How’s it going on guys and welcome back to the ABTFM blog. Today, we are back with another chapter of the Fiorentina Journey. In the last chapter, we mentioned that many of our key players are injured. We only managed to get a draw against Empoli. Unfortunately, the issue doesn’t stop. More and more players getting injured and our team morale is getting lower. Our performance is like a roller coaster ride, from the late November until the end of December. We must do something to solve this problem. Without further ado, let’s jump in to the Fiorentina Journey!
vs Sampdoria
After the draw against Empoli, we once again struggled to perform in the game against Sampdoria. Although we won the game 2-1, our attack and defence did not look good. Dusan Vlahovic scored the opener with a penalty in the 19th minute. 5 minutes later, Sampdoria striker Manolo Gabbiadini scored the equaliser due to Rolando Mandragora’s mistake. The scoresheet remained 1-1 until the 92nd minute as Matteo Politano scored the winning goal for Fiorentina.
To be brutally honest, our players did not play well. The Man of The Match was neither Dusan Vlahovic nor Matteo Politano. It was Sampdoria’s forward Gianluca Caprari with 7.5 match rating after providing the assist. However, on the bright side, we were on an 11-match unbeaten run in the league and still sitting at the top of the table. A 3 point is a 3 point.
vs Atalanta
Our unbeaten run was ended by Atalanta. We were terrible in this game, absolutely terrible. We not only have failed to create good chances in this game, but we also conceded 2 goals in only 3 minutes. Our attack was awful. Dusan Vlahovic, Nicola Tagliaferri, Matteo Politano and Willian – neither of those players performed well enough in this game. At the end of the game, none of our player had more than 6.9 match rating. On the other hand, Atalanta played better than us. They were looking very dangerous in the attack, took their chances well, fully deserved to win the game.
The first goal came in the 77th minute. Atalanta hit us with a counter attack. The right wingback Elseid Hysaj delivered a long ball forward to Duvan Zapata. The Colombian striker used his strength to hold the ball away from Federico Ceccherini, then scored a beautiful one-on-one against our goalie. In the 80th minute, Mario Hermoso fouled Atalanta player in the penalty box. Alejandro Gomez sent the keeper to the wrong way and scored the winning goal. 2-0 Atalanta.
vs Cittadella
The next game against Cittadella was a Cup match. We picked a slightly rotated squad with Bartosz Bereszynski starting at the right back position while Luca Ranieri started as the left back. Willian and Riccardo Sottil were playing as the two wingers, and Gaetano Castrovilli was coming in as the Mezzala. We played well in this game. It was a very decent performance from some of the rotation players. Luca Ranieri provided 2 assists and got the Man of The Match. Gaetano Castrovilli scored his first goal of the season with a beautiful long-range effort. Mario Hermoso also got his first ever goal for Fiorentina. Overall a great performance and we are going through to the next round!
vs Roma
Back to league, we faced Roma at home. We were absolutely incredible in this game. We dominated the game and hammered Roma 4-0! We had a total of 20 shots while Roma only had 8 shots, although we had lesser possession than Roma. In terms of the goals, Federico Ceccherini scored his first goal of the season with a fine header from the corner in the 22nd minute. In the second half, we performed even better. Marco Benassi scored a header in the 47th minute. 4 minutes later, Matteo Politano scored another header and made it 3-0. We actually scored 3 headers in this game. The final goal came in at the 65th minute. Dusan Vlahovic hit a beautiful volley to the top corner and the Roma keeper had no chance to save that.
Key Player Injured
After winning 2 consecutive matches, something unfortunate happened. Our first-choice keeper Bartlomiej Dragowski is ruled out for 4 to 5 weeks. Dragowski is undoubtedly our key player in the defence. He made 15 appearances so far, and only conceded 9 goals. He kept 8 clean sheets in the league and his average match rating is 6.97. He is definitely going to be our huge loss, however, this will give Alban Lafont a chance to impress.
vs Torino
This is exactly what I was worried about. We failed to beat Torino who was sitting at the 19th position in the league. The result was absolutely frustrating. We finished the game with a 1-1 draw, but just look at the match stats. Torino only had 2 shots and 2 on target in the whole game. On the other hand, we had 20 shots, 13 on target, yet we only scored 1 goal in 90 minutes. Again, the players were complacent and did not perform good enough.
Simone Zaza scored the opener at 77th minute after receiving a cross from Ivan Michelotti. Dusan Vlahovic once again saved us by scoring a one-on-one against Tornio’s goalkeeper, all thanks to Luca Ranieri’s amazing long pass. It was very frustrating, but we must accept the fact.
vs AC Milan
The next game against AC Milan was a lost! 1-0 lost at home. Same thing happened – we had more shots compared to Milan, more shots on target, however, we failed to score a single goal. I was another awful performance from the boys. Our attack wasn’t clinical enough and our defence was rather sloppy. Milan scored the only goal of the match in the 30th minute – Lucas Paqueta scored a beautiful goal outside the box. It wasn’t ideal for us, but I was relieved because it was the season break after this game, which means we can now sit back and sort out the issues, and we will come back again stronger after the winter break!
League Table and Player Stats
Now, let’s have a look at the league table. We are no longer the leader in the league. Napoli is now 1 point ahead of us at the top of the table after 17 games. They have 11 wins, 4 draws and 2 losses. On the other hand, we are currently holding 36 points at the 2nd position with 11 wins, 3 draws and 3 losses. Parma is having a very great season sitting at the 3rd position with 33 points. Atalanta, Milan and Juventus are also sitting in the European Competition qualification zone.
In terms of the top scorer of the league, Dusan Vlahovic is still the current leading goalscorer, with 14 goals in 17 appearances. Cristiano Ronaldo and Patrick Schick are chasing our striker, with 10 goals in 17 appearances. However, with Vlahovic’s current form right now, I am confident to say he is going to continue banging goals for us.
Since Bartlomiej Dragowski is injured right now, Alban Lafont is replacing him as our current starting goalkeeper. So, there might be a small issue on him competing the Golden Gloves Awards. He is current the top goalkeeper with least goal conceded, only 8 goals in 14 appearances. Thomas Strakosha, the current goalkeeper with most clean sheets in the league, conceded 15 goals in 17 appearances.
Conclusion
Well, this is definitely not the best time we are having in this season. Before November, everything is so sweet and easy for us. However, right now, we must figure out what’s wrong with our tactics. In the next chapter, we are going to do a half season review on our players. Maybe we will make some tweaks on the tactics as well as the player selections for the rest of the season.
I hope you guys enjoy reading the Fiorentina Journey and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @abt_fm to join the discussion of football. Also, do check out my other series in my blog like the Tactics Recreation, where I try to replicate a tactics from a team and put it into another team, stimulating the season and see what the result is. Once again, thank you for your support and I will see you guys in the next chapter. Take care!
ABT Football Manager 