Serie A
Another great weekend. Inter drew and Roma lost at home (albeit to sampdoria).

Lazio 46
Inter 44
Roma 41
Sampdoria 37
AC Milan 34
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We need to be wary when we face Udinese next, they've been in great form lately and are a candidate to be a banana peel for us.

However, it is great to see us recovering.
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Geo talked about loss of confidence if we lost to Lazio. He was absolutely right. Let's now hope that these 3 victories can work in the opposite direction and give us a boost. Udinese is a tricky team, but we must keep improving and win. It was essential to string several victories together and we can't stop at 3. It needs to be more. 

I normally wouldn't care about the Copa, but it would be great if we can keep the run going even there. So a win on Wednesday would be a great confidence booster. Rotation will for sure be implemented. It'll be interesting to see how many players get a chance. Lazio's squad is thin, and I expect for them to rotate as well. Simply put, our "2nd" string should actually be able to take care of Lazio's 2nd string quite easily. There is quite a difference between Lazio's first team and their bench. I think we are in a much better situation when it comes to that.
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I agree nefremo. To try and make up ground we simply can't afford to drop points right now.

I also want a win in the coppa, it'll be a huge boost and great for confidence. I also expect guys like Silva and Locatelli will get space, so I'm hoping they can perform well to give us more options. Silva in particular needs a confidence boosting game.
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I posted that in the wrong thread I think so I copy/paste it here ...

Am I crazy if I think that with a win against Udinese in the next game, we will fight for the 4th spot with Roma and Inter, given their recent form ?

The next few games are the following :
- Udinese away
- SPAL away
- Sampdoria at home
- Roma away
- Inter at home

Both Inter and Roma won't win all their games in these next 5 games, they will probably make one or two draws in this run.

Inter will play against Crotone (H), Bologna (H), Genoa (A), Benevento (H) and us.
=> My prediction : 8 points out of 12 before playing against us (2 wins, 2 draws)
Roma will play against Hellas (A), Benevento (H), Udinese (A), us and Napoli (A).
=> My prediction : 6 points out of 12 if we don't count the match between Roma and Milan (2 wins, 2 losses)

We are 10 points behind Inter right now and 7 points behind Roma.
If we keep our form of 2018 and are able to get good results in these next 5 games, we could be 3 or 4 points away from the 4th spot before the 28th matchday ... I may be too optimistic, but what I saw yesterday, mixed with our results in 2018, makes me be optimistic.

PS : Lazio will play both Napoli and Juventus during that time ...
One should not speak ill of the dead.
So stop laughing at Juventus !
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I think it's fine to be optimistic, nefremo has obviously been hopeful and I've not ruled out anything yet.

Thing is, we have a tough run of games coming up. Udinese and Sampdoria are very tough games right now and Roma and Inter are obviously key matches.

Gattuso's been taking it a game at a time, I would say we need to continue with that thought process.
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(01-29-2018, 05:04 PM)ACMILAN1983 Wrote: I think it's fine to be optimistic, nefremo has obviously been hopeful and I've not ruled out anything yet.

Thing is, we have a tough run of games coming up. Udinese and Sampdoria are very tough games right now and Roma and Inter are obviously key matches.

Gattuso's been taking it a game at a time, I would say we need to continue with that thought process.

Well, Gattuso and the players should really look at one game at a time ... and just try to play good games just to build something and still gain more confidence.
We, as fans, can hope for a little more when we see things could change a little and when we see other teams just being in a pretty bad form when we get some wins in a row.

It can change quite quickly actually !

Just imagine Inter and Roma just continue on their current rythm, even if we lose one game against Udinese or Sampdoria (I expect us to win against SPAL no matter what), they will start to feel our breath in their neck ...
One should not speak ill of the dead.
So stop laughing at Juventus !
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If we manage to get positive results against them in our head to heads.....assuming we will win the rest of our games against the likes of Udinese and SPAL....things will get very interesting. Inter plays vs us and Napoli back to back. IF we beat them and they lose against Napoli the following matchday....we can make up 6 points right there.

Again, all of this is contingent on the fact that we have to get positive results against other teams like Udinese, SPAL, etc. 

But no, it's definitely not out of the question that come mid March we will find ourselves in the fight for 4th place.

I've said this before and I don't know why peoppe have written us off......but think about it....Inter is 10 points ahead with 16 games to play. IF we beat them in the head to head, that makes it 7 points. NOBODY in the world can tell me that we can't gather 7 more points than this Inter side in 15 games. It can definitely be done.....and with Inter's self-destruction in full swing.....we don't even have to do anything extraordinary like winning 10 games in a row. We just have to be solid and beat the "smaller teams" when we play them instead of concede goals in the last seconds to their GKs.
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Yeah, I agree with both of you that 4th place is a definite possibility, but in honesty since Gattuso took over I stopped looking at the standings and really only looked ahead to the next game (even as a fan, as looking at the table was just depressing). For now I will continue to do the same for the most part, just because I don't want to get my hopes up on hypotheticals when we have a lot of work still to do and much prefer taking things one game at a time.

That aside, the collapse of Inter and Roma is somewhat astonishing. In Inter's case I'm not hugely shocked, because they weren't playing great football even when winning. As the goals with Icardi dried up, they've lost a lot of confidence and it seems Spaletti's struggling to get it back. I think part of the problem is they are very dependent on the supply of Candreva and especially Perisic. Teams know that stopping them on the wings means they cut their biggest threat and stop balls going to Icardi. Through the middle, they still seem to lack dynamism, something that signing Pastore would potentially help a lot with.

As for Roma, I'm not totally sure what's wrong with them if I'm honest. They should for all intents and purposes be in a position to maintain their form from earlier in the season. However, I think with all the uncertainties surrounding so many big players at the club, it's destabilised the environment. I also think they miss having a guy like Salah, who has the ability to turn a game on his own when in difficulty.
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Damiano Tommasi, the closest thing to a change candidate, didn't even pass the first ballot yesterday but no one was elected since the amateur League who have 34% of the vote didn't even vote in the final fourth ballot that needed 50%+ to win. The federation is now in the hands of the Italian olympic committee until new elections. Gabriele Gravina, the president of the lower leagues, got the most votes not enough.
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