Four races still before the final whistle of a year that will end with a bitter taste in the mouth and zero trophies. Napoli looks around: the first season with the guidance of Carlo Ancelotti was a swing of emotions, many highs before Christmas, too much bass when the Spring peeked behind the first cold. The Champions played by protagonists first, together with a championship played great until the halfway point, then the decline after the missed qualification in the second round, Juve fleeing away and Arsenal giving the final blow.
Carletto already thinks about what is to come and to do so he is trying to mix the cards in this final straight of the season. The 4-4-2 that we see in the field since last September is no longer an untouchable certainty, much will depend on the next market but already in Frosinone last Sunday the blue coach tried to get his hands on what could be Napoli in 2020. The midfield will be the crucial point: waiting for the news of the summer market, Ancelotti knows well that the elements of the median will have to be of quality and reinforce a department that in the last few weeks has had to work overtime, also due to the sale of Rog and Mertens and Diawara’s injury.
At the Stirpe, Zielinski became for the first time a director who was not pure but of substance. The Pole acted alongside Fabin, but with the Spaniard the classic pair of medians that the 4-4-2 would require was hardly seen. More often, on the other hand, especially when exiting with the ball and chain from the defense, the Pole acted as a low vertex of a fake rhombus which then wanted Dries Mertens or Arek Milik as a high vertex before the points. To the right of Piotr an unusual Callejon acted: the Spaniard played much more from inside, even favoring the Malcuit races on the right side of the field.
Not only a three-man midfield, however, because during the construction phase, Napoli also tried to act with two points like Mertens and Younes behind the first Milik tip. Or by exploiting the qualities of the cuts of all three: thus Dries, after setting could take between the lines and overcome the Ciociara defense behind him, alternating left or right, Milik tried to create spaces for the insertions of the comrades and Younes si threw his area of competence into the space to the left. In several moments of the race, the Azzurri have dressed again a 4-3-3 that is very reminiscent of the one seen in the last few years, helped also by the thrust on the low exteriors of Ghoulam and Malcuit who often played close to the offensive area of the field. br>
As seen last Sunday, the role of Amin Younes is fundamental. Ancelotti, who has had only words of praise for him and for the Stirpe performance also spiced up with a goal, is testing the German for next year. “It will be that of the consecration,” said Carletto of the upcoming season of the former Ajax, but as far as seen in Frosinone the transformation of Younes is not yet clear. The German is used to playing in a 4-3-3 which foresees the attacking externals free to invent and shoot (not by chance he was chosen during Sarri’s management), but at the Brood he tended too often to widen, entering little in the construction phase and often thwarting the test with two midfielders.
Zielinski has continuously fished on the left-handed out of the field, where he was then free to play one against one and try the conclusion, but hardly Amin came out of the “comfort zone” dressed in these years. Another doubt is his defensive contribution: contrary to what he has seen in recent seasons at Insigne on that side, the German folds little, indeed almost never. Not surprisingly, with the inclusion of Verdi in the final, the team had more coverage on its left-handed side.
From: Il Mattino.
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