Paolo Bianco Playing the Long Game as Monza Face Empoli – LIVE on DCTV

Paolo Bianco insists it is far too early to push the panic button as he prepares his under-performing Monza side to face Empoli on Wednesday night.

Both teams were relegated from Serie A back in May and were widely tipped to be challenging for an immediate return to the top flight.

But Monza, under new ownership since the Berlusconi family relinquished control and with Bianco in place since the summer, have made an inconsistent start to the campaign.

The weekend defeat by Padova means they have won two and lost two of their opening five games but a more pressing concern is that only the bottom three teams – Bari, Spezia and Sampdoria – have scored fewer than the four goals they have bagged after five rounds of fixtures.

Bianco said: “We’ll look at the standings later in the season. Historically, teams that get relegated struggle in Serie B. We inherited a difficult situation from last season.”

Empoli are even worse off. They were held to a 2-2 draw at home to Tuscan rivals Carrarese on Sunday, stretching their winless run in the league to four matches since beating Padova on the first weekend.

Stiven Shpendi was on target at the weekend, levelling the scores after Carrarese’s early opener and Empoli went ahead before Mattia Finotto’s equaliser with just a couple of minutes left.

Albanian striker Shpendi insists the late blow was a hard one to stomach but is confident his side will learn from it.

He said: “To turn it round then concede a goal sapped a bit of enthusiasm but from this point we will definitely improve as a team because we are all strong guys. The time will come when we will be consistent throughout the match.

“The good thing is that we play again so quickly so we can do it all again.”

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