With Marco Sportiello struggling is it time for change?

Over recent weeks there have been questions asked about the performances of Marco Sportiello. With Bartlomiej Drągowski ready and waiting to take his place.

The main qualm with Sportiello, is his positioning. With his mistakes against Bologna and Juventus it may be time for him to take a back seat. As for the game against Bologna, he strays too far away from his line and gets caught out by Erik Pulgar’s corner. Sportiello will be the first to admit that a keeper shouldn't be conceding straight from the corner. While every goalkeepers make mistakes and it’d be unfair to base him on just the Bologna performance goalkeepers who are not confident can become a liability.

While no one wants to see this goal again for many reasons, let’s just focus on Sportiello’s positioning and his movement. As soon as Federico Bernardeschi hits the free kick Sportiello takes a few steps to his left-hand side. This gives Bernardeshchi around half the goal to aim for, leaving the keeper with no chance to react. Sometimes a keeper has to trust his wall and if it goes in the top corner there’s not much he can do. However, if he doesn’t move to the left chances are he saves it.

Sportiello’s competition comes in the way of Bartlomiej Dragowski, the highly rated 20 year old features on outside the boots top 100 young players. Dragowski has only featured in Coppa Italia games this season and has seen his opportunities limited.

While he still has some way to dethrone Sportiello for good it may be a chance to see if he’s able to handle the pressure of being a Serie A keeper. Dragowski has also spoken of his desire to play in the first eleven, when he signed for the club he stated: “I didn’t come to Fiorentina to be the second or third goalkeeper.”

Marco Sportiello has been a very good keeper in Florence and has shown his ability as a shot stopper as well as a ball playing goalkeeper. It’s easy to forget he’s only 25 years of age, which in goalkeeping terms is still young. The big question is does Stefano Pioli see Dragowski as the future if he does he may want to keep the Polish keeper happy before it’s too late and he laves the club. Pioli has a big decision to make does he place his trust in Sportiello for this season or does he do the unexpected and place his faith in the 20-year-old Polish keeper?