A sensational goal from Osvaldo.
It’s been ridiculously disallowed though! 
2-1 FT.
We made hard work of that, should have had the game wrapped out but due to some atrocious misses and a defensive lapse we had a few scares before the end. Osvaldo was robbed of goal of the season by an idiotic linesman.
Lamela was excellent in the second half. Taddei had a very good game at left back.
Contrary to what Mr Totti says it was Pjanic who got the opening goal
I corrected that error earlier buddy.
:o
Amazingly so, provided very well on the overlap and assisted the first goal.
I’d also like to praise Stekelenburg, he is the Francesco Totti of goalkeepers, the distribution from his own penalty box is unrivalled in word football.
Another few names to be linked with us as regard to Burdisso’s replacement.
Stevan Savic remains the strongest link, a loan deal with no option to buy as City don’t want to sell. City would apparently contribute to his wages though.
Xandao - 23 year old Brazilian centre back who plays for Sao Paulo. That’s all I know about him.
Ezequiel Garay has also been linked.
Just a heads up that we are away to Udinese tomorrow night (Friday) at 7.45pm. Difficult run of games coming up with Udinese, Fiorentina, Juventus and Napoli in our next 4 league games.
Stekelenburg; Taddei, Kjaer, Juan, Angel; Gago, De Rossi, Greco; Pjanic, Lamela; Osvaldo.
Rosi is out injured tonight so Taddei switches to right back and Angel comes in, the only other changes are Greco for Bojan and Juan for Heinze.
Totti and Borriello must be injured as neither are on the bench.
A very scrappy affair so far.
We’ve started to dominate as the game has progressed. Pjanic has been good and some of Osvaldo’s flicks and layoffs have been fantastic. Lamela needs to be more involved. Gago and De Rossi have been steady and tidy in the middle of the pitch. The defence has been much stronger tonight than in recent weeks although Di Natale offers little apart from his instincts. Angel has looked a little vulnerable on occasions though.
We’ve started second half off well. De Rossi bring a good save out of Handanovic with a long range effort and Juan heading narrowly wide from the resulting corner.
Greco has offered little tonight. Simplicio would be my choice to replace him.
We’re dominating the second half. If the play continues at this rate you’d expect our dominance to pay off in the next 30 minutes.
Fuck sake. Di Natale has scored a very good goal against the run of play, he’s done nothing all game but takes his one chance very well. The sound system at Udinese’s stadium is brilliant. Kjaer has gone off injured too.
Isla has wrapped it up for Udinese after great play by Armero.
We’re shit out of luck tonight, we really don’t deserve to lose this game.
Di Natale is a wonderful player - Totti, you have a blind spot there. Greco had to go tonight. Enrique needs to be sacked. This tippa tappa Barca shit is fucking dreadful. I’d rather never win another game again than play the absolute shit style Barcelona do.
A wee bit harsh there Bandage. I thought we were unlucky tonight, just watched a replay of the goal there and Kjaer pulls his hamstring right as he was about to put the squeeze on Di Natale. You’d imagine if he hadn’t he would have been able to assert enough pressure to unsettle Di Natale. I think we’re a couple of players short of a good team.
I felt the personnel we had out tonight made it hard for us to play more direct, we were missing attacking options in Totti, Borriello and Borini so Enrique left Bojan on the bench in case he needed to change things. Lamela needs to be more involved, he shows glimpses of class when he picks the ball up in areas of space but it’s all too infrequent. Pjanic was good last night, really connected the play up well, played some lovely passes and also got himself into good positions, heavily involved all night long. Osvaldo has been an outstanding purchase for us, he was in isolation for the whole night but his touch, flicks and hold-up play were outstanding and he was key in our domination of the game.
Jose Angel was very poor, he’s a bit lightweight defensively and his crossing is dismal. Taddei did ok but he was up against the outstanding Armero who was head and shoulders above any Udinese player last night. Gago and De Rossi were solid and in conrol in the middle of the pitch as were Kjaer and Juan at the back, the hapless Cassetti came on after Kjaer got injured and was at fault for the second goal.
Overall we’re still in a rebuilding mode. The likes of Perrotta, Cicinho, Okaka, Barusso, Taddei, Cassetti, Simplicio are still here when the manager would rather move them on and it will be hard to shift them giving their contractual situations.
We were also missing a number of players tonight - Totti, Borriello, Borini, Burdisso, Pizarro, Rosi.
Lamela proved last night that he is not starting material. Hopefully Totti will return and we can drop Pjanic back, we also need to play someone up top with Osvaldo. I would like to give Borriello that opportunity. Full back remains our greatest area of weakness. 4-3-1-2 is the way to go. We could do with 2 new full backs in January (Armero and Isla would be perfect), a centre back and a dynamic central midfielder.
Luis En-prick-ue has suspended Osvaldo for 10 days for punching Lamela in the dressing room after the defeat the other night.