How’s it going on guys and welcome back to the ABTFM blog. Today, we are back with another chapter of the Fiorentina Journey. We have come to the end of 2021. We have finished 17 games in the league and currently sitting at the 2nd position. In the last chapter, we mentioned about our performance on the pitch. It is good, but not great, as we have dropped from the top of the table. However, it is the winter break right now, which means we are going to do a half season review. Without further ado, let’s jump straight in to the Fiorentina Journey!
General Performance
A little revision of our current position in the league. We are sitting at the 2nd position right now with 36 points. We have 11 wins, 3 draws and 3 losses so far. Napoli is now the leader of Serie A with 37 points, just one point ahead of us. Fortunately, one point isn’t too bad for us. We will still have to chance to go to the top of the league again. Surprisingly, Parma is at the 3rd position. The ex-Fiorentina Manager, Stefano Piolo, is the current manager of the Crociati, and he is doing an amazing job right now. Atalanta and Milan are sitting at the 4th and 5th position with 31 points, meanwhile the defending champion Juventus is sitting at the 6th position with 30 points.
Defenders – Our defence is pretty solid. We have conceded 11 goals in 17 games, which is the lowest in the league right now. I’m very satisfied with our defence in general. Bartlomiej Dragowski is a top class goalkeeper, having 8 clean sheets in 14 appearances. Our new signings, Mario Hermoso and Thilo Kehrer are having a great time so far in the team. Cristiano Biraghi and Luca Ranieri are doing a great job in the leftback position. Our captain, German Pezzella, was the top performing defender before his current injury.
When it comes to defenders, some of the important stats that I will look at are the interception made per game, headers won, and tackle won. To be fair, the boys did a decent job. In terms of the interception made, we have 38 being the highest and 15 being the lowest. In terms of headers won, the stats are great. We are amazing in the air. Both German Pezzella and Federico Ceccherini have more than 74% of headers won. Our defenders also did very well on tackling. Beside Luca Ranieri, everyone has more than 89% tackles won ratio. The other stat that impressed me is the mistakes leading to goal – 0. None of the defenders have made a mistake leading to goal, which I’m very happy with it.
Midfielders – Most of the stats that I focus on midfielders are playmaking stats. Here, I’m focusing on chances created, key passes and passing accuracy. Most of my midfielders’ passing accuracy is at least 90%. Some of the midfielders made a high number of key passes, like Riccardo Saponara, Weston McKennie, and Marco Benassi had 25, 17 and 16 key passes respectively. In terms of chances created, Riccardo Saponara created the most chances (5). It may look like the midfielders aren’t doing a great job, but I am actually satisfied with their performance.
Attackers – I’m very straightforward when it comes to attackers. I want to see goals and shot on target ratio. Dusan Vlahovic no doubt is our best striker. Not only he is the top scorer in the team, he is also the top scorer in the league. Wingers like Nicola Tagliaferri and Matteo Politano have decent shots on target ratio and goals conversion rate as well. Both of them also created the most chances in the entire team. Overall, I’m super happy with my front three.
Top 5 performers
Moving on, let’s start with analysing some of our best players in the first half of the season. After looking at the average ratings, these are the 5 players that have been providing consistent performance – Dusan Vlahovic, Thilo Kehrer, Riccardo Saponara, Nicola Tagliaferri, and German Pezzella.
Dusan Vlahovic
As mentioned before, Vlahovic is the top scorer in the team, as well as the top scorer in the league. He is on fire up front. He also saves us a couple times in this season by scoring some last-minute goals. Below are the key stats.
- 15 goals and 1 assist (top scorer in the team & the league)
- 7.45 average rating (highest in the team)
- 0.87 goals per 90 (highest in the team)
- 43 key headers (highest in the team)
- 4.18 headers won per 90 (2nd highest in the team)
- 72 headers won (2nd highest in the team)
- 5 Player of The Match
Thilo Kehrer
Kehrer has been absolutely incredible this season. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting too much from him when we signed him. I thought he could be a good central defender instead of right back. However, he has been amazing at the right back position. Below are the key stats.
- 5 assists (highest in the team)
- 85% headers won ratio (highest in the team)
- 29 interceptions made (3rd highest in the team)
- 52 headers won (3rd highest in the team)
- 6 chances created (3rd highest in the team)
- 1 Player of The Match
Riccardo Saponara
Saponara is one of my favourite players in this team since the beginning. The Italian attacking midfielder is playing as central midfielder for us. His performance is just amazing playing as a Mezzala. Below are the key stats.
- 3 goals & 5 assists (most assists in the team)
- 25 key passes (highest in the team)
- 0.40 assists per 90 (2nd highest in the team)
- 5 chances created
- 100% penalty conversion rate
- 1 Player of The Match
Nicola Tagliaferri
Our wonderkid Tagliaferri has amazed me! He has scored important goals for us this season, as well as providing crucial assists. He’s got great composure up front, great decisions and pacey. He is only 17 years old, but his performance is unbelievably good. I’m very excited to see how much he can improve and the future. Below are the key stats.
- 6 goals & 5 assists (2nd top scorer in the team and most assists in the team)
- 10 chances created (highest in the team)
- 4.08 dribbles per game (highest in the team)
- 32 fouls against (highest in the team)
- 0.40 goals per 90 (2nd highest in the team)
- 52 headers won (3rd highest in the team)
- 13.3km distance covered
- 2 Player of The Match
German Pezzella
Our skipper, Pezzella, is just solid as a wall at the back. He leads the defence well, winning everything in the air, and he is also an important key player in the dressing room. Below are his key stats.
- 82 headers won (highest in the team)
- 39 interceptions made (highest in the team)
- 3.17 interceptions per 90 (highest in the team)
- 6.83 headers won per 90 (highest in the team)
- 37 key headers (2nd highest in the team)
- 90% tackles won ratio
Tactics Review
Moving on, it is time for us to have a deeper look at our tactics. We have been using a 4141 DM formation since the start of the season. We play a Sweeper Keeper in goal, who is going to pass the ball out to unmarked players rather than hoofing the ball up to the pitch. Our back four have different duties and roles. We have a Full Back on support at the right, who is more balance in the attack and defend, and a Full Back on Attack at the left, who is joining the attack at most of the time. Our left centerback is a Ball Playing Defender on cover, while right centerback is Central Defender on defend. In terms of the midfield trio, we have a Deep Lying Playmaker at the defensive midfielder position, a Box to Box Midfielder on the right and a Mezzala on the left. The left winger is playing as a Winger on attack, and the right winger is an Inverted Winger on support, while the main striker up front is playing as a Pressing Forward on attack.
Let’s have a look at the goals we have scored so far. We have a total of 61 goals so far including the pre-season friendly matches. 39 of them comes from placed shot, 10 powerful shot, 7 headers and 4 penalties. Beside that, the assists are mostly crosses, short passes and through balls. We scored 6 goals outside the box in 61 goals, which is quite a good number to be fair, nearly 10% of our goal comes from outside the box. 29 goals are scored at the penalty area, which proves that our attackers are clinical up front. Surprisingly, we have 14 close-range goals right at the six-yard box. Moving on to the goal times, as you can see here, we always score at the early game between the 1st minute and the 15th minute. We score most of the goals between the 46th minute and the 60th minute, which I personally think it is a crucial period in the game.
Furthermore, we will have a look at the goals we have conceded. It doesn’t look too bad to be fair. We conceded 16 placed shot and 8 headers. 7 from crosses and 6 from short passes. Most of the goals come from the penalty area of course, but we also conceded 5 goals outside the box. The only concern here is the goal times. We conceded most of our goals between the 16th minute and the 30th minute, which is fine. However, we also conceded a lot of goals between the 76th minute and the 90th minute, which is not looking great. This shows the fact that our players’ concentration is not great. Also, we might have to make some small changes on our tactics at the 70th minute, like wasting more time to secure our lead.
Next, this is the report that I would like to see – how many chances did we create and face in 90 minutes. This is looking very, very great. From the report itself, it shows that we create a chance in every 25 minutes, but we also have a chance against us every 31 minutes. However, I just care about the numbers here. We have a +23 in chances for/against, which means our tactics is looking very positive.
We absolutely love playing against 4-2-3-1 wide. According to the report, we create a chance in every 19 minutes, and we have a +18 in chances for/against. The good news is 18% of our opponent started this formation in the league. However, we struggle to create cahnces against 4-3-1-2 narrow, which means we will have to figure out how to face a team that plays narrow formation. Overall, our tactics are looking great.
Conclusion
Although our tactics looks good at the moment, I’m sure that I will still make some changes. The one thing that I found is that we focus a lot of our attack at the left side. The left fullback is on attack duty, so does the winger, and we also have a Mezzala playing at the left centre midfielder position. On the other hand, the winter transfer window is opening soon as well. Hopefully, we can go to the transfer market and try to sign one or two players to strengthen our squad. I’m very happy with our performance so far, and I am confident to say we are going to qualify for the European Competition next season. What about the league? We will see.
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 