The first three days of the championship have passed and David Nicholas continues his work with the rossoblù team. The balance is not positive in some aspects, but no one should forget that the Piedmontese coach has collected the very heavy legacy of Claudio Ranieri, not just any coach, at least for the Cagliari team. Those who thought that the former Salernitana player would find a table set were wrong: Sir Claudio had shaped an entire squad, not only from a tactical point of view, but, above all, from a mental one, ergo the work has proved very difficult from the beginning.
The players’ availability was immediately maximum, a very important detail, and the market choices were functional to Nicola’s new way of interpreting football. His 3-5-2 made of aggression, intensity, defenders who raise their center of gravity up to the opponent’s area, insertions of the midfielders, is gradually making inroads into the rossoblù. In three games, 2 points have been collected, the result of the draws against Roma and Como. Very good performance against the giallorossi, half that against the lariani, where the rossoblù conceded a goal on a dead ball, and consequent error on individual marking. An age-old problem and, therefore, nothing new. In the game against Lecce, however, not only did the first defeat arrive against a team still in full construction, as Krstovic’s goal also came from a dead ball, but it was also clear how hard the attack was to receive playable and potentially lethal balls.
Nicola has understood the lack of a trequartista, an element of technique and imagination, capable of triggering the strikers, connecting the lines. And so, in all likelihood, Gaetano will be inserted from the match against Napoli close to Piccoli and Luvumbo. No alarmism for the few points, there is time to get into gear, and the Piedmontese coach knows what it means to fight and spit blood. The club, for its part, has taken care of doing the best possible in the transfer market with the arrivals of Luperto, the permanence of Mina and Marin, and the return of Gaetano, albeit with a lot of heartache. Now the ball is in the players’ court so that they can best understand the new ideas and achieve salvation, possibly in a less laborious manner than last season.