The Season So Far
As is perhaps to be expected by now it has been a very strong start to the new season from Cremonese with an opening day win against Juventus very much setting the tone for what will hopefully be another successful Serie A campaign. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, however, with the performances of James Nwokolo of particular concern. The Italian forward has been a stalwart of the Cremonese team for more than a decade now but his last three or four performances have been nothing short of abysmal and as a result, he’s found himself hooked in each of those games before full-time. It’s poor timing from Nwokolo considering I’m planning to debut a new ‘Player in Focus’ feature this season which aims to highlight one player in much more depth during the season. Currently, Rachid Saidi is the frontrunner for this new endeavour.
Supercoppa Italiana & European Super Cup
In what was no doubt some form of karmic retribution for my complaining about a boring Supercoppa Italiana clash last year things very nearly went tits up this time around. Having seen off the likes of Juventus and Napoli with relative ease in the past, it was Catania of all teams that provided our stiffest opposition in the competition for some time. Catania played us to absolute perfection for 90 minutes of the match with some glorious last-ditch defending to protect their well-earned lead. Unfortunately for them, however, it wasn’t meant to be as one final attack led to Nathan Bull swinging a low cross into the box which ended up being diverted into the goal by a Catania player. Once into Extra Time Tartaglione stepped up to make the difference with a clinically executed free kick that removed any remaining Catanian resistance.
For a while, I thought the European Super Cup was heading much the same way as the Supercoppa with Juventus coming back from conceding an early goal to take a 2-1 lead against us. On the brink of half-time, however, Cyril Bertin came to our rescue with a clinical finish from a deadly Rachid Saidi assist. Heading into the half level changed things immensely and we were able to build on that platform in the second half with Juventus still needing to attack. The removal of James Nwokolo following another insipid display played a big part in the game swinging our way as his replacement Elias Huet brought some actual effort to the occasion. Something he was rewarded for with a goal that put us ahead before Schößler wrapped things up with a fourth.
Transfers
IN: Enea Silvestri from Tottenham Hotspur (Free) – That’s right, he’s back. Just two years on from leaving Cremonese in a £35 million switch to Tottenham, Enea Silvestri is a Cremonese player once more. I don’t tend to pursue players once they’ve left the club whether I regret the decision or not but once I became aware of Silvestri’s availability, on a free transfer of all things, it seemed far too good of an opportunity to turn down. For all intents and purposes, his transfer to Spurs now becomes nothing more than a glorified and very profitable loan move. Whether he sticks around long-term remains to be seen but he’ll get a season or so to prove himself before I look at the situation.
IN: Stefan Summer from Borussia Dortmund (£8.75m) – The overall intention throughout this transfer window may have been to strengthen defensively, if at all, but I do admittedly have something of a weakness when it comes to signing creative midfielders. Enter Stefan Summer. Had my scouting team, or had I myself, done a better job over the past 12 months then Summer would have cost far less than he ultimately did. The young German is very much in the Bastian Futschik mould but unlike his compatriot, he’s not a Dortmund academy product. Rather, he came through the ranks at Braunschweig before making a move this summer to Dortmund which is where he came to the attention of our scouting department. Perhaps had it not been for the distraction of my duties with France during the World Cup then we could have hijacked his £125k move to Dortmund rather than granting them a £8.6m profit for two weeks work.
OUT: Fernando Da Silva to Borussia Dortmund (£22m) – A few years ago the future for Da Silva looked fairly promising at Cremonese but since then he has very much fallen out of favour. A series of very worrying performances led to him being dropped from the first team and despite being a talented player it seemed a good time to move him on. This move should allow some of the younger centre-backs in the squad to flourish, and a twenty million profit is always nice.
On the whole, I’m pretty pleased with the business done this summer but it’s worth noting that I did shop a number of other Cremonese players around to test the market during the window. In the end, Fernando Da Silva was the only player to leave permanently but Peter Fish, and Abdelaziz Hamzaoui both came close to exiting the club. Hamzaoui was saved by some less than satisfactory offers and his strong showing for France during the World Cup, while Fish remains to act as a back-up. I’ll be monitoring both players, along with Enea Silvestri, closely over the course of the coming season with a view to potentially moving them on in 12 months time.
Next Time: State of the Youth 2039
FM Fables 