Now that the Serie A season has concluded on a mixed note...

https://www.whoscored.com/Teams/73/Show/Italy-Fiorentina

Obviously as always, WhoScored's ratings have many flaws and shouldn't be taken as gospel, but they are valuable for comparisons and do give us a lot of numbers to complete the narrative on certain players. The general rule is WhoScored values high event players - guys who complete a lot of actions, so guys who dribble more and defenders who play a more aggressive style tend to get valued more highly by their ratings than more subtle players. This explains why the WhoScored ratings absolutely love LMQ while make someone like Amrabat look very average. Take of this what you want - LMQ rightfully has many detractors as he plays a reckless, high risk game that, when he's off, can make him a frequent liability, but his stats also stand out for a reason - high risk, high reward. I'm also ignoring the goalkeepers for this review as I honestly don't find the stats as useful (that Gollini has one of the best ratings on the team is enough to disqualify these ratings for me) and am not particularly good at evaluating the nuance of keeper play to begin with.

Best in show: Martinez Quarta, Biraghi

The general rule is that a rating of 7 is a great player in this system. WhoScored only has LMQ break the 7 threshold, with Biraghi just below it. In their system, these two defenders as famous for their positioning lapses as their skill, are the two Fiorentina players above average at their respective positions

Both are valued by WhoScored for their passing skills (and crossing in the case of Biraghi), as well as their successful dribbles for allegedly defensive players. When it comes to the captain, his 2 goals and 4 assists across competitions definitely helps. LMQ actually has a team leading 5 MOTM performances under this system, leading the team in successful tackles and aerial duels - while these numbers might mask that Quarta had a rough start and end to the season with his best games concentrated during the winning streak, they do confirm that he's extremely effective in the air despite his size and that he's probably the best tackler of any of our CBs.

Regarding the rest of the defense, Milenkovic also has an above average rating with 6.77 with additionally standout aerial duels and passing numbers. Dodo, despite becoming a breakout fan favorite later in the season, has a more modest rating with his crossing numbers considered weak, while fellow Brazilian Igor fares even worse - although his skillset is the sort WhoScored tends to value, his more passive nature does him no favors with a rather average rating of 6.47. Raineri and Terzic are both in the average zone between the two Brazilians. This system is even harsher on poor Lorenzo Venuti, who has the worse rating of anyone still on the team besides rookie Bianco. Unfortunately for Lolo this is one area that WhoScored is spot on about - hopefully he's more comfortable at a more modest level next season.

Best Attackers: Nico Gonzalez, Christian Kouame

With a respectable rating of 6.79, wingers Nico and Kouame are tied as our two best attacking players and overall best outfield players besides Martinez Quarta and Biraghi. In the case of Nico it's a fairly obvious narrative - his rating was poor early on before surging in the second half of the season. His lack of defensive contribution and mediocre passing % are what keep him away from the 7s, while his success in dribbling, finishing, drawing fouls, and winning aerial duels all stand out. Had he not struggled with injuries early on who knows.

Kouame had something of an opposite season, starting off surprisingly strong before fizzling out, but he remained a solid contributor allowing him to stay among our best players at least by the numbers. His strengths in the little things, from strong passing to defensive contributions, helped keep his numbers up even as his production faded, with his primary weakness being turnovers. Nevertheless he finished with 3 WhoScored MotM ratings, second behind LMQ.

Mandragora and Bonaventura the Standouts of a Mediocre Midfield

It is my opinion that the midfield was frequently our weak link this season despite generally strong possession numbers, even more than the defense, as they often failed to control the game at key moments, and WhoScored seems to agree with me based on their ratings. The one player to pass the "good" threshold of 6.7 is Mandragora - Their rating system values the Mandrake almost as much as Prade does, with standout numbers in passing (including key passes leading to 4 assists) and tackling success.

At 6.69, Jack also floats around the good zone, to no surprise, thanks to his passing and goal scoring ability.

WhoScored is less enamoured with the rest of our midfield. Castrovilli at 6.55 is in the average zone with weak numbers on the defensive side of the ball as well as passing. Amrabat, as stated earlier, despite his reputation, is one of the biggest outliers, and the WhoScored data, right or wrong, has him as distinctly average at best with a 6.46 overall rating, among the worst on the team. This is despite elite passing numbers - nothing else stands out in their data. Worse yet is both Duncan and Barak. The Ghanian doesn't stand out in any way, in line with his unfortunately diminishing role on the team, while the Czech, another fan favorite after some late game heroics, has to no surprise strong finishing numbers and ok passing numbers while looks poor at everything else, especially on the defensive side. Fair or not, that gives him a worse rating than anyone besides Venuti or Bianco.

The Average Zone

Most of the team hovers around the 6.5 area with mixed numbers. Cabral, at 6.61 is respectable and the better of the two CFs, held back mainly by poor passing. Ikone, Mr. Inconsistency himself, probably couldn't argue with his 6.58 with some of the most uneven stats on the team, including to no surprise great dribbling numbers, and to equally little surprise poor numbers when it comes to crossing and not committing turnovers.

Jovic hovers around the 6.5 mark alongside the likes of Castrovilli, Raineri and Terzic, held back by poor finishing % (not great for a striker!) and zero defensive contribution. Brekalo and Saponara fall just under 6.5; the Croatian can't be too fairly judged having only really started to come into fitness at the end of the season - his numbers are actually fairly encouraging across the board there's just not enough there to fully stand out yet. Saponara's numbers make sense - Cheese is definitely capable of some brilliance, but his lack of pace made him unreliable as a core player, although his poor finishing numbers here are surprising.

The Bottom 5

The 5 worst rated players still on the team (goodbye Maleh!) are Duncan, Sottil, Barak, Venuti, and Bianco in that order. Of these, it's hard to judge Sottil and Bianco too harshly - the latter is a 20 year old and newly promoted for first team cameos, whether or not he is Fiorentina quality will be more a question for next season. Sottil spend most of the year recovering from injuries, and has shown enough brilliance that his poor passing and turnovers can be forgiven for now.

As far as the rest go, Duncan and Venuti have no future on this team. Lolo is already out the door, the local boy performed admirably as a backup squad player but his limitations were harshly exposed this year; probably best for everyone that we are moving on. Duncan is a good player who Italiano never was able to find a consistent role for, and his uninspiring numbers across the board further support that he just never had a go to strength to give him a more clearly defined role. Barak on the other hand is an interesting outlier - his goal scoring from the midfield is exactly the kind of role we needed filled, but the numbers show he really didn't do much else noteworthy at times. I think he got better as the year went on so it will be interesting to see how he looks next year.

Also of note, future Viola Sabiri was rated 6.44 this year, which would put him in the below average category of this team between Amrabat and Duncan. Of course on a terrible Sampdoria that made him distinctly middle of the road, below starter quality but less of a disappointment than the likes of Winks or Rincon.