To be fair to CR he had to make selection decisions for this game as they were not entirely dictated by the injury situation. There were still many options with neddy or camo playing in the midfield instead of Tiago but he kept his faith in the portugese player and he did very and gave an important edge in the midfield. Also other options like de ceglie, gio and even iaquinta were there to be made but he chose the right team and won convincingly.
Although Roma were nowhere near their usual form but they are still dangerous and have always created chances but we didn't give them an inch and hit them where it hurts by focusing on the flanks.
am sorry but he earned credit for this game.
I am mostly referring to his choice of not fielding 2 DMs,
this has the largest impact in our team. We seem to have more tactical choices than ever and if we had a proper winger from the right, a stable defense and decent enough wing backs, we could really be a 2# contender.
By choice we chose not to strenghten our defense and we are now forced to use 2 DMs, only to cope with this issue. This unbalance our team and force us to attack with our wings alone,
we are becoming one dimensional, forcing to expect every thing from some hopeless long balls and some individual brilliance.
This is NOT a tactical plan and this was our only tactical plan for ages.
It was destined to fail inevitably...
But CR still insisted on that. Another major problem, would be that we were not using a CM to do the job of a second DM, but we were only using a hardcore DM, unable to deliver enough offensively.
For this particular choice i ve been bashing CR for over a year, now.
My main point of critic, on him! I dont hate his smiling face,i only hate the fact that he is not trying smth better. If he chances that, then i ll have no reason to hate him. (oh and the Molinaro favourism issue too)
He always had the choice to use Neddy, Camo, or even Tiago as CM and he could easily buy another quality CM this year.
But he never chose to do so, not until now, when his hands were tied.
And he had no other choice. So i will not praise him for his greatest weakness, feel free to do that and get ready to bite your tongue when Zanetti or Poulsen return...
Camo was not ready to start and even if he was starting as a second DM, his offensive skills and adaptivity can help him become useful at every position and handle us the tactical advantage of multidimensional forward line.
This is the very reason, we look so "sexy" and create some many scoring chances, than ever before, the cure to our chronic problems, that haunts for many seasons now...
DC was partially un-fit too and i see no reason to praise CR of not fielding him as a starter, when not fully fit. I see no reason to praise CR for not fielding Giovinco, even as a sub to rest Neddy, when we control the game in a 2-0 lead.
And i also dont see the reason, not to try Iaq, as a rotation, when he gets his form back. But having him as an option, we could also opt for the trident at times.
So what were CR's actual choices that i should praise?
As i said, time will tell if these were CR's choices, we will see how he responds when he will have his usual options available to him.
And not our injuries hand picking our starters for him!