With seven games to go in the 2014-15 Serie A season Roma are tied for second place with heated city rivals Lazio. At first glance. second place in the fourth best league according to the ever confusing UEFA coefficient doesn’t seem to be too bad. Further investigation however shows that Roma are fully 15 points behind league leaders Juventus and that they are miles behind the Old Lady on the pitch.
Ironically this is the time where Roma should be shining brightest. The Rome club has never been one which has been able to sustain success at the top of Serie A, but with both Inter and A.C. Milan floundering they were seen as the biggest threat to Juventus when the season opened on the last weekend in August.
For a time it looked like that confidence in Roma was justified. The Giallorossi on fire, winning their first five games and 10 of their first 13, with just two losses along the way at Juventus and away at Napoli. Since the resumption of play after the winter break though the wheels have completely fallen off of the Roma title challenge and now their main focus is finishing second or third with Napoli just five points behind them in the battle for that all important Champions League spot.
On the surface of it Roma’s problem is easy to spot. They simply draw way too many games. Since the beginning of January the Giallorossi has come away with a single point in 10 of the 15 matches they have played. Stunningly seven of those 10 games have ended up with a scoreline of 1-1 and if you throw in the 2-0 defeat by Sampdoria then only 27% of Roma’s games this calendar year have resulted in a win. Hardly the form of a team which was supposed to be challenging for the title this May.
The 1-1 draws are telling as it shows that Roma have problems at both ends of the pitch. The strikers are not scoring enough goals, while the defenders are being asked to do too much and failing to keep clean sheets. Even in a low scoring league like Serie A, a team is going to be in trouble if it cannot consistently out perform the opposition at one end of the pitch or the other.
It is worth noting that Roma only has one more defeat on the season that Juventus. Roma has lost three times, while Juve has been beaten just twice. Lazio, tied in second with Roma, has lost an astonishing nine times by comparison, yet sits on 58 points because they have drawn just four times compared to Roma’s 13.
This Roma side is unrecognizable from the one which started the season in such great form. It is worth wondering if the 7-1 defeat suffered at the hands of Bayern Munich in the Champions League back in November has had some sort of residual effect on how this season has fallen apart. Bayern may have scored seven in that game, but anyone who was watching will tell you it could have been 10 or 12 if the Germans had really wanted, as Roma’s weaknesses were put on display for all to see.
It seems like this team still goes as well as the legendary Francesco Totti goes, but at 38 years old that is a huge burden to carry. Juan Iturbe was supposed to come in and help with that, taking some of the pressure off of Totti and giving Roma a new focal point to work through. Instead the $25 million signing has been nothing short of a disappointment, playing 20 times this season and scoring just once. At just 21 years of age the Argentinian certainly has time to develop, but he has a highlight reel style of play which sees him drift in and out of games often going missing when Roma need him most.
Over the years Serie A has transitioned from a destination league to a selling league. there are exceptions of course, but for every Carlos Tevez there are five or six great players moving on from Italy to bigger clubs in Europe. The argument can be made that this hit Roma hard as the steadiness of Medhi Benatia at the back would have turned a handful of the draws into wins and the Giallorossi would be breathing down the necks of Juve rather than looking over their shoulder as we reach the home stretch of the season. With Benatia plying his trade Bayern Munich however, the defense has looked shaky every time it comes under pressure during this barren run.
It will not get any easier for Roma. Regardless of how the season plays out clubs from England, Spain and Germany will come to take away their better players. Radja Nainggolan has already been linked with both Manchester clubs, while Kevin Strootman is said to have a number of admirers in the Premier League. This means that manger Rudi Garcia cannot afford to miss on players who are brought into the club. Roma can right this ship for next season with the correct additions to the squad, but for that to happen Champions League football has to be on the table. Finishing lower than third in the table is unthinkable and Roma will be playing under that added pressure for the rest of this season.