirely against the €7m experiment that is Simon Kjaer as a prima punta. Though if Wolfsburg's been watching any of his film, it might take 7 euros just to take his contract off their hands at this point.
- Of note: the results and performances against teams with a coach who's seen Enrique's tactics once around already continues to bear watching. Closely.
- For a team which threw so much money at the transfer window this summer - and most of the buys have panned out (the Spanish children are still TBD, though it's looking like Bojan is going to need to loan Messi's skill set for 12-13 to end in anything but a one-way back to Barcelona) - this team has such little depth for the system. Which, of course, is a bit of the issue - no backup system. And that's fine if they're convinced it'll be the only one in the future - just get ready to be comprehensively outplayed by teams who can defend like Siena when it's just not clicking one day.
That sounds familiar...
- At the beginning of the year, I thought sixth place was a solid guess - predicted such, if I recall. Frankly, they've played like a sixth place team - occasional Champions League-quality performance mixed with the occasional-I-just-woke-up-in-a-puddle-of-my-own-vomit showing - they've simply been very lucky other teams haven't quite played up to expectations (see: Inter, Napoli). Maybe it'll continue to progress throughout the year, maybe teams will learn to counteract Roma more easily over time, or maybe it'll be more of the same until another summer of squad turnover (read: torch the defense). Time, patience, whatever, etc.
Things are simply going as expected - both the good and the bad.