Donadoni's latest squad hardly does enough to dispel the doubts surrounding his capabilities as manager.
Okay, so it is heartening to see the likes of Nesta, Materazzi (who'd have thought I'd be happy to see him 4 months ago), Camo and Del P back. But it is the players who are not in the squad that are the cause for concern.
Let's start with Gila - easily Italy's best young striker, who scored, let's not forget, against France last time out. Okay, he's not in great form for Milan, but I've seen him in a few games this season and he is playing well, just not scoring. I don't understand the decision to drop him in favour of someone like Di Natale, a man with no international pedigree whatsoever and who is hardly banging the goals in himself. If he wanted to gamble, why not gamble on someone like Rolando Bianchi who is in top form? But whatever, I wouldn't have dropped Gila. It just doesn't make sense to be dropping one of our best players.
And then there's Cassano. He's a trickier argument - he seems to have fallen out of favour at Real already this season, so I suppose there's the lack of games argument. But then again, he is a tremendously skilful player and offers us something that our other forwards don't. Again, I don't see why he is out of the squad.
I think it says something about Donadoni as a manager that he built his attack around Cassano in the last two games and yet know he can't even make the squad. To me, it indicates that he's flapping around looking for a team, a formation, and he doesn't really have a clear idea of how he should be playing in his head.
I can only hope I'm wrong and that Donadoni and Di Natale can make me eat my words come Saturday. Let's hope so anyway...
Full Squad:
Portieri: Buffon, Abbiati, Amelia.
Difensori: Zaccardo, Barzagli, Cannavaro, Grosso, Zambrotta, Nesta, Oddo, Materazzi, Pasqual.
Centrocampisti: Camoranesi, Pirlo, Gattuso, De Rossi, Perrotta, Mauri, Delvecchio.
Attaccanti: Del Piero, Di Michele, Di Natale, Iaquinta, F. Inzaghi, Toni.
2 comments:
I havent been round these parts for a while but I knew you would be disappointed at Gila being left out.
It was strange to hear Donadoni in interview. On the one hand he said that a great player like Sheva, even though he was out of form, would always pose a risk. On the other hand, he drops our brightest young striking talent.
Go figure. Still, six points would make a lot of the doubts go away...
I'm not even going to mention the Arancioneroverdi!
we REALLY need to win these next two games. I agree with you almost entirely, though am not convinced of the need for Alex del P myself. if we're going to bring back old creaky types then I'd like l'aeroplanino please ;-) more seriously he doesn't seem to be able to decide whether he's building an entirely new side or not.
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