Fiorentina sack Pioli

With Fiorentina bottom of Serie a, it came as no surprise that head coach Stefano Pioli was sacked yesterday.

Results have been terrible and last Saturday we lost 0-1 at home to Lecce. It’s so sad to see La Viola in such a demise when you think this is the club where di Sisti, Giancarlo Antognoni, Roberto Baggio, Gabriel Batistuta and Rui Costa flourished.

We were the first Italian team to win a European competition and won the Scudetto twice.

Like many a club in the Serie a we have been squeezed as the big money is now in the English Premiership. Time was when English players like Paul Gascoigne, Des Walker and David Platt came to Serie a after the 1990 World Cup, following in the footsteps of Graeme Souness and Liam Brady but now the journey runs the other way.

Our owner Rocco Commiso, like many an American owner, is looking to maximise revenue from the stadium which resembles a building site. Florence was never an easy place to play but no longer . Added to this, there has been an exodus of our best players, unforgivably, to Juventus: Enrrico Chiesa and Duran Vlahavic most recently. We once had Mo Salah on our books too.

Looking for optimistic signs is not easy. In the present team Moises Keane is a free-scoring forward; the ex-Man Utd keeper David de Gea is still only 33 and highly capable; defender and skipper Luca Ranieri is passionate and so are the crowd. The squad is young and defender Comuzzo is promising. Beyond that it will take a brilliant ‘mister’ to revive our fortunes …