And they said it wouldn’t last! “Shades of Deep Purple” today celebrates its 25th birthday (of sorts), which means it can now theoretically run for the US House of Representatives, as well as say hello from the other side.
This story has already had more tales of heartbreak than your average Adele album, but things are now looking up. Today’s chapter sees us attempt to continue an encouraging start to the new Serie A season as we roll into September 2020 (which, coincidentally, is when Adele’s next LP “29” will be released. Probably).
SCHOOL OF BARD KNOCKS
Even at this very early stage in the season, we’d already had our fair share of injury concerns. Full-backs Cristiano Biraghi and Kevin Diks had both been blighted by knocks, while Domenico Berardi was suffering from an abdominal strain. Our worst injury, though, came during the September international break.
Firstly… ouch, that must hurt. Secondly… why on Earth was Francesco Bardi even going for a header in the first place? He’s our backup goalkeeper!
Bardi’s ankle woes meant that Elias Heylen would have to warm the bench throughout September. I was now hoping that Alban Lafont didn’t get himself injured, otherwise we would have to play a 16-year-old keeper in Serie A. That never goes well.
EMPOLI vs FIORENTINA (Serie A, Match 4)
Right-back Diks and midfielder Abdou Diakhaté made their first Fiorentina starts this season – and forward Patrick Roberts his full debut – when we returned from the international break. Our hosts and local rivals Empoli had got off to a terrible start, with defeats against Juventus, Napoli and SPAL having left them in the relegation zone.
The Azzurri’s misery didn’t look like ending in the 19th minute, when midfielder Leonardo Capezzi was accused of holding onto our young defender Alessandro Bastoni in the area. Though not our first-choice penalty-taker by any means, Valentin Eysseric confidently found the target to put us in front.
Eysseric fired wide a chance to double his and our money in the 25th minute. Three minutes later, though, Empoli came tantalisingly close to equalising. Capezzi shifted a wide free-kick inside to wing-back Giovanni Di Lorenzo, who curled a shot inches over the bar from about 25 yards.
We then took advantage of some shaky home defending to go 2-0 up on 33 minutes. Pietro Pellegri leapt above three blue shirts to flick Diks’ right-wing delivery past goalkeeper Ivan Provedel, who had completely misjudged the flight of the ball. Though Oscar Duarte – one of the Empoli defenders Pellegri beat – had a chance to pull one goal back before half-time, we remained in a comfortable position.
Provedel had to catch a couple of second-half efforts from Roberts, who impressed in spells during his maiden Viola start. I wasn’t quite so pleased with Diakhaté, who was booked late in the first half and substituted early in the second. David Hancko also saw yellow, but I kept the young Slovak on because he was putting in another excellent shift at left-back.
Empoli’s hopes of a comeback were effectively dashed in the 65th minute. Alessandro Piu went one-on-one with Lafont after an incisive counterstrike, but Alban held firm and parried the striker’s shot wide. The Azzurri would not come close to scoring again, and so we coasted to a third victory out of four.
A late goal from Marko Rog continued Napoli’s winning start at Verona, and Milan also made it four victories from four against Juventus. Fellow high-flyers Palermo crashed back to earth after appointing their new manager Gian Piero Gasperini, whose first game was a 1-0 home reverse against Udinese.
Those results took us up to 3rd place, though Inter were just behind on goal difference after André Gomes earned them a 1-0 victory against Lazio. That represented a third straight win for the champions, who’d now forgotten about their slip on the opening weekend.
DYNAMO KYIV vs FIORENTINA (Europa League, Group G – Match 1)
My second Europa League campaign with Fiorentina began in Ukraine, where I hit a personal milestone:
Of course, I still had some way to go before matching the longevity of Dynamo Kyiv legend Valeriy Lobanovs’kyi, who managed them for 20 non-consecutive years until his death in 2002. One of his former players – Alexandr Khatskevich – was now in charge of Dynamo, who appeared to be our toughest opponents in Group G by some distance.
A strong start was vital for us, so imagine my delight when we took the lead after three minutes. Home defender Bogdan Ţîru miscontrolled a clearance from Fiorentina captain Germán Pezzella, which allowed Federico Chiesa to take the ball and hit it upfield for a clean-through Pellegri to score.
Disappointingly, that quick sucker punch was the only time we would even lay a glove on Dynamo in the first half. Though we had goodness knows how many set-piece opportunities, Pezzella and his fellow centre-half Kurt Zouma just could not keep their headers on target. Eysseric also spurned a great chance in the 38th minute, nodding a Chiesa cross against the bar.
The hosts lost their rapid right-back DeAndre Yedlin to a twisted ankle very early in the second half, giving us further hope that we could eventually stretch our lead. When Dominik Livakovic did make his first save after 62 minutes, though, nobody would have expected the shot to have come from our midfield destroyer Lucas Tousart. Pellegri was also thwarted by the Croatian goalkeeper about a quarter-hour later.
Our wastefulness would eventually be punished when Dynamo exploded into life in the 87th minute. When substitute Artem Shabanov floated a cross into our six-yard box, his namesake Artem Besedin beat Pezzella to it and headed home from point-blank range. That was a frustrating way to lose two points, and we almost surrendered another in injury time, when Besedin came within inches of scoring a second goal.
A draw at Dynamo Kyiv was not a disaster, as that was always likely to be our trickiest fixture on paper. Nonetheless, that late gut-wrencher meant that it was Malmö who quickly hit the front of Group G, having beaten Slavia Prague 1-0 at home thanks to a Guillermo Molins penalty. We would host the Swedes in our next group game at the start of October.
While there was some disappointment over events in Kyiv, my tactics were still attracting plenty of praise from our tifosi Twitterati:
You can just call it a 4-3-3, lads. Also, one of those hashtags should give you a clue as to who our next opponents were…
FIORENTINA vs SASSUOLO (Serie A, Match 5)
Yes, it was indeed Sassuolo who were next to visit the Franchi. The Neroverdi had found goals hard to come by upon their return to the top flight as Serie A champions, breaking their duck at the fourth attempt against SPAL. Now their aim was to end a rotten recent record versus the Viola.
One of Sassuolo’s major signings this summer was Inter’s former title-winning left-back Danilo D’Ambrosio. The 32-year-old did a fine job of roughing Chiesa up with a firm challenge in the 11th minute, even if it lead to him being booked. Chiesa returned the favour 17 minutes to collect a yellow card himself.
Tit-for-tat aside, there wasn’t much excitement to write about in the first period. Our midfielder Nicolás Benedetti had a long-distance shot saved by Sassuolo goalie Andrea Consigli in the 14th minute, though another effort later on failed to even trouble the target. It would also be a frustrating half for Tousart and Willem Geubbels, who were both subbed at the break.
Having initially looked rather tentative, we pushed further upfield after the restart. That could have backfired early in the second period, but shots from Takumi Minamino and Khouma Babacar each missed the net for the visitors.
Then came the key moment, in the 65th minute. Chiesa’s free-kick found Jordan Veretout, whose far-post header was spilled by a shaky Consigli. Defender Gian Marco Ferrari failed to clear up the mess, which allowed our stand-in captain Vítor Hugo to slide in the rebound and give us a scrappy opener!
Our dominance was confirmed four minutes later, when Vítor turned from scorer to provider. He glanced Roberts’ whipped corner across goal for central defensive colleague Zouma to turn it in and double the home lead.
The cake was iced eight minutes from time, as Chiesa opened his account for the season. A lethal header from Almamy Touré‘s cross made it 3-0, and we recorded a third consecutive shut-out league victory. This was a Viola team that was playing all the right notes!
A resounding victory sent us top of Serie A… for a few hours, anyway. Napoli and Milan both went back above us after a scrappy goalless draw at the San Paolo, which ended their perfect records but still left them undefeated. How long could they keep that up for this season?
Inter also enjoyed a 3-0 win, with Torino the unfortunate victims. Juventus were even crueller on Sampdoria, registering a 5-1 win to well and truly kick-start Antonio Conte’s second coming.
VERONA vs FIORENTINA (Serie A, Match 6)
Our first midweek league match this term was at Verona, who had waited five games to take their first points of the season against SPAL. The Mastini were not a team in form, and some visiting Viola fans were expecting us to give them another 4-0 pasting, just like last December.
Those supporters would be left somewhat disappointed. We missed the target with a couple of early shots before Tousart agonisingly cracked one against the post in the 15th minute. Indeed, when we did break the deadlock nine minutes later, it was through an incredible stroke of luck. Touré’s drilled cross from the right was inadvertently diverted into the net off Verona’s on-loan Marseille defender Adil Rami for an own goal.
Former France international Rami was rather more assured in the 39th minute, blocking a Marco Benassi strike from the edge of the Verona area. Five minutes later, a free-kick from Eysseric drew a comfortable save out of goalkeeper Nícolas, who kept our lead down to 1-0 at the break.
The hosts continued to defend well following interval, though some clumsy tackling saw three of their players go into the book. One of them was our old mate Federico Ceccherini, who saw yellow in the 65th minute for an unfriendly challenge on Benassi. Roberts hoisted the resulting free-kick into the box for Tousart, whose far-post header was clawed away by Nícolas.
Though we wasted several opportunities to kill Verona off, our opponents seldom looked like equalising against the run of play. Scottish midfielder Liam Henderson came closest in the 88th minute, but Lafont made simple work of his header from Karim Laribi’s floated delivery.
It had been another solid performance from our defence, who kept another clean sheet, and playmaker Christian Nørgaard hadn’t looked too shabby either. In injury time, the great Dane – okay, great’s probably a bit much – lifted an excellent ball 50 yards ahead of Pellegri, who thundered in the goal that secured us a 2-0 win.
Hancko was named ‘man of the match’, capping off an incredible run of form for the Slovakian left-back. Here were some statistics from his first four league matches for Fiorentina:
Very few headers or tackles missed, and not a single match rating below 7.2. Biraghi might have serious competition for his place if that continues.
To be fair, that is largely down to me planning in advance which left-back would play in which matches. Hancko has noticeably less acceleration and pace than Biraghi, so I didn’t dare pit the younger man against a Sassuolo team who had an explosive right-winger in Minamino. Verona didn’t have as much pace out wide, so David would find the going easier against them, and I could thus afford to give Cristiano a rest.
Anyway, Fiorentina were now into 2nd place… but we weren’t trailing either Napoli or Milan. The former had given up their unbeaten record in a five-goal thriller at Sampdoria, while Milan could only draw 1-1 with SPAL.
Instead, the lead was now held by Inter, who dismantled Bologna 3-0 to edge ahead of us on goal scored. Juventus squeezed into 4th between Milan and Napoli with a three-goal victory at Udinese, but Lazio’s slow start continued when they lost 2-1 at home to Pescara.
FIORENTINA vs AC MILAN (Serie A, Match 7)
After four Serie A clean sheets in a row, this final match in September would be a real test of our top-four credentials. Milan had won their first four games to send out a statement about their title credentials. However, the Rossoneri arrived in Florence off the back of successive draws against Napoli and SPAL. Captain Alessio Romagnoli was sent off in the latter fixture and would therefore miss this one.
The Rossoneri had bolstered their attack this summer by signing the Brazilian magician Oscar, who was back on European soil after three-and-a-half years in China. He could have scored just his second Serie A goal after seven minutes, but a half-volley found its way into Lafont’s safe hands.
Veretout and Berardi wasted shots at the other end before Milan showed real class to break the deadlock on 33 minutes. Oscar sought out Theo Hernández on the left flank, encouraging the on-loan Real Madrid wing-back to hang a cross up to the near post. Pezzella was too slow to react to it, and André Silva was free to slot in what was already the Portuguese poacher’s EIGHTH league goal this season.
Things were looking ominous for us now, as we faced the prospect of another 1-0 home defeat to Milan. Goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma had been in fine form in recent matches against us, as the giornalisti were only too quick to remind me at the pre-match press conference. Gigia got a glove to a brilliant Zouma header four minutes from half-time, leaving us with plenty of work to do in the second period.
Six minutes after the restart, we responded with vertical tiki-taka at its very best. Biraghi tackled Milan’s right-back Andrea Conti deep in our area and pumped it long to Pellegri, who flicked it out right to Berardi. A couple of cross-field deliveries from Berardi and Chiesa later, and Pellegri had the ball again in the penaly area. The teen sensation cut it past Donnarumma from an angle, and his fifth goal of the campaign restored parity.
That breathtaking goal gave us an enormous confidence boost. Veretout sent a couple of shots just wide before Zouma headed a late Eysseric corner into Donnarumma’s hands. With a little more luck, we might well have completed the turnaround and taken all three points.
Milan were themselves thinking at full-time that they could’ve won. They edged the shots on target count 5-4, with the last of their attempts from Franck Kessié being stopped by Lafont in injury time. Zouma then needed to show more defensive resilience to dispel one last attack from Gennaro Gattuso’s men before the full-time whistle blew.
While a 1-1 draw against Milan was no reason for complaint, it did see us concede 2nd place to Juventus, who saw off Roma after a brace from Gonzalo Higuaín. A second-half goal blitz saw Inter destroy winless Empoli 5-0 and build a two-point lead at the top.
Meanwhile, Napoli defied a couple of red cards to cling onto a 2-1 lead over Udinese and bump Milan out of the Champions League spots. Pescara completed an improbable clean sweep of September wins by seeing off Torino, which meant they rounded off the top six. It might be worth keeping an eye on those Dolphins.
The Serie A table after seven matches makes a much prettier sight than at this stage last season. Only the previous two champions are ahead of us, and we have a meaner defence than everyone else bar the Old Lady.
If we’re still there or thereabouts by the end of October, I’ll be delighted. We’ve got to play SEVEN matches next month… and the last three are against Roma, Juventus and Napoli. Yikes.
“Forza viola!”
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