While he insists revenge isn’t on his mind, Roma boss Claudio Ranieri will want to stick it to former club Juventus on Saturday night.

The Tinkerman was fired with just two games remaining last season after having led Juventus to a third place finish the year before.

His efforts in Turin now appear miraculous considering the difficulties Ciro Ferrara is having with a team that was significantly upgraded in the summer.

Roma come into this game with the intention of extending their incredible 11-match unbeaten run in Serie A. They currently lie third, two points ahead of Juventus in the table.

Despite his midweek diplomacy, Ranieri’s team sheet suggests he is in an unforgiving mood with an attacking trident very much on the cards.

Roma fans are eagerly anticipating the premiere of a Totti-Toni-Vucinic frontline and all three players look likely to start in Turin.

Toni and Totti are two of Italy’s best ever goal scorers, having found the net 489 times between them down the years.

Ferrara will have to draw up a plan of containment, but he can also point to the fact that Roma haven’t won away to Juventus in Serie A since they lifted the Scudetto in 2001.

The arrival of Antonio Candreva could also give his side a much-needed boost, as they look for only their second win in Serie A since the beginning of January.

While Juventus’s injury crisis shows no sign of abating, they should recover Momo Sissoko in time after his return from the African Cup of Nations in Angola.

That should allow Ferrara to play a 4-3-1-2 formation with Diego in the hole behind Ale Del Piero and Amauri, two strikers who have really struggled for goals so far this season.

Keep an eye on: Antonio Candreva (Juventus) – The 22-year-old Italy international is due to make his debut for Juventus against the team he supported as a boy. Candreva isn’t sentimental, though. He says he’ll celebrate if he scores against the Giallorossi on Saturday.

Last five in Serie A: Juventus (L L W L L) Roma (D W D W W)

Last season: Juventus 2-0 Roma

Well if we lose this one, oh dear...

Even 'The Project' can't only put up with so much shit, we desperately need a win.

Chiellini: 'Sink or swim with Roma'

Juventus stars Giorgio Chiellini warns “either we get back on our feet against Roma or we sink without trace.”

The Bianconeri are in crisis after the 1-0 defeat at Chievo sent them plummeting to fifth place in the Serie A standings.

“Saturday evening is a crucial game for us,” admitted defender Chiellini. “Either we get back on our feet or we sink without trace.

“It can be the turning point, but I certainly did not expect at this stage of the season to see Roma in front of us.

“Now is really not the right moment to face the Giallorossi, but the three points are crucial to get past them again.”

On Monday the club confirmed its faith in Coach Ciro Ferrara following a three-hour summit meeting.

“We are going badly and the responsibility is above all that of the players,” confessed Chiellini.

“Nobody is against the Coach, in fact we are all on the same boat and trying to help him.

“Unfortunately we still haven’t found a solution to this negative moment and, even if we have worked very hard, the results have not been positive.”

It is particularly galling for Juventus to challenge Roma in such dire circumstances when their Coach, Claudio Ranieri, was fired two weeks before the end of last season.

“I will be pleased to see Ranieri again and will salute him with great affection.”

http://www.football-italia.net/jan19u.html

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Not this bloody boat again, first Ciro now Chie.

Apparently both Cannavaro and Chiellini will both wear masks in this game to protect broken noses

things are leaning toward a Roma victory at the moment

Easy Roma win.

Revenge for Ranieri

first positive Roma post ever ?

we can win this one, hope Totti gets back.

Seriously, I don't know what to expect in this game. Perhaps 0 points is what I should expect right now

im actually very nervous about this game, its this type of game that juve players will say to eachother, we will win this and turn our season around. juve rarely disappoints against big teams with the exception of Milan of course this season.

on the other hand, we're unbeaten in 11 or 12 serie A games and 16 games in all competitions, we're on a great form but this form cant continue forever. every roman will be biting his nails till saturday.

Roma prepare To-To attack
Wednesday 20 January, 2010
Roma boss Claudio Ranieri could play Luca Toni and Francesco Totti up front against Juventus this weekend after the latter started training again.

Totti suffered a knee injury against Parma in Roma's last game of 2009 and hasn't trained with the rest of the squad since December 20.

However, it's likely that, given Roma's embarrassment of riches in attack, there will be a staffetta or relay whereby Mirko Vucinic, Jeremy Menez and Julio Baptista will interchange regularly with the first choice attack.

Excitement is growing in Rome, partly because the acronym of the team's strikeforce also calls to mind Toto, the famous Neapolitan comic.

However, as the reporter from La Gazzetta dello Sport noted, there is nothing to laugh about the goal scoring potential of this partnership.

Totti and Toni have found the net 489 times between them.

They have played together on 10 occasions for Italy with Totti setting up five of Toni's international goals.

http://football-italia.net/jan20a.html

i would say go for it, it can produce wonders.

Even that the bloodied Rocky Ciro will not step down, he's fully backed by the Directors...

I've got a funny feeling Rocky might get a handy sucker punch in against the Italian wolf, but Amauri has to actually have a good game.

I'm going for:

Roma coach Claudio Ranieri is keen to lead his side to a victory over his former club Juventus in the Serie A on Saturday.

The Old Lady gave the Italian tactician the sack late last season. He later took the helm at Roma whereas Ciro Ferrara succeeded him at the Turin club.

After Ferrara failed to keep Juventus on an even keel this season, pundits said the club's decision to fire Ranieri was too harsh.

The 58-year-old assured that he's not looking for revenge but is eager to register a win at Olimpico di Torino.

"Juve are a great team with great champions who I will willingly say 'hello' to," he told a press conference.

"In my two years there we had great satisfactions. Now they don't have continuity, but Juventus always manage to give tremendous whips of the tail like they did against Inter.

"They will want to give this crisis a kick. They will be determined and very concentrated. I expect a big game on their part, vibrant and tense.

"I am not looking for revenge. I am a man of football and I know that these things happen.

"We are in the Champions League places and we want to stay there.

"We don't have good memories of going to Turin and I have never beaten them so we are going there to play a good game knowing that there are hidden dangers."

http://filgoal.com/english/News.aspx?NewsID=64003

this is the perfect mentality to have ahead of the match, knowing juve will go out there to try to end the crisis against a big team but also wanting to go there and win.

Juventus (4-3-1-2): 1 Buffon, 15 Zebina, 5 Cannavaro, 3 Chiellini, 7 Salihamidzic, 22 Sissoko, 8 Marchisio, 26 Candreva, 28 Diego, 10 Del Piero, 11 Amauri
(13 Manninger, 21 Grygera, 33 Legrottaglie, 6 Grosso, 29 De Ceglie, 39 Marrone, 27 Paolucci)

Roma (4-2-3-1): 27 Julio Sergio, 77 Cassetti, 29 Burdisso, 4 Juan, 17 Riise, 16 De Rossi, 7 Pizarro, 11 Taddei, 20 Perrotta, 9 Vucinic, 10 Totti
(32 Doni, 5 Mexes, 13 Motta, 33 Brighi, 24 Cerci, 94 Menez, 30 Toni)


According to TMW. Grosso is dropped, he has been very poor in recent weeks.

very strong bench for Roma if thats actually the starting line up, as usual i would start Motta, i really dont understand why cassetti is still starting lol.

im sure we're gonna see Toni during the match, gonna be interesting cause im sure he wants to score against a big team.

I will try to catch this game,should be top quality

Only one attacking sub for Juve, and it's not a particularly good one

HT: 0-0. I can barely contain my excitement.

The team spirit looked pretty good still, but the passing has been dire. Diego has played well in open play but needs to improve his set pieces, he is trying to be too clever rather than just get it in the box.

Roma look better at passing but Juve have had more attacking possession and territory.

I suppose we will see Candreva come on second half. Totti came on for Toni after about three minutes and looks like he is about 30% fit, he is just strolling around the pitch.

Oh yeah, one incident in there where Sissoko fouled Totti, he received loud monkey chants from the away end. I wonder what will happen to Roma.....

Magic goal - technically great

Sweet finish by ADP...

1-1 pen Totti

poor involvement by grosso in the pen situation

Buffon sent off, he took one for the team

lol, Riise going nuts offensively and suddenly he is all alone with Buffon, knocks the ball past him and Buffon cynically takes him out. Sent off

JOHN ARNE LMFAO

1-2 sweet revenge for Ranieri, love it

I don't even know where to start, it has just gone way beyond the point of desperation, we must have a curse on us or something.

Pretty dull game, Juve scored a magical goal against the run of play in the second half.

Later on, Chiellini who has been a rock all season and in this game, tries to be clever running the ball out of defence when Juve were defending quite well, he miscontrols badly, the ball is through to Taddei who cuts inside, Grosso puts a hand on his chest and Taddei goes down spectacularly as he does. Totti scores.

From then on our supposedly experienced defence absolutely falls to pieces, we look like clowns. In one move, the rapid John Arne fucking Riise manages to run through two of our defenders in the middle of the pitch and force Buffon to take him out, get a red card and bring us down to ten men and Buffon suspended for future games.

Then at the end, another masterstroke from Cirocky Ferrara, he takes off Grygera who has been sound all game, puts on Candreva and moves midfielder Salihamidzic to right back. Needless to say, Roma put in a cross to our right back area in the 92nd minute and no defender is there to be seen, super John Arne Riise the towering centre forward powers in a header past Manninger.

You couldn't write this shit. First Roma win at Juve since the Ice Age, Ranieri gets one over and we shouldn't have sacked him etc etc headlines, Cirocky seems determined to try to break every kind of negative record he can at Juventus.

But have no fear, The Project is well on track.

Buffon 8 Just for the karate kick
Grygera 6 (Candreva 5)
Legrottaglie 4 This guy is terrible
Chiellini 5
Grosso 3 The worst defender to ever wear the shirt
Salihamidzic 5
Sissoko 7
Marchisio 6
Diego 5
Del Piero 6
Amauri 5 (Paolucci -)

YAAAAA fkn yess John is a monster simply put.

We played pretty good tonight, didnt surrender at any moment despite going a goal down to a lucky bounce with a wonder finish. Toni was pretty unfortunate, hope its nothing serious and Totti despite not being fit at all did pretty much all he can do.

i though Juve didnt play a bad match at all, they were up for it but got punished by 2 very rapid counter attacks. We hold our position as third and now i think 13 matches unbeaten in Serie A.

brilliant day and the lads were superb, great spirit.

The most telling thing right now is that really I just don't give a shit, many Juve fans are saying the same, it's like we have accepted we are just going to be shit for the rest of the season and nothing is going to be done about it, so why spend energy being upset about it? They continue to embarrass the jersey and name week after week, if the shirt is too heavy they should not put it on.

Right now only these guys can wear the shirt:

Buffon
Manninger (no problems with him)
Chiellini
Sissoko
Marchisio
Diego
Del Piero
Iaquinta (when fit)
Trezeguet (when fit)

The rest seriously need to have a look at themselves, if they have any self respect and pride.

Just shows the difference between what some good results does. We played just ok in general play, and then terribly in defence in parts. In short - it's not good enough. Roma actually showed us too much respect given the recent record, they were too negative and a half decent Juve would have beaten them.

Juan did well in defence, Amauri was a little unlucky on two chances.

i dont really agree with you there, i think juve did pretty well until the second half. ofcourse we will show u respect, after all we won just two time away from home and we dont have by all means a great record against u so it was only normal to be a little cautious. i agree though that we werent ambitious enough but that might be due to selection of players. its the same old thing, we have Motta and Menez on the bench who would have caused u a lot of trouble but they were simply not used, why ? f**k knows why. + if Toni wouldnt have gotten injured, i believe that we could have played much better. oh and Vucinic really really needs to hold his line, he was ruining every attacking play but actually busted his ass off and played a good game.

who will replace Ciro now?

Ciro, he isn't going anywhere is he?

Vucinic was very poor, always offside and greedy.

http://juventus.com/site/eng/NEWS_newsseri...0D2B1EEB1C0.asp

Even the website is run by clowns, 'luck beats determination'

'Inability to defend and barren of any recognisable attacking setup beats determination' more like.

Wow. Juventus could be 7th and 4 points behind even 4th place by the end of the weekend. A spectacular collapse.

it seems like every season, a big team falls apart bar Inter. hope next season will be theirs.

How not to defend with ten men in the last minute of a game:



Two centre backs marking one striker, the right back marking the penalty spot, and the right midfielder not covering the previous two mistakes.

i think that ur players wanted to win it at the last minute or smth but it backfired, thats the only explanation i can come up with because u could have easily put 10 men behind the ball. i think they just wanted to get out of the mess at any costs against us on this night.

Shit I forgot to put money down today. Fuck. The odds of you losing wouldn't have been that great but great enough given you were at home.

It was still a fantastic cross in though.

Juventus poor recent run has improved my bank account

Yeah, we were just unlucky again for the 20th time I guess lol.