re: Let's Talk Serie A

Zero chance they sell Dybala. They would have to break the bank for Juve to even consider. Alvaro will be the player sold, if anyone is gone.

Juve still miss Vidal, they miss him winding teams up, and the offense he brought from the holding spot. He looked like an AMC at times, while playing in the back.

They r winning with defense this season, get that goal, lock it down.

Seria A is certainly a good league, but it's hard to take anyone else seriously when one team has won the league title for the past four years with most of those being complete domination.

Serie A definitely needs both Milan teams to be competitive again.

Kind of like the Bundesliga, there are some great teams, but it's sometimes hard to take anyone else seriously other than Bayern, especially with the slight fall of Dortmund.

lot of very odd statements being made in this thread.


Fiore and Roma were never going to do well in Europe, they never do, they choke consistently. That said, now that Roma have Spalletti expect them to improve massively in CL next season when he's had time to bring in his own signings and have a full preseason with the squad. You being Russian or w/e should be quite familiar with him.

Fiore don't have the capability to be a serious player in Italy, let alone Europe, their season last year (4th and a EL semifinal) is about their ceiling.

Lazio are and have always been the smallest of Le Sette Sorelle and their performances this season are much more in line with where they are as a club.

Napoli were still fully focused on the scudetto, so they rested half their full strength XI for the first leg with Villarreal, only to draw Milan anyways. Sarri isn't and wasn't concerned with Europa league, top 3 has been their goal since the first day of the season. Even then it took a fluke goal in the second leg to knock them out,

Inter are a lost cause under Mancio and will never develop into a legitimate side with him (and their financial situation is awful, they won't make CL this season and are going to have to sell one or more of Icardi, Kdog, Miranda, etc. to even stay afloat and break even with FFP next year). Lot of rumors floating around Milano that Thohir is looking to sell already given how futile his efforts have been to improve their finances. They're nowhere close to coming back, they bet everything on making CL this season and now that it's more or less impossible for them they won't be able to redeem Telles, Jojo, Ljajic, or any of their other loans. Also won't be able to spend big this summer.

Milan are in a much better situation financially, and have the capability to spend again this summer, but it's yet to be seen if Silvio will invest two summers in a row, Milan are only a few purchases away (Vazquez, Iturbe/El Ghazi/Sansone, Tonelli, and Witsel/Soriano/De Roon) and a new manager,( preferably Prandelli or EdF) from having a squad capable of consistently challenging for CL football.

Juve have stayed ahead this season purely down to Dybala, without him they would be hovering around 3rd and Napoli would have run away with the league by now. But this is to be expected when they've been the only team to consistently spend every summer for the past 7-8 years.


And as far as Romagnoli's concerned, he's not going anywhere (chelsea lmao). He's been arguably one of the best defenders in Italy this season (Koulibaly and Barzagli are the only two individually who have been better. Bonucci, Manolas, and Alex have all been very strong as well, he belongs in that grouping) Saying that he's the "next Bonucci" is laughable when he's not far off of his level right now. Kid's is incredible and he's much more likely to reach Nesta's level than he is to settle at Bonucci's level (seriously, next bonucci, wtf). All the reservations about him have been proven false, such as he's just another Ranocchia, hyped early for his performances at a small club (Bari in Ranocchia's and Bonucci's case) but never capable of really living up to expectations.

quote:

---

Dybala is a monster right now.

---

It's become cliche at this point, but he looks like he'll be the next Aguero. I love watching Juve play because of him.

quote:

---

But this is to be expected when they've been the only team to consistently spend every summer for the past 7-8 years.

---

Spend??? They are +++ in the transfer market during that period. They sell high, bring in young talent and veterans on frees who fill the depth.

Ur acting like they spend 100's of millions, far from it. They will get 75-85Mil pounds for pogba, add in a another sale or 2, then spend 1/4th of that, and they will be locked and reloaded.

It's not Juve fault that the idiots at Inter and Milan tried to buy titles for decades, spending cash on overrated players, and are now paying the piper financially for those days.

quote:

---

Seria A is certainly a good league, but it's hard to take anyone else seriously when one team has won the league title for the past four years with most of those being complete domination.

---

It's fair to some degree to say this but at the same time people still watch Arsenal etc when they're not winning their league either or actually getting past some teams like Real Madrid, Barca or Bayern in CL like Juve has).

On one hand you could say that the league is less entertaining if you're mainly entertained by the title chase but it's not that Juve walks over Roma or Napoli in actual matches against those teams as much as wins the league going away by never dropping points otherwise.

Again, though, I do agree that Roma and Napoli are two clubs that need to step up one notch in Europe to really gain a bit respect (but, again, one could easily say that City, Arsenal etc aren't in such a different category but simply don't have one of the 4 or 5 best teams in Europe in their league the past four seasons).

quote:

---

Fiore and Roma were never going to do well in Europe, they never do, they choke consistently. That said, now that Roma have Spalletti expect them to improve massively in CL next season when he's had time to bring in his own signings and have a full preseason with the squad

---

Spalletti is a fantastic manager that I belive has often been underrated due to never managing a "giant".

He'll certainly improve Roma.

However, Roma problems of not really taking the "next step" the past two seasons has mainly come down to Strootman and Castan's unexpectedly prolonged injury issues.

They were the spine of that team that finished behind Juve with the highest point total to ever not win the league two seasons back.

They've been missing for the past two years and the real problem wasn't simply that they were out but they were continually projected to be back healthy soon and Roma made the mistake of never addressing the "what if -- worst case scenario" for two complete seasons where they've never made it back.

Rudiger, Astori, Yanga-Mbiwa at CB and Keita, Vainqueur in midfield were bought to be depth players who would accept being behind Castan and Strootman who always due back at any time but ended up being regulars.

Main reason they haven't progressed is because Rudi wasn't capable of taking them to the next level. He was tactically below average and it showed once small clubs figured out how to stop Roma's attack. They played only one way, and if a team sat back against them they were fricked.