Torino toppled

[@TheHarDoze]

Forza Lazio

[@PotatoBearRawr]

On what Baroni is saying. My Italian is Green Bird level with a couple of years in high school... I can understand individual words, but not really follow full sentences. Listening and looking at Baroni... You do not need to understand Italian... The man is absolutely glowing. He is happy, humble, on top of everything. He is literally everything. Just in body language and tone. I (no homo) love this man. It makes me happy that we can have such an amazing human being as manager. I can deal with much more Lotito bullshit just knowing Baroni is in charge of things on the pitch. If Lotito ever deserved credit for anything, then it has to be Fabiani and Baroni... As a significant part of the credit of Fabiani is hiring Baroni. Sometimes under Sarri watching football was a chore... I have always hate tiki-taka (if you are going to play defensive, then at least play counter attack), and now I am loving every moment of it. We also had this situation under Inzaghi (after he figured out how to play with 2-3 strikers, LA, and SMS), where we had to score 3 goals to feel any sort of safe, but the others ALWAYS score 2 at some point. And we literally had that situation against Torino. I would rather watch Lazio against anti-football-Empoli, than a World Cup final! With this style of football we might get a whole new generation of international Laziale, who just fall in love with Baroni-balle. I am in love with this club all over again! :D

[@guglecwoki]

who knows, maybe we're gonna see Pedro up front on Thursday? thank you guys for the podcast. Great to see Alasdair's network performance improve ;)

[@PotatoBearRawr]

According to simulation, we only need 9p for playoff (2 in 3 teams get this or better), and we only need 15p to get top8 (best 2 in 9 teams)... If we beat Nice at home, and Twente in Enschede, then we are basically through. And then we can star playing the secondary players in EL. Although Pedro, DB and Vecino absolutely do not look like secondary players. But being able to integrate Gigot and Pellegrini after their early season issues will be amazing. We might let Mandas play, if we can get 3 wins in the first 3 games. Considering Tchaouna (talent) and Castrovilli (injury recovery) as long-term investments (so they only count for half), then beyond them, we have 3 good players in every spot... Well, we would have had, if we had Cataldi or Folorunsho, but I am hopeful for Folorunsho in January. Taty on top. With half of Dia and Noslin as well. Pedro is the perfect cover for Zaccagni, as they are both experienced leaders, but Zaccagni must play as much as possible, while Pedro should play 60min a week at most. Isaksen on the right. with Tchaouna and Noslin having half their focus here as well. DB and Castroville on the attacking mid, with half of Dia here. Guendouzi and hopefully Folurunsho as the dynamic midfielder. Rovella and Vecino as the organised midfielder. Tavares is like Zaccagni, Pellegrini is like Pedro... There is an obvious starter, and Tavares-Zaccagni works so amazingly, because Zaccagni draws so much attention from defenders (if they did not focus on him, he would punish them instead of Tavares). Romagnoli and Gigot seem to be the large/physical defender. Gila and Patric is the small/technical defender. Lazzari provide the wingback style on right back (honestly I would rather have Hysaj), and Marusic provides the polar opposite as an organisational fullback. Provedel and Mandas in goal. We just need Folorunsho (or Cataldi back) for the squad to be complete. There are options about maybe seeing if we can swap Hysaj for Lazzari, and Cancellieri for Tchaouna... If we want...

[@PotatoBearRawr]

Another Dane pointed out that Guendouzi finished between the legs of the defender (I cannot see that clearly myself, as I do not have slow enough replay at a proper angle), which is some Candreva level technical finish, and what they train for at pro-level. So getting it through the legs, with that much power, keeping it down, and just hitting the goal is good on such a first-timer (the way it bounces it could be categorised as a half-volley). Even if the goalkeeper saved it, I do not see him being able to get hold the ball of put it out to the side. It might well go straight back to Guendouzi (who's run is directed at the front post) or to Dia (who is at the back post).. I am pausing, re-running etc. in my streaming app, and I cannot see a deflection. Guendouzi is just shooting right in the path of two defenders, so it is impossible for the keeper to see the ball...

[@Leo-hv2xb]

Dia Nuno Guendouzi... all of Lazio players were great! Even I like defense too!

[@PotatoBearRawr]

In terms of Dia and connecting the lines. Taty can play a sort of false-10, which means they swap during the game, who is prima punta and who is triquartista in different situations. As Dia was tired against Torino, then we see Taty being more involved in play, and letting Dia have lazy-striker moments. This is really the strength of Taty-Dia. Both are not really 9s or 10s, they are this sort of complete striker, where having another "complete" partner, really suits them well. On Dia's goal, you can see Taty leaving the ball for him... Please tell me the last time Ciro ever left the ball for someone else in the penalty area.

[@BillyBeenFishing]

I’m impressed with so many players. It will be an interesting season

[@PotatoBearRawr]

Torino's first goal is a complete fuck-up between Lazzari (not closing down his man), basically leaving the job to Guendouzi, because he does not know how to turn. Gila also pushes out, because he thinks he has to cover whatever ballerina-BS Lazzari is up to, and then our who organisation collapses, as we have 3 players covering 1 wingers. The guy Guendouzi should have been covering gets the ball from the winger, and this guy with his back to goal passes the ball on to Adams, as Rovella is picking up Guendouzi's slack correctly, but the right-side overload (because nobody trusts Lazzari to be a competent defender) means Tavares is 1on1 in the area against a striker, who has time to control the ball. Tavares has as little chance to do anything as Provedel. The fault of Torino's first goal is on Lazzari, Gila, and Guendouzi. But mostly on Lazzari, because that situation would not have happened if Marusic was playing. I get really annoyed at this blaming the last defender BS, when it is obviously Lazzari's error which knocks down the house of cards, and opens our defence. On Torino's second goal, if Pellegrini presses his man and loses the dual, then he is out of relevance. So he has to do, what he did. Guendouzi misreads the ball (he looks bad at both their goals - I had said it before, and I will say it again, Guendouzi should never be in any penalty area - even his goal was from outside the area). Romagnoli is coming out to pick up the marking Guendouzi completely lost. One might reasonably argue that Lazzari and Guendouzi (and to a lesser degree Gila) are making preventable mistakes, which lead to Torino goals. Vecino and Rovella are better defensive midfielders than Guendouzi (Guendouzi is an amazing "mid-mid" - as we call it in Danish, but he is neither an attacking or a defensive midfielder at the moment, he needs to improve those two aspects of his game), and Marusic is a better right back than Lazzari (possibly Hysaj is a better right back than Lazzari, as I rarely see Lazzari doing anything in attack that leads to goals?). Actually Lazzari does not contribute more than Marusic or Hysaj in attack, so why are we still praising Lazzari? I want to sell Lazzari in January.

[@borisprole1778]

Getting rid of Immobile, SMS, FA and Luis Alberto and buying some cheap quality players to improve squad depth is the best thing we did in the last decade. I appreciate Baroni and the playing style he is trying to implement. He understands that with modern football and the busy schedule, you have to have 22+ players to rotate.

[@BillyBeenFishing]

I just returned from Rome and 2 out of the last 3 games Lazio won and scored 3 goals .. haha just putting it out here for Claudio Lotito to see.