Football Italia: Season 5 – Amorim x D’Anzi

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Season Five: Settling near the top and ‘Ruben Amorim x Francesco D’Anzi’

We are at the turn in what is now our second Serie B season and my fifth – fourth full – season in charge and I’m really secure on what I want to achieve, the time frames and the steps to success. We’re moving really well towards the top of the table, but, honestly, more time in Serie B would not be a problem as I look to craft and create a team that can survive and thrive, especially now that we are somewhat more financially stable than before.

I dipped into an unusual market – for me: the British market – to bring in free agent Charlie Patino after he was recommended to me. A little bit of research tells me he’s currently one of the hottest prospects in Arsenal’s Hale End academy and he’s modelled his game on players like Fabregas, Santi Cazorla and Frenkie de Jong, making him feel a little less British than he may actually be! His coach report has him as versatile, resolute and skillful, even if he’s not currently at the level we’re at. He moved early in the game to Fulham – for €3.4m – but, despite excelling in the PL2 – has lacked the first team exposure to kick on. I’m hoping that, at just 25, there’s still plenty of time for him to find that spark against and grow into the player I think he could become. However, it was the comparison between he and Lucenti that really triggered this deal – an almost identical profile as well as a complementary set of traits that will see him performing in the same was as my mercurial captain. The recruitment team were able to pounce on this undiscovered potential, seal him a Fringe Player and give him a low wage. It’s odd to think that, at his age, he’d be a project player but I really do see him as that!

With January looming, the sale of Braschi in September and the much stronger financial position, I boosted that even further by selling the clause for Merola, who hasn’t featured at all for Torino and is quickly losing his value and sale potential. That now gives us just over five million in the bank with just over €3m to spend. I’m sure I’ll barely touch it with only a couple of areas I’m directly looking to recruit in, but it is there should I need it!

Sixteen points from a possible thirty has seen me feel a little concerned about our ability to go up this year, although, as I’ve said many times, I’m absolutely not against that – I just hope that the board isn’t, either. We’re playing well and most things are clicking – as seen by our demolition of Lecce but we should’ve beaten relegation threatened Cesena, SPAL and – certainly – Sudtirol.

Ten games has given me more time to learn about the team that I have at my disposal this year and, overall, I think I’m really happy with it. Not scoring enough goals seems to be the biggest issue that we have, bar the Lecce and Ascoli games, and a lot of that is from the reduction in outputs from the attacking midfielders since Merola left in the summer. When comparing the four that I have, I think that the ove-riding thought is that I just haven’t brought in a proper shadow striker. With Verre’s advancing age and diminishing physical attributes, he’s going to become more and more of a static playmaker, even if his (restricted minutes) stats are the best at the moment. Santos isn’t a true shadow striker either and lacks the top end pace to really scare other teams. Clemenza, like Verre – is very much your stereotypical Italian #10, although he does work hard in defensive areas, just isn’t too successful. I had banked on Biagioni being the man for this role and, if he’d scored at the expected rate – where instead he is some 0.30 goals below it per ninety – his stats would look much better. However, watching him play again makes me feel that, with his composed, laidback demeanour and ability to pop up in spaces, he’s more suited to be a player who can create for others as opposed to score heavily.

That being said, we’re still in a strong position, even if we’ve slipped back a little from the top two and, likely, will fall back further still over the festive period as we face table topping Salernitana twice. Aside from that, there are three very winnable games and I want to see us pushing on and becoming more of an aggressive threat going forward. Defensively, we are still solid and can control the games: I just want us to become a little more lethal!

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I’ve been doing some further reading this week as I try to build more knowledge around the three at the back shape, which, of course, rose to fame during the 90s in Italy. One particularly successful real life manager who utilises it well is Ruben Amorim, so I thought I’d see where our similarities like. In game, he’s out of work – sacked by Sporting and then by Vitoria but, sadly, has no interest in becoming my assistant manager at this stage. Google is full of lovely write-ups on the man and I’ve dug through them, seeing many similarities. The only difference, from our blueprint, is that I can see, is that their main centre back, Coates, has license to step forward and play the ball, whereas ours – Amey – has the same license but that is to engage with duals and lay the ball off. I can see that his vertical play between the centre backs, deepest midfielder – in this case Hjumland – and then onto the more advanced one in the pivot can be seen replicated here. Likewise, his overall 3box3 shape is similar to ours and the overall average positions looks similar, too.

I’m certainly not a tactical recreation kind of FM player but it’s good to see that my methodology here does seemingly have some crossover to real life!

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Forza Biancoscudati!