Totti Today: Strootman’s Final Straw

From an instant hero and fan favorite to a hot target for Juventus, Liverpool and Marseille. From untouchable to a necessary sale to fund other, more important transfer objectives (Darmian, Torreira, Barella,...) of Roma. Yeah, 2018 hasn’t been nice to Kevin so far.

How the mighty have fallen. After Dzeko, who seemingly returned to his usual lamppost duties like in 2016, now Strootman, our beloved Strootman, has entered a wave of protest, negative energy and criticism. Only one goal in 15 Serie A and 6 CL games and some average (for his standards, keep this in mind) displays this season has led to a string of remarkable errrr, remarks. Some are already discussing Kevin’s transfer fee and how much money he could make so Monchi can spend it wisely... God can you imagine?

Now, we all know Kevin isn’t in a comfortable position. His long list of injuries remains a burden and no way he can match the popularity and support of De Rossi and Nainggolan. On the bench there’s the Roman crown jewel Pellegrini too. Dani is Dani, Capitano Futuro. Even a red card every now and then won’t harm his situation. Nainggolan and Pellegrini haven’t set Serie A alight this season, but do show glimpses of their talent from time to time. So if you had to choose one sacrificial lamb, chances are it would be Stroots. It’s nothing personal, Roman fans just feel the need to pick a victim for the slump AS Roma are currently in right now.

Since December the entire squad is in a downward spiral, bar Alisson and Kolarov. While Florenzi and Pellegrini can pick the joker ‘I’m Roman’ and Perotti, SES and Gerson can at least do some flashy, technical tricks, Strootman has to impress and convince in another way: heart, passion, grinta, you name it. Sadly that isn’t enough. I dug up some pagelle (ratings) in Italy since that horrid December month and they’re mostly 5, 5.5, I even saw a 4 passing by... As Bren already pointed out some days ago, Kevin’s struggling and that hurts my heart. His best performance probably is SPAL at home, a 3-1 win including one goal from Er Lavatrice, which doesn’t say much. Or wait, perhaps it does.

Someone needs to drag Roma on its back, like Totti did so many times. Strootman is not the guy. But that doesn’t mean we need to quickly cash in like we’re in a casino, bleeding chips left and right. Perhaps Eusebio’s tactic and schemes are less suited for Kevin. Radja, Fazio, Dzeko and Perotti aren’t their usual self as well. Selling is not the solution here, in fact it would only make our problems bigger.

I believe Strootman can be the Washing Machine again in time. He deserves more time than this. Selling him would be plain stupid, while there are other guys on the team who have proven less than Kevin in a Roma shirt (Peres, Gonalons, Moreno, Under to name a few). Who’s gonna do our dirty laundry if he’s not there?

One of the last few players that have been an integral part of AS Roma since 2013 and an amazing guy. It’s true that we can’t be blind for his shortcomings lately, but it would be a bad sign of this club to put Kevin on the market. So yeah Monchi, please tell Liverpool and Juve to **** off. You deprived us of Pjanic and Salah, enough is enough.

From his spectacular goal against Napoli in the Coppa to his funny cameo in the Szczesny Show on YouTube and his obscene gesture at Juventus fans, there are so many highlights in his Roman career. It cannot end now. It will not end now.