This whole Diego thing is pissing me off. Look, he had his chance to shine at Juve last season. In fact, he had plenty of time to prove himself. The truth is he wasn't bad. He was probably one of our best players, and while that's not saying too much considering the way we played last year he definitely doesn't deserve being called a flop or anything like that. The fact is, we built the entire team around Diego. He was supposed to be a team leader. Everything was supposed to go through him. Now while he was and is a decent player, he did not live up to that responsibility.
Our options this year were simple. We either keep our faith in Diego or completely renovate the entire squad. We went for the latter option and while I think we could have done a much better job, this team does have the potential to finish well this season. What we realized after last year were two main things. Our team needs a complete makeover and Diego is not that who we expected him to be. He will fit well into an attacking side that has many attacking options. Juve is not that team, unfortunately.
I don't think selling Diego was necessarily a mistake, but I think we needed to make a few more changes in our attack before we could go through with this move. Krasic should fit n well with our team pretty soon so we have the right flank covered. Our problem is on the left. Pepe is not good enough to be a starter for us and Martinez is being played out of position. It will be interesting to see how Del Neri will opt to employ Martinez later in the season. Quag is just a big question mark. He is definitely very talented, but I just don't know if he's the right player for this team. Only time will tell.
But all in all I think Marotta did a good job in clearing out the baggage that was just slowing this team down. Our team is now definitely younger and faster. I think it's only a matter of time that this will be apparent on the pitch.
Paragragh 1: Diego was out best offensive player IMO, but for 25M you don't get a guaranteed superstar, and he was working on integrating himself into a quality team, with many quality players. The argument that he's supposed to be the be all and end all is fucking ridiculous - he was supposed to be one of many quality pieces that we needed to be a contending team. All of this talk about superstar this, team leader that is horseshit. He was supposed to be quality, he is quality, we need quality, end of story. He worked his ass off for the team, and our management disrespected him - and greatly, at that.
Paragraph 2: Since when are the options either/or? The guy didn't even have a chance to prove himself in a system that didn't 'revolve' around him. Plus, he was playing well early this season! This isn't an election in the USA, where you only get two choices. After last season, the team needed a renovation, full stop. Period. We missed CL, end of story... and you admit we needed a reno. And you seem to be admitting that we need more attacking options, yet it makes sense to move our best attacking player (all due respect to our beloved captain)? Had we added some quality width in the form of wingers and fullbacks, and taken a flyer on a young striker, Diego would have had plenty to work with, and IMO he would have had a huge season for us.
Paragraph 3: We sold Diego for 15.5M Euro, after buying him 1 year earlier for 25M. Really all that needs to be said... it's the very definition of stupidity, a colossal mistake. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Compounded by the fact that we bought the youtube sensation Fabio Quagliarella, a player who is the very definition of inconsistent, for basically the same price (if we exercise his loan... if we don't, we're paying 6.5M for 1 year of Quags).
Paragraph 4: We're paying large portions of salary for a lot of that baggage that he unloaded. I, for one, am not going to give Marotta too much credit for some of those moves... not at all. Especially in the cases of Trez and Camo, given our dearth of quality strikers, and some very questionable options on the wing. When contracts are rescinded like many of ours were, it's simply because we're paying players not to play... which isn't such a huge accomplishment IMO.
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