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Roma made self-destruction a habit. That’s no secret. The funny thing is that it always tends to happen in matches of this nature: against what most people call the minnows of the league. It has come to the point where many of us are expecting Roma doing a Roma here; the perennial Roma Happened.
If we focus on this season, we can safely say that Di Francesco has done his job when it comes to facing the weaker rivals in Serie A–confident and ruthless victories against the likes of Hellas Verona, Benevento and Udinese are a good testimony of the team’s resolution in these scenarios in this season.
Roma v. Crotone: October 25, 20:45 CET/2:45 EDT. Stadio Olimpico, Roma.
Let’s not kid ourselves: great teams win these matches and they finish the opposition with no major issue. Roma has been doing that so far. Emphasis in “so far”.
The club of the capital is sitting 5th on the table with one game less and coming from a victory at Torino. It wasn’t pretty by any means and Sinisa’s team did a great job stiffing Roma’s attack, but our guys did the job and now it’s time to defeat a much weaker Crotone side.
Why do I say that last part? Well, Crotone are sitting comfortably at 18th place and while you cannot predict anything in football, they have been uninspired, to put mildly. The Gli Squali (The Sharks, how cool is that nickname?) have only won one match in the league so far and they are one of the weakest defenses, receiving nineteen goals in nine matches and only scoring six in the process.
It’s never nice to put down the opposition because we wouldn’t like others doing the same to us, but this really shouldn’t be much trouble for Il Giallorossi. It could be a nice opportunity for Eusebio to keep doing his rotations and give guys like Ünder, Gonalons and Pellegrini minutes to seize. I personally would like to see Edin Dzeko getting a rest in this match, but considering we have Deffrel and Schick injured, I don’t this is going to happen.
These are the type of matches that can screw up your season if you don’t come fully prepared; Crotone are having a torrid time, but they want to escape relegation and they just need a half-sleep Roma side to end their poor spell of form. Rotations or not, this is the time where the players have to be fully aware of not dropping the ball.
It’s time to kill.