Well, to start things off in the right track, I have to say that this is in no way a warning shot for our rest of the season. This is simply a little written essay to mark the fact that Montella hasn’t really changed anything in his play. He tried to, but I see this formation as a forced-relapse to a well-known and successful formation that used to work well in the past and Montella is now using as a ‘safety-net’.

Anyways, I’ll take my shot at trying to make you guys more skeptical and down-to-earth regarding this season, with this squad and this new management.

Here are 3 reasons why this isn’t the right time for Montella’s wingback formation:

1. Obviously, this formation is preventing opportunities from young players. If this wasn’t obvious, except for the starters, we have only seen our young diamonds-in-rough at the end of matches, usually the substitutions to kill a few minutes at the end of matches in the likes of Vlahovic and Sottil. But this is not enough. I think we need to see more youngsters playing around the veterans we have brought, and not instead of them. Although this might mean less results and all in all more anger and disappointment. So yeah, this might have been a pseudo-excuse.

2. The formation in it’s current shape and form does not offer the team the qualities of a real striker like Pedro or Vlahovic. This is being said while we haven’t REALLY struggled to score (see Ribery’s wonder strike against Atalanta, or Chiesa’s poach against Sampdoria) but more in the sense of brining in the heavy cannons. We have the experienced Kevin Prince Boateng that has already scored a wonderful goal against Napoli this season, we have Primavera capocannoniere Dušan Vlahović ready to mark his name in the history of the club, we brought in the Brazilian wonder-kid Pedro for a high sum that promises a lot and we also have a young star who’s the cousin of Steven Gerard. Why not give any of them the chances from the start, and see some striker take the reign of the Viola attack, which is something this team has been missing for a lot of time.

3. The Mercato wasn’t planned for this 3-5-2 formation and this is why there are some departments of the squad that are lacking in depth and/or quality (for example: midfield). We all thought that this team was going for a more attacking kind of formation when we brought in strikers and wingers, but a certain department of the squad wasn’t fully reinforced and it is the midfield. While the team already had players like Benassi and Dabo (although not very useful so far), the players that left the team like Norgaard, Saponara and Veretout have been replaced with Badelj, Pulgar and returning youngsters Castrovilli and Zurkowski. What doesn’t fit in is Montella’s resistance to rotating the midfield players. We have seen a glimpse of Benassi and Zurkowski, but why doesn’t the Mister rotate the play? He may want to not hurt the streak that the team is in, giving the players a lot of time to gel together and give their best before giving tired legs a match or two off. I hope we’ll see more rotations in the middle, exposing some really interesting link-ups like Dabo in the anchorman position, Zurkowski in the destroyer position and maybe Castrovilli in the Aquaman #10 position.

After all, though, I do believe that this will get better as the season progresses, and of course we have the winter Mercato to adjust the squad, so this is all going to be good.

Hesanka.