Fiorentina file
Tonight Fiorentina play Basel in the Europa League in a key match. We lost our first home games to Basel and to Lech Posnan but between these won away at Belenenses. Another away win at Posnan gave us 6 points and every chance of 9 as our final game is home to Belenenses, the weakest team in the group. With Fiorentina third in serie a, we have a good chance of qualification for the Champions League. Manager Paolo Sousa made a massive error in our last home game aganst Tuscan rivals Empoli in leaving Ilicic, Kalinic and Bernardeschi on the bench. Empoli went two up and he was forced to recall them all. Kalinic scored twice and then hit the cross bar in an exciting derby but one which Fiorentina should have won.
One surprising thing about Fiorentina these last few seasons is how well players have performed for us who did far less well in your Premier. Examples of this are Borja Valero (WBA) Alonso (Bolton) Kalinic (Blackburn) Pizarro ( Man city) Salah (Chelsea) and you can add manager Sousa to the list (Swansea, QPR and Leicester). It does not seem to go the other way as big signings Nastasic and Jovetic did not stay long at Mannchester City and Cuadrado has left Chelsea to go on loan at Juve. Talking to Alan Tanner I said Fulham could have done worse than engage Vincenzo Montella but he is now at Sampdoria replacing Walter Zenga.
It’s an open serie a this season but ominously Juve are moving up the table. Inter under Mancini lead the way and he won the scudetto three times with them in his last stint.. Can Fiorentina win their third scudetto? Two things worry me: the lack of depth in our squad, we need to invest in a defensive midfielder, forward and defender in January and secondly if we qualify for the next round of the Europa we will be stretched. Alan says that when Fulham reached the final Roy Hodgson played the reserves until the final stage. Sousa needs to be smarter in balancing his resources as he could fall short in all three targets: winning the scudetto, qualifying for the Champions League and a successful campaign in the Europa.
