Roma Draws With Torino, Falls to Third Place In Serie A

In the immortal words of Jerry Maguire, I'm not gonna do what everyone thinks I'm going to, which is flip out! We have to remember, Roma falling to third place, albeit behind Lazio, is actually the lowest point of the Rudi Garcia regime. And yes, the match that ultimately brought us to this nadir was emblematic of everything that possibly cost Roma a chance at the Scudetto this season; they waited too long to turn it on and even when they did, their piss poor finishing effectively rendered any chance at victory null and void. However, Roma remains only one point behind Lazio for Italy's final guaranteed Champions League place while standing seven points clear of the Europa League fail safe, so we're still in decent shape, all things considered.

At this point in the season, we've dissected 1-1 draws from every conceivable angle, so let's just take a look at Rudi's rationale behind this one, quote by quote.

It was a good performance, we just lacked a more positive result.

Well, no shit, Sherlock. Got any more pearls of wisdom for us, Rudi? Sorry, I forgot I wasn't going to flip out, but this guy seems about as motivating as a toothache sometimes.

We played well and if we continue like this in the next eight games, we'll win many of them. We know no team will be able to win all the remaining eight rounds. I am happy with the team and the attitude, as we were the only ones playing and had 24 shots on goal despite being the away team.

I'm with Rudi on this one, surprisingly. If they can carry over that intensity from the last 20-30 minutes (a tough task given the four months of mediocrity), we might finally see a glimpse of the Roma of old; the one that ran roughshod over the league last season, though I have no idea why he's bragging about going 0-24 from the run of play. Get it together, Rudi.

We can improve on our final ball and were unlucky when hitting the post. As long as we create chances, that's the important thing. The strikers will score eventually. Every area of the side can do better. It's a shame that after the first goal we conceded on only Torino's second attempt

You'll have to forgive me if I have less confidence in the ability of our strikers to, you know, actually score a goal than Garcia does. At this point, Roma's leading goal scorer, among strikers, is still Mattia Destro with five, so I'm not pinning my hopes on Seydou Doumbia or an out of position Victor Ibarbo leading us back to second place. Adem Ljajic's eight goals leads the club, but in this context, I don't consider him a striker.

We had time to win it and tried our best, but the goalkeeper did well for Torino. There are disturbing victories and reassuring draws, so this was the latter

I'll leave it with this one. Rudi is correct, this was far from Roma's most pitiful performance, and there were certainly signs of encouragement, but his failures as a manager (relatively speaking since Roma has been in second all year) are what have held this club back from greater success. You can't grouse about poor finishing, poor officiating and the opponent actually capitalizing on chances, do nothing about it, and continue to be flummoxed week-after-week when it keeps happening.

Roma is in stasis, it's not the worst one we've ever faced, but given the talent on this team and the resources behind it, it is undoubtedly the most frustrating.

Roma looks to regain second place when they host Atalanta next week, while Lazio travels to Turin to take on Juventus.