A Loss is a Loss

By: Jeremy | September 22nd, 2008

Say what you want about coach Allegri, he is trying to maintain a confident air around the team after yet another loss yesterday at home 1-0 against a Juventus team who left many first team players back in Turin to rest. While 1-0 loss against a team such as Juve may be an occasion to feel that the team is competitive and Allegri summed up his feelings accordingly.

“Today we played a great game, just like we did all the other times”.

He forgot to include the main point which is we lost like all the other times.

His other important point after the loss to Juve:

” I am convinced that when we meet our direct competitors, we will get what we need to earn our salvation”.

Huh? I assume he means when we face fellow relegation strugglers and bottom half of the table teams we are going to get enough points to not get relegated. Lets see, we lost to Siena without their best player and they are relegation fodder like us. We lost to Reggina in the Coppa 4-0. League game or not, when you put your best lineup for a game against Reggina and get thumped like that, his feelings after the Juve game make little sense.

I know what he is saying. We are competitive for the most part and the losses could have easily generated points. I kind of felt like that even after Lazio and Siena as we caught bad breaks in both games, but while Reggina was just one bad game, we lost to a less then full Juve squad who could have scored more then one. I guess all he can be is positive, but until the wins start coming, he needs to keep quiet because he just looks foolish. Maybe its his way of dealing with the Cellino ax that is soon coming.

While I am sure Juve fan has to be disappointed to win this game by only 1-0, they won on the road in Serie A with less then a full team. You have to be satisfied with that, especially when Cagliari was putting forth a great effort.

Something has to be done with our lineup to generate some goals. I dont understand why a healthy Jeda and Acquafresca are not in the starting eleven. Once they were brought on in the second half, the offensive threat increased, if even just a little. Matri also played his best game of the year. He had numerous chances in the game including a nice volley in stoppage time. Marchetti seems to be decent in goal and is getting used to Serie A. It was also great to see one of my Cagliari favorites, Davide Biondini, play so well. The kid is all over the field chasing the ball and even had a nice chance to score. It is good that Allegri recognizes the importance of midfielders who can run and get the ball and he allows Biondini to play regularly. He is an important, albeit behind the scene type player, and I am glad to see him do well.

The problem with our team is that we dont have a player like Amauri. What a talent. He dominated in the air and showed Lopez to be old and slow. With all the chances he was a part of, his goal in minute 39, while the only one of the game, was just one of many he could have scored.

Because of the lack of goal scoring, I am convinced that we need to do something with the lineup to give it some more offensive possibilities. Acquafresca needs to play a full 90. Larrivey still sucks, but leave him in there to partner Robert. Jeda and Matri also need to play a full 90 in midfield, even if that is a little out of place for Matri. Matri seems to be in the right place at the right time, which generates a lot of chances, but the guy cannot finish. Maybe a supportive role would allow him to feel more relaxed. With Biondini also in midfield chasing the ball, surely this group can generate some goals. The team needs to get ahead in a game instead of chasing from behind all the time. If we can get a lead, coach can always make a defensive subsitution. If that means a bunch of 3-2 games with us getting caught on the counter attack because we are so aggressive offensively, fine ill take it, but this lack of scoring with the wrong players on the bench cannot last long. If he wants to save his job, he needs to shake things up.

This week brings some mid week football and we get to head to Atalanta. Does Allegri consider them a “direct competitor”? If not, then who is? Atalanta is off to a good start, but we did well against them last year and they arent so good that we cannot beat them. Is another competitive 1-0 loss enough? Juve maybe, Atalanta no. With us now in dead last in Serie A after three weeks, we cannot play much longer getting no points even with a good attitude. Allegri is trying to keep spirits up, but even he knows that we are on our way to being the clear cut laughingstock of Serie A this year and he better do something about it fast before things really unravel. The only option he has is to change the lineup to be more offensive minded.

With only 3 games played and our goal being survival, we cant panic yet, but we need to start showing something. Maybe we can get a surprise result in Atalanta this week. All we can do as fans is just keep supporting our team and hopefully Cagliari fans out there will post some positive messages for others to see this week.