Monchi Has Left AS Roma

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Not excited.

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Its kinda interesting that his time at Roma was not very "Monchi" like... At least what he was billed to be at Sevilla..

My post on Arsenal thread about yesterday:

Yeah, I was optimistic about Monchi coming to Roma. However, it's two consecutive summers that he's made a lot of moves that were widely criticized at the time and turned out even worse, or more naive, than they seemed.


This summer he managed to stockpile 4-5 guys that only seem to thrive in the most advance midfield slot while completely ignoring any mid that could do the defensive, positioning, pressing and possession box to box work Strootman provided.

That came after last summer where he spent €70m on 2 players that could only backup Dzeko when we desperately needed a direct Salah replacement.


All the while, his more desperately needed CB (and GK) acquisitions have been busts.

He has brought in a lot of really talented young players but it's an absolute "work in progress" in the sense that there's too many at same positions and none at others.


He's fallen quite short of in his own stated goal that the move to Roma and our budget would allow the incorporation of youth while not falling off the pace too much competitively.

In short, Roma had been doing better at replacing top players with talented youth before Monchi arrived.

In retrospect, I would have preferred he just bring in even more young players, finish 8th this year and not have all the high salaries of Pastore, Nzonzi, Marcano, Olsen he put on the books.


I would have hoped that he'd stay to clean up the mess but if the reports are true than he's ready to bail since Di Francesco was fired, it doesn't exactly endear me to him any more though I guess it was "show of solidarity" with Di Francesco.

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Dandy Lion

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I guess the main thing one would want to know, is whether or not he got some interesting talent at interesting prices during this time.

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crazy4lsu

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I straight up don't trust him to fix what actually needs to be fixed. We need lots of investment in young players to fix our problems. If we buy Ever Banega for 30 mil, I might give up on Arsenal.

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This was his problem at Roma. Great young players out of nowhere + overspending on veterans that flopped.


I'm certain that there are going to be 4 or 5 young players he bought that will be eventually be superstars and can be added to his list of amazing buys. Zaniolo, for example, is already looking like the steal of the year. Under and Kluivert are great talents. Karsdorp the RB will be very good . . There's good reports on the young Brazilian GK and he bought a lot of kids that are loaned out or on the Primavera squad now. . .


However, he made the overall team weaker in the short term in each consecutive season, mainly due to none of his veteran signings working out and Roma being forced to count on 19-20yo straight out of 2nd divisions.



18yo Zaniolo and 19yo Under that were huge Monchi successes but were also pressed to start right away because the veterans he bought to be starters (Pastore and Defrel as a winger) were huge mistakes.


Don't get me started on our desperately needed CB replacements being Hector Moreno and Ivan Marcano in consecutive summers or Robin Olsen to replace Alisson.

alright then

Yeah - that’s the Pastore I’m talking about... he was suppose to kick on with all that talent at PSG and never did.. injuries, too many managers/different tactics and being played out of position..

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Yeah - that’s the Pastore I’m talking about... he was suppose to kick on with all that talent at PSG and never did.. injuries, too many managers/different tactics and being played out of position..

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Yeah, Pastore is the type player that's pure joy to watch with the ball but kind of a relic in that he doesn't fit at all into any modern pressing style.


I was in Roma for the final pre-season warm up match. It was clear he wasn't going to work out when I saw he had developed a technique of straight up walking back on defense but moving his arms as if running like the fat kid in middle school gym class.