After Mario Rui went down with an ACL injury last week, Roma were faced with an important question: How do you replace such a mediocre player? Well, with word that Roma are nearing an agreement for Tottenham’s Federico Fazio, the answer appears to be with another mediocre player. While nothing is official, with word that Fazio and/or his representatives are en route to Roma, he’s about as official as official gets.
While the particulars haven’t exactly been ironed out yet, it is widely speculated that Roma and Spurs have agreed to a €4 million loan-with-an-option-to-buy deal. Fazio, 29, is a beast of a man, standing nearly 6’4”, and has spent the past three seasons shuffling back and forth between Sevilla and Spurs.
Fazio’s career started off promising enough with Sevilla, garnering over 100 La Liga appearances over parts of four seasons. However, both his appearances and quality of play have declined over the past few years, reaching its nadir this past season where he only made six appearances for Sevilla.
At this point, Fazio’s greatest gift may simply be his ability to breathe:
It would give us a chance to have another body in defence. He has important characteristics, he’s won the Europa League.
Another body...winning the Europa League? Is this really what it’s come to for Roma?
He didn’t play consistently in England, but he has experience, he’s a solid player with a strong mentality. We’re curious to see him at work consistently.
Listen, I get that he’s meant to be a backup, but considering all the question marks in Roma’s defense, shouldn’t their acquisitions be based on more than pure curiosity?
Juan Jesus wasn’t exactly impressive yesterday against Liverpool, Kostas Manolas is a ticking time bomb, Alessandro Florenzi isn’t really a defender and Norbert Gyomber is more of a novelty than a footballer. This defense is far from impregnable and throwing together a bunch of disparate parts and calling it cohesive won’t help Roma bridge the Scudetto gap.
By most measures, Fazio is simply this season’s Nicolas Spolli, but this signing is symptomatic of a much larger problem--the club’s shocking inability to construct a defense.