An explosion in Manchester was felt more than 1,000 miles away. The decision by Sir Jim Ratcliffe to detonate the Ruben Amorim project shook football. Its blast radius even reached as far as southern Italy.
Before his Roma side played away at Lecce last Tuesday, Gian Piero Gasperini received an update about the transfer market. The club’s sporting director Ricky Massara sat down with him. Best-laid plans and all that. He hated to be the bearer of bad news. It was about Joshua Zirkzee, the Manchester United striker Roma have, by now, been linked with for months.
“At this time, United have put a complete stop to any transfer discussions because of the change of coach,” Massara revealed. “They don’t want to make any moves. Right now, it seems highly unlikely to me that they will change their minds.”
Boom. A mushroom cloud rose over Puglia.
A loud Gasp even in silence
After Roma’s subsequent 2-0 win at Lecce’s Via del Mare, broadcasters were told Gasperini would not appear for his post-match media duties. He was upset. Not about the result or a refereeing decision. But about recruitment.
As the shutters on the winter transfer market clattered up and the sign in the shop window turned from ‘CLOSED’ to ‘OPEN’, Gasperini seemed to expect a trolley dash by Massara. But he returned after its first week empty-handed, and the exasperation was palpable.
Roma had travelled to Lecce having suffered four defeats in six league games. The last of them, in particular, away to his previous club Atalanta three days earlier, stung Gasperini. Injuries were mounting. Roma’s Africa Cup of Nations call-ups made it through to the knockout stages.
The goals Evan Ferguson and Artem Dovbyk scored against Lecce did not seem to change Gasperini’s opinion that Roma need better strikers. It was an opinion he claimed not to have given to the media, even though he has rarely missed an opportunity to go public with his misgivings about Ferguson, on a season’s loan from Brighton & Hove Albion, in particular.
“Have you ever heard me talk about the transfer market?,” Gasperini asked when he reappeared before the press on Friday. “Have you ever heard me talk about (Roma-linked Atletico Madrid forward Giacomo) Raspadori? Is there anybody here who has spoken about the transfer market with me on the phone or privately in text messages over the summer or this winter? You’re very good at your job, very informed, fantastic. I read what you write, but you don’t get it from me.”
Not directly.
(Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images)
Gasperini belatedly wanted to talk about beating Lecce in the absence of his first-choice defence and of club captain Lorenzo Pellegrini in midfield. That he didn’t immediately after the game spoke louder than the phone calls he doesn’t make to journalists. It was a more powerful message than the WhatsApps he doesn’t send reporters.
The Friedkins, Roma’s owners, flew in after the Lecce game and vice-president Ryan Friedkin attended Sassuolo’s visit to the Stadio Olimpico on Saturday. A decimated Roma are back on track amid all the casualties. They won again, this time 2-0.
Massara’s comments to broadcaster DAZN about Zirkzee brought a follow-up question about Ferguson. United’s position on the Dutchman looked like making it harder for the Irishman to be replaced.
“(Ferguson’s) improving,” Massara said. “He’s giving us a big hand.” But would he still be at Roma at the end of the season? “We hope so, then we’ll see.”
Fergie time
Unfortunately, and not for the first time this season, Gasperini was then forced to take Ferguson off in the first half. He lasted six minutes against Parma in October and was withdrawn before the interval on Saturday, having taken a knee in the back.
You definitely haven’t heard it from Gasperini, but the striker role remains a problem position for Roma. Dovbyk came on for Ferguson after an hour in Lecce, scored, but pulled a muscle and needed substituting himself. Raising funds from his sale in January now seems out of the question.
Five youth-team players were on the bench against Sassuolo.
While Raspadori ponders whether to accept Roma’s offer and leave Atletico just six months after his move to Spain from Napoli, Gasperini has to make do-and-mend.
Gaspadori is a target for Roma, having moved from Napoli to Atletico in the summer (Oscar Del Pozo/AFP via Getty Images)
So too does Antonio Conte.
The tremors from Old Trafford also rustled the papers on the desk of Napoli’s sporting director Giovanni Manna.
Marginalised by Amorim to the extent that his brother wore a “Free Kobbie Mainoo” T-shirt at United’s game against Bournemouth in December, Napoli’s chances of signing the England midfielder to cover for the injured Billy Gilmour and compete with Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa once he returns from AFCON now seem slim to none.
“We want to try to improve the squad,” Manna told DAZN before Sunday’s top-of-the-table clash with Inter. “There are still 20 days to go.”
A year ago, he signed Philip Billing from Bournemouth on loan, an underwhelming deal at first glance. But the Dane’s late equaliser in the 1-1 draw at home against Inter in March proved crucial in the title race, and he left the club as a Serie A champion.
No repeat business for a Billing-style figure over the next three weeks could cost Napoli in the second half of the season.
Great Scott
For now, Mainoo’s former United team-mate Scott McTominay has picked up the tab for the champions. Trailing 2-0 at home to Verona last Wednesday, a scoreline, in Conte’s words, that could have “killed a bull”, Napoli didn’t allow a couple of controversial refereeing decisions to get them down.
McTominay started the comeback, his nod-down from a corner provoking an own goal. Rasmus Hojlund had an equaliser disallowed for the harshest of handball calls before skipper Giovanni Di Lorenzo levelled and limited the damage to Napoli’s title defence.
Inter, meanwhile, beat Parma 2-0, and, for the first time this season, a team threatened to run away with the league. Going into the weekend, they had won six straight in Serie A.
Milan’s draw in Florence earlier on Sunday also meant Inter could go six points clear ahead of a soft run of games against Lecce, Udinese, Pisa and Cremonese if they beat visitors Napoli.
“We have a deep squad,” Inter president Beppe Marotta told DAZN before kick-off. He can’t hide it. “It’s in line with meeting our objectives. The only fly in the ointment is Denzel Dumfries’ injury. If there’s an opportunity to fill that gap in January, we’ll take it.”
Inter twice took the lead at San Siro.
Hustled by Piotr Zielinski in midfield, an exemplar of the aforementioned depth Inter have in that position, McTominay lost the ball and watched his opponents go up the other end and score an early opener via Federico Dimarco. “Everyone makes mistakes in football,” he said.
Creditably, McTominay, fully in the spirit of this Napoli team, didn’t allow it to affect his game. On the contrary, he finished with the man of the match award.
“Big Scottie”, as former United team-mate Hojlund called him after the game, first caught Manuel Akanji on the hop by running across him to the near post. He then showed tremendous close-quarter coordination to punch a taekwondo-esque volley past Yann Sommer late on and ensure Napoli left San Siro with a point, and a hand on one of Inter’s coat-tails too.
(Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)
It hasn’t always been the case this season — Napoli have lost seven of their 28 matches in all competitions — but they once again stepped up when their backs are against the wall.
They beat Inter in the reverse fixture after back-to-back defeats against Torino and then PSV (6-2!) in October.
That match was Kevin De Bruyne’s most recent appearance for the club. He has been absent through injury ever since.
McTominay had changed position to accommodate the Belgian’s summer arrival from Manchester City. More injuries in midfield have meant he’s had to play deeper next to Stanislav Lobotka in a tandem because a team who began the season starting four midfielders now only have two to choose from in their entire senior squad.
Conte has had to discard Plan A for Plans B, C and D. No sooner did he come up with a new attack than David Neres and Noa Lang suffered injuries. Against Verona and Inter last week, Elif Elmas and Matteo Politano filled in for them instead, a variation on the variation.
Four and a half months after his loan move from Old Trafford, Hojlund has not only played to his own strengths, he has started to do what fellow striker Romelu Lukaku did for Napoli last season — holding up the ball and bringing others into play. All his performance against Inter lacked was a goal, and he rued missing a one-on-one after a goal kick caught out Akanji and started a foot race.
“We’re really satisfied with how we reacted,” Napoli’s assistant coach Cristian Stellini said.
Stellini took on the club’s post-match media duties after Conte was sent off for squaring up to the fourth official and protesting too vehemently against the decision to award the penalty from which Inter went 2-1 up.
“Vergogna!” Conte cried. It was, in his opinion, a disgrace, and that the refereeing team should be ashamed, particularly after what happened against Verona four days earlier. He kicked one of the footballs lined up as part of the multi-ball system so hard, it almost flew out of the ground and hit the Duomo.
When McTominay made it 2-2, he erupted in his viewing position behind the San Siro plexiglass.
Partenopei pluck
“I always thought we were in the game,” McTominay said later. “The players are giving everything. No Anguissa, no Lukaku, no Gilmour, no De Bruyne, no (Amir) Rrahmani at the start of the season. Neres injured. It’s as if Inter Milan had no Thuram, no Martinez, no Barella, no Calhanoglu. It’s difficult…
“We’re pushing every single game like this. It’s an absolute credit to the players, you know. The managers and the staff are putting absolutely everything in place for us to succeed and do well. Fair play to the boys. We’ve got no give up.”
And so, regardless of the unintended consequences of Amorim’s sacking and the ripple effects washing up in Ostia and the Bay of Naples, Roma and Napoli are still in this fight.
Just when the Scudetto seemed to be getting away from them, they’ve pulled it back in.
