Reja was quite pointed in his criticisms after the Coppa loss; either Maurito plays for the team...or else.  It looks like Maurito is in for some bench time. I think patience with Zaratekid is running out, and I can't say it's unjustified. At this point is it better to just move on? As I see it, this is of fundamental importance to the future of the team because Zarate would, in all liklihood, be sold for a significant sum that would need to be reinvested carefully (Think for a moment that Villa wants about 15-18 million or so for Rossi). As most of you know, I've been for giving Maurito a break, but seriously, he's becoming extremely frustrating to watch, and it's obvious that he irritates teammates quite often. Then to watch the youg Kozak sacrifice himself all over the place....well it's all a bit much.

I wouldn't mind seeing Maurito go, only if a player of Rossi's caliber is brought in. But I highly doubt it if Zarate is sold that the money would be reinvested properly. We could have potentially gotten Rossi last summer but now with teams like Inter in the chase we have no chance.

It's time.  Once he got the ball, everyone stopped and moved back and waited for him to lose the ball...

He should perform better in EPL. Strikers have more open space there.  Not in serie A.

I've lost faith in Mauro, last season to be specific. After an excellent first season, last season was a come down to earth. It's not all his fault, last season the other forwards (Inzaghi and Makinwa) were beyond woeful when ever they played alongside him and until Floccari arrived options were limited to say the least. I agree with notions shared on here that he has got better this season, but rarely do we actually see an end product to the mazy runs and dribbles that often lead to no where. Sure, this season he has attempted to play the ball into the area far more than last season, especially down the channels. To be fair however given our policy of playing one upfront there is little to aim at.

I can't see him leaving now however. So, what I would like to see now is us reverting to 2 upfront, Zarate and Floccari, and allow others to feed them the ball. Lets actually give the forwards a chance to get on the receiving end of some service and see what happens then rather than having them come from deep or from the wing.

The good thing is Zarate's stock is still high and even if things don't work out offloading him in the summer probably would not be too difficult.

Agreed completely. I can't see him leave either. I also wonder why Floccari/Zarate needs to come back to the half of the pitch to actually get the ball. It seems to me like the whole tactic is wrong.

Paid over 20 million euro's for him and making 2 million a season. This was the Zarate that we had begged for. Now, he can't do much right anymore and I am shocked at how much his game has declined. In the first season with us, we saw Zarate who had speed that defenders simply could not keep up with, dribbling around his markers with ease, and his shots were hard and accurate. Now I can only see one of those traits which is his speed. His dribbling is too one-dimensional and that is where he gets labeled as selfish. Serie A knows what he's going to do and double triple teams on Zarate which he still tries to dribble around. His shots are inaccurate these past two seasons and haven't been remotely close to the goal or mishits more times than not. This is the Zarate that irritates us and costs us that many more scoring opportunities per game.

But.. sometimes a team does need that hero in games. Someone who can create something when tactics ain't working, when the other team is playing a great game. Sometimes an episode of brilliance is what it takes to get goals in specific games... a hero. Someone who can dribble and shoot before the defenders can think and help their cause. This was always the case with Zarate for Lazio in his first season and everytime he receives the ball I get that sensation to this day as I did in his first year that he will do something brilliant. Of course I end up bitterly disappointed, but I know he can do it and I will personally keep waiting for his form to return. The truly unstoppable 08/09 Zarate.

About his gameplay this season rather than the fantasy of his form returning. At the beginning of the season as 61514 says he wasn't all that bad and contributed with Lazio getting results rather than himself getting personal results. He seems now to edgy on getting his personal stats up as he did last year and is again digging himself in a deeper hole. Though what I've noticed about Zarate's attacks compared to Lazio's other attacks (hernanes aside and Mauri at the beginning of season) is that we always try to go down the wing either to Lichsteiner for his blind crosses that results to fuck all or we go to Mauri's left side which is ineffective and loses the ball easy. Once in a while Hernanes will chip in a nifty through ball which turns out to be a wide shot or down the wing for another stupid cross, making Floccari's position useless.  Though Zarate, you can tell he does not want to do another dumb fucking cross into the box that failed the last 100 previous times and would like to try either 1) a short low hard cross into the 6 yard box or 2) dribble ontop of the box in which almost all cases comes to a mishit. His intentions are good, he wants to advance into a more threatening position than do another fucking blind cross. If Zarate can just lay off to another teammate on top of the box and start passing it when he gets double triple teamed, I think we can start seeing steps towards regaining form.

In summary, If I was sporting director and had an offer, I would sell him but I do not think he will never regain his form which was top quality in serie a 2 previous seasons ago.

Zarate is another bad stock much like Carizzo. They both had their fair shot and flopped hard. We need to bite the bullet on this guy and move on to someone else. That's the problem with this team is that we put too much faith in players to come around. I say fuck that method and buy players who immediately make an impact .. if they don't show anything within the first year then they need to just go. Kozak barely played this year and showed immediate results .. he should be rewarded by more playing time. We honestly should have sold Zarate in the summer if those transfer rumours were true and made a move for pazzini. I would rather of kept pandev than zarate to be honest.

Couldn't agree more!