Giornata 9: Roma vs Sampdoria

Yeah, a lot will depend on Roma. If they decide to vent their fury on us and play like they did last year we're in trouble, but at the same time they'll be very fragile and nervous, so if we frustrate them and then ideally score a goal they might completely lose it.

As for us, Lucchini will return alongside Gastaldello and Accardi, and then I'd expect there to be a mild turn-over in midfield, e.g. Dessena might start, possibly Stanke.

Players called up:


Portieri. Castellazzi, Fiorillo, Mirante.

Difensori. Accardi, Bottinelli, Gastaldello, Lucchini.

Centrocampisti. Delvecchio, Dessena, Franceschini, Krsticic, Padalino, Pieri, Sammarco, Stankevicius, Ziegler.

Attaccanti. Bellucci, Bonazzoli, Cassano, Fornaroli.

No surprises there, luckily Gastaldello makes it after missing yesterday's training because of a knock.

Match abandoned after just 5 minutes and 20 seconds due to water-logged pitch. Not sure when it'll get played seeing as both teams have a lot of commitments (serie A + Europe).

On the one hand I was very worried about playing Roma when they're so desperately in need of results, but then again the chances are they'll have discovered some form by the time we do play them, and are unlikely to be in such bad shape.

In the immediate future I guess it means we'll be fresh for Torino on Sunday - another must-win game given our precarious league position.

Looks like it might be 14th January. The only date nearer was 12th November, but Roma aren't happy with that because they have the derby after that (which seems like a feeble excuse..), and the next convenient date is apparently in the new year.

Roma will still be w/o the suspended Vucinic and Mexes, but I can't imagine they'll still be in such a poor shape by then.

No, you really can't blame our down-fall on Spaletti, although he obviously had an important part to play. We had a completely unbalanced team (in theory great going forward, but awful at the back), bad luck with injuries and referrees, and then the whole Platt thing was pretty ridiculous and self-inflicted.

The fact is that Spaletti did great at Udinese and has had Roma playing some great football until this year. Something's clearly gone wrong now, but I don't think you can just say it's his fault!

Having said that, I agree that Roma will definitely be in better shape come January. At the same time, they probably won't be as pissed off as they would've been on Wednesday, which could've been a problem for us. Who knows what's better, the important thing is that we destroy Torino on Sunday.