You're welcome. And yes I'm still salty. There's no fucking way he was only worth 62.5mAlisson was immense tonight. How did we put 7 goals past this guy last year I would never know.
a 2nd min var penalty for unintentional biceps ball. that was a disgraceful moment of refs capitulating to the bigger club, as much happened with arsenals denied 1st half penalty to give a russian oligarch's pet project a few million more quid, during a final played in a country owned entirely by russian oligarchs. /end rantIt's really sad that one of the greatest champions league seasons had probably the most boring final ever. Tottenham were absolutely useless.
> 0 negotiation skillsThere is another reason Ajax refused to engage with Roma in talks for ten Hag. Reportedly, Ajax were annoyed with Roma’s behavior during the Hakim Ziyech talks last summer. Then sporting director Ramon Monchi led talks for the Giallorossi, who already had an agreement in place with the midfielder and were very close to the asking price of Ajax, but then decided not to close the operation.
Paulo Fonseca has a good track record in all the teams he's been at, both overperforming with bad teams in Portugal and also managing bigger clubs like Shakhtar successfully, all while giving lots of minutes to young players. Out of your list he seems one of the best 3 options, only Gasperini and Conte seem a better fit and it's obvious why those weren't available.> turned down by Conte, Mourinho, Giampaolo, Gasperini, Bielsa, Galtier, Sarri, ten Hag, so we settle for Fonseca but everyone on Redd*t assures me he's a good manager that he was our 9th choice at best and nobody else was after him
Oh yeah, then there's this too, because apparently we don't need to train under a new manager.
Dzeko had a terrible season, has huge wages, is injury prone and is 33 years old. Selling him seems like a no brainer. El Shaarawy is also injury prone, also has huge wages and is entering the last year of his contract, so if Roma don't sell now they'd be forced to give him a huge new contract (which is stupid given his injury record) or let him leave for free last summer. That's why they aren't selling him for a big fee. Roma's young talents (Zaniolo, Kluivert, Coric) play in the same position as El Shaarawy so letting him go seems... fine> sell Dzeko to Inter for €10m
> sell Manolas to Napoli for Diawara and cash
> sell El Shaarawy to Shanghai for €18m (when SES is younger and way better than Nzonzi, whom we bought for €26.65m, and Pastore, whom we bought for €24.7m) even though Shanghai can obviously easily pay double that amount
> rumour is we're considering swapping Zaniolo and Luca Pellegrini, our only other LB other than the old af Kolarov, for Fatguain, Spinazzola, and Perin (whom we could've gotten last summer but instead wasted money on Olsen)
No rumors of any replacements for Manolas or getting rid of one of our many useless midfielders (Cristante, Nzonzi, Pastore) while bringing in Diawara.
So management was dumb for even considering 6 of the other managers.Paulo Fonseca has a good track record in all the teams he's been at, both overperforming with bad teams in Portugal and also managing bigger clubs like Shakhtar successfully, all while giving lots of minutes to young players. Out of your list he seems one of the best 3 options, only Gasperini and Conte seem a better fit and it's obvious why those weren't available.
Right, but they knew about the U21 Euro way beforehand, that date was fixed long ago. If it was ever a concern, why even set it that early to begin with?As for the training camp, do you really think it's a good idea to start pre-season on the 29th of June? That seems absurd to me, especially given the U-21 Euro Championship is still going on. Giving the players a week of vacation is more than reasonable.
So instead, we want to bring on Higuain, who has higher wages, is out of shape, and had a terrible season, albeit being just 2 years younger than Dzeko? Makes sense. El Shaarawy makes €2m per season, tied for 11th highest on the payroll (data taken from here.) Even Juan fucking Jesus makes more than him. Pastore and Nzonzi are worse than him and make €3.5m and €3.1m respectively. Yet the point remains: we paid more for those two than we're gonna sell a younger, much better player than they are for. And to China of all places. Why does Zaniolo matter if we are indeed sending him to Juve in that swap deal? Coric, as far as I remember, is a midfielder rather than a winger, and he's barely played at all. That really only leaves Under, Kluivert, and Perotti as the other wingers, and Perotti has been linked with a return to Argentina for years it seems like.Dzeko had a terrible season, has huge wages, is injury prone and is 33 years old. Selling him seems like a no brainer. El Shaarawy is also injury prone, also has huge wages and is entering the last year of his contract, so if Roma don't sell now they'd be forced to give him a huge new contract (which is stupid given his injury record) or let him leave for free last summer. That's why they aren't selling him for a big fee. Roma's young talents (Zaniolo, Kluivert, Coric) play in the same position as El Shaarawy so letting him go seems... fine
The latest I saw was that it'll be two separate deals: €34m for Manolas and €18m+€2m add-ons for Diawara. Not sure what the add-ons are, but it seems like that's to compensate for lowering the release clause by €2m. Essentially we're sending them Manolas for Diawara and €16m. Btw we're still linked to Veretout. How many midfielders do we really need? Selling Manolas and not investing in another CB leaves us Fazio, Marcano, and Juan Jesus as our CB rotation. Yikes.The other two moves do seem weirder to me, if the money for Manolas is big then I can understand it, Diawara is a huge talent and Roma need a new midfielder after De Rossi's retirement. But replacing Manolas might not be easy.
The reporter is usually reliable. Yes, Zaniolo is still raw, but he can only get better, no? Teams like JJ are just gonna sit him and stunt his growth, you'd think players will have learned from Malcom last summer.And that rumor about a 2 for 3 trade seems really really weird, I wouldn't trust it much but who knows. Then again if someone gave me big money for Zaniolo (60 million+) I'd definitely take it. He's still an awful passer, just about the least creative attacking midfielder I've ever seen, I'll be honest I can only see him being good as a striker but no manager has tried to play him in that position so far. Not sure if you watched Italy U-21 but if you haven't please do, and focus on Zaniolo... you'll understand what I mean.
What young players if we ship off Luca Pellegrini and Zaniolo? I still see Pastore, Nzonzi, Juan Jesus on the payroll. Let's not forget that we are only rebuilding again because Monchi dismantled a Champions League semifinalist squad. Last season was transition enough, but we brought in Pastore and Nzonzi and gave them ridiculous wages. But when I brought this up last season, it was "trust Monchi", "Roma have to be a selling club because of their debt", "their most valuable assets are their young players" and now you're telling me we need to make way for young players? Hm...................In any case, all these movements can be understood in one way: this is a transition season for Roma, rebuilding is a must. That means clearing space for young players to get minutes and get rid of the highest salaries if they're not contributing enough.
Truth be told. They have done pretty well considering the lack of players. Their national team has developed quickly and strongly ; I remember them ten years ago and it was catastrophic. Overpaying players/managers in their late career had some benefits and helped the national championship to get better.I've been watching the Copa America the last few days, mainly because I was curious about Qatar's quality after their Asian Cup win, and although they seemed fine it's hard to believe they won the cup with such little offensive power, none of their stars (Al Haydos, Afif and Ali) showed much other than lots of diving. That being said they seemed well organized defensively and they gave Colombia a hard time so perhaps I'm underselling them. So do they look deserving as World Cup hosts in terms of quality? I'd probably say yes, they at least looked more competitive here than South Africa in 2010.
James in his national team is a beast. James in his clubs is... inconstant, to say at least. ^^ That plus his injuries, he never really confirmed what we saw in Porto and Monaco. Ancelotti's Napoli seems to be interested in a transfer, I would love to see James back under Carlo's ordersOther than that I'm just hoping to see a good final in Copa America. Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay have looked like the best teams by far so I expect one of those to win. James Rodriguez in particular has been amazing, crazy to think that neither Real Madrid nor Bayern wanted him on their team.
Little Hagi from Romania has been really good too. The semi-finals bracket is really good, can't wait to see that this eveningI have also watched some games of the U-21 European Championship, quite surprised at the quality of some the teams but I guess it makes sense with the Olympics qualification at stake. Ceballos and Gian-Luca Waldschmidt the players of the tournament so far, just like in James' case it's hard to believe Real Madrid wants to sell Ceballos.