Milan travel to the Olimpico on Sunday to face a Roma side
suffering from many injuries, including a VAR-less emotional injury that hurts
like a ball to the face. Roma will be exhausted physically from playing on
Thursday in the Europa League, but also mentally. Not just from playing in the
Europa League, conceding a late penalty that officials afterward admitted was
not a penalty, but also from so many injuries. They’re wounded physically and
emotionally, but they’re not dead yet.
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| Just like we used to see him all the time, only this time, it's unfortunately real |
Roma have had a rough time lately. With five starters out
with long-term injuries, they are scrambling for players. In fact, Sky Sport
are reporting that Jack Rodwell, a free agent from England, is in Rome ready to
sign for the club to give them another warm body. And as if that wasn’t bad
enough, to add insult to injury, Borussia Mömchengladbach were given a stoppage
time penalty on Thursday when the ball clearly hit Chris Smalling in the face.
That penalty stole two points from them, and even the match officials admitted
the error and apologized. But most impressively, the club’s official stance on
having been robbed was very professional and sporting. We could all learn
something here.
Fonseca has said he has never seen an injury crisis like
this before, and maybe that impacted the team as they drew 0-0 to Sampdoria
last week. For that match, the warm bodies he had available to line up were:
Lopez: Spinazzola, Mancini, Smalling, Kolarov; our old pal Cristante, Veretout;
Kluivert, Zaniolo, Florenzi; and our dear old friend Kalinic. Unfortunately for
us, Kalinic and Cristante were injured in that match. Not sure if they just
didn’t want to face Milan or what, but they joined the list of “not dead yet”
injuries that also includes Diawara, Pellegrini, and Zappacosta. Mkhitaryan and
Ünder are fighting for match fitness for Sunday, but it is unclear as of this
writing whether or not they will make it. And as if that list of the missing isn’t
long enough, Kluivert got himself sent off for a second yellow against
Sampdoria, so will be suspended for this match.
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| He wanted more playing time, finally gets to a big club again, and now this. Karma? |
Milan have mentality issues not helped by a coach with
perhaps too many ideas, then changing that coach. In what was unquestionably
their best performance of the season against Lecce, their budding mentality was
clipped by a late equalizer from the newly promoted side. Whatever Pioli has
been able to do with them in such a short time will be on display at the
Olimpico on Sunday. Pioli will be missing Bonaventura again to a muscle injury.
Caldara is not fully fit, but should be available for the bench.
The debates on social media and in the media this week are
who Pioli will start up front and whether or not he will play Piatek and Leao
together, especially after the tactician admitted that might be a possibility
in the future. This is a much healthier discussion than the myriad ones surrounding
Giampaolo’s reign of terror, so hopefully mentality is improving within the
squad. Because despite the injuries and Europa League robbery, Roma are always
tough for Milan to contend with, especially in their house.
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| Milan's emergency signing |
While Milan fans may have been looking forward to relishing
Kalinic’s every wayward shot, or congratulating Cristante for finally making it
back to a big club after his Portuguese career detour, they have given us the
opportunity to focus on our own team. And our own team will need all the help
they can get if we want to steal three points from the Olimpico. And by steal,
I don’t mean bad ref calls like Thursday. Plus, there’s VAR. It’s just that
Roma, even decimated by injuries, have the advantage in this one. Certainly,
they’re not dead yet.
This post inspired by the music of Duran
Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf”
Serie
A Week 9
Roma vs. Milan
Sunday, October 27 • 18:00 CET (1pm
EDT*)
This match can be streamed LIVE on
ESPN+ in the U.S.
* European Daylight Time ends, but
U.S. Daylight Time is still ongoing