Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season
my 2 cents on the recent topics:
aronica: quite a poor cb. calling him mediocre is an understatement imo, he is below average in serie a. the thing is he knows very well his limits (wich means he doesn't take stupid risks and doesn't usually take bad decisions) and he knows extremely well the 3-men defensive line system (wich is a huge plus). he's one of those players who, despite not being on the same level of their teamates, still always manages to get the job done. with lesser partners his weaknesses would be more evident, but with cannavaro and campagnaro, he can afford to be sloppy sometimes.
he's probably the weakest player in napoli's starting 11, but since he's not much of a liability, napoli preferred to spend their money on other departments this summer (donadel, dzemaili, inler and pandev).
roma: i think the club is gonna be patient with luis enrique, thomas. luis enrique certainly didn't give roma's management much to work with so far, but then again, they didn't expect him to find the right formula for the team straight away..... and although roma is a very hard city to work in for a coach (huge pressure), the romans did not expect to be competing for the scudetto this season, so they're gonna cut him a lot of slack before they abandon him.
getting back to roma's management, keep also in mind that they made a huge bet on luis enrique. ancelotti was available this summer, and roma's management got a lot of stick from the media for not trying to get him hard enough (and let's be honest, they deserve those criticisms, as it was unbelievably moronic not to push on ancelotti), so since they made such a bold move with luis enrique, they're not likely to backtrack on him until there will be no chance this man can get it right. sacking luis enrique this early in the season would destroy the new management's credibility and reputation, as such a decision would be (righftully) seen as an admission of failure.
however we got to admit, luis enrique seems to be trying very hard to be sacked.
inter: yes, moratti isn't really feeling like spending huge sums on players lately, but i don't think that has anything to do with the victorious CL campaign. an italian journalist a few days ago pointed out that moratti spent 75 millions this summer, just to cover for last season's current expenses.
according to mario sconcerti (very reliable source) inter makes a loss every financial year... a loss wich goes from 70 to 100 millions euros. and rather than recurring to debt, moratti disburses (from his personal money) from 70 to 100 millions every summer in order to clear or reduce the financial exposure.
so u can easily imagine he's not really eager to splash dozens of millions on the market, right after clearing debts for 70 millions.
and that's not somenthing new either. this situation has been going on for quite a while now... pretty much since mancini's last season. u might think "hey, but moratti spent huge sums to give mourinho what he wanted"... and that's true. but moratti didn't spend for mourinho straight away; mourinho had to "persuade" moratti to give him the players he thought he needed (just think of the quaresma deal... mourinho even went public, stating his interest for quaresma, to push moratti.... and only after almost a month of resistance, moratty eventually agreed to get josè what he wanted).
u see moratti is quite a romantic (wich is nice) and stupidly naive (wich is less nice) person. he must fall in love with his coaches. if they manage to captivate him, not with their coaching skills, but with their charisma and their personality, then moratti will be more likely to spend for them... wich is exactly what happened with mourinho and leonardo (whom moratti loved) and didn't happen with benitez and gasperini (who weren't really chose by moratti but by branca).
bottom line, moratti only spends for those who fascinates him (but then again, don't we all do that?
).
ranieri: Andre, i think ranieri was the right call at this time. u see i'm obviously a huge fan of delio rossi
but he's not the kind of coach inter needs at this point in time. right now inter needs a "fixer", someone who can jump on board of the train while it's running, quickly assess the situation and find the right fix. ranieri is absolutely perfect for this kind of job.
rossi is a different kind of coach. u put him on charge in june, give him the players he asks for, and then by october, chances are your team will be winning and playing some amazing football. just like gasperini, rossi isn't specialized in saving sinking ships.... ranieri is.
zahavi: verry very talented young player. it's way too early to express an opinion on him, but so far he's been extremely impressive. he's already scored a couple of stunning goals in preseason. he's got a sweet touch but he tends to disappear for long spans of time. he can amaze u with a brillian play and then u don't see him touching the ball for 15 minutes. then again, he's just arrived in italy... that's his first experience in serie a and he's only played 3 official matches with us.
i also think he's a bit too lightweight... if he works out a bit, his impact on the game could be really huge.... anyway he's already beated ilicic for a place in the starting 11.... and when u think of how talented ilicic is, that tells u a lot about how impressive zahavi was.
Interesting interview by Gasperini here. Same exit as Benitez, moaning about players bought. Moratti needs a coach to boss him into signings like Mourinho. Like doesn't he discuss buying a 33 year old striker who can't play in the CL and on a big wage with the coach before he buys him?!
http://www.goal.com/en/news/10/ital...-if-inter-did-not-believe-in-my-work-why-did-
u really can't help but feel for gaspa... this brief experience ruined his reputation and honestly moratti and branca are much more responsibles than him for this mess.
but speaking of class, the way gasperini handled this situation is enourmously different from the way benitez reacted. i lost a lot of respect for benitez (as a person) last season.
anyway i believe what inter needs the most is a good team director. the current ones (branca and paolillo) are just not good enough. it's always better to have a good team director to discuss with the coach about the signings. u see coaches have a completely different approach to the market than team directors.
in a nutshell, coaches go after "
a specific player", whereas team directors go after "
a specific type of player"..... and that makes all the difference in the world. mourinho actually offers us a good example of what a bad move can be to put your coach in charge of signings (i'm talking about the quaresma deal). another good example is the british market, wich is hugely inflated (and devalued) precisely because in most epl clubs coaches handle the signings on their own.
Still would like to see Delio Rossi proving at the big stage, but yea, Ranieri is the right man at the right place atm. Now, more than ever, Inter needs someone to clean up the mess and fix things. Btw, was Ranieri a Moratti's choice? Or did Branca call him in the first place?
)
