Vincenzo Italiano Needs Time, but Bologna Must Find Their Identity Ahead of Champions League Debut

Vincenzo Italiano cast an envious look at the Premier League as he pleaded for patience last week.

“I read today that [Mikel] Arteta has signed a new three-year deal,” the Bologna manager said on Friday. 

“In another country, they probably wouldn’t have kept him, I won’t say where. 

“Every place has its own ways.” 

Patience is as rare a commodity in the Premier League as it is in Serie A, but it was nevertheless telling that Italiano felt the need to make the point just a month into the season.

Italiano’s tenure at the Dall’Ara has got off to a slow start, with Bologna still winless after four matches and with three points.

The picture could have been even worse had the Rossoblu not rescued a point with a dramatic draw away at Como on Saturday courtesy of Samuel Iling-Junior’s spectacular injury time equaliser.

Bologna had looked to be dead and buried until Santiago Castro pulled one back, injecting some much-needed life in what had been a listless performance up to that point.

There are, of course, mitigating circumstances for Italiano.

Thiago Motta was always going to be a difficult act to follow after masterminding a fifth-place finish last term, which ensured Champions League qualification for the first time in the club’s history.

Joshua Zirkzee and Riccardo Calafiori, two of last season’s key players, followed Motta through the departure gate, while Lewis Ferguson, who was voted Serie A’s best midfielder in May, has been sidelined until January at least with an ACL injury.

Italiano wants time at Bologna

Change, as Italiano pointedly suggested in his post-match press conference on Saturday, takes time.

Just ask his Como counterpart Cesc Fabregas, whose starting XI at the Giuseppe Sinigaglia featured nine new signings.

“I think it’s the same for all the other teams: there have been 13 coaching changes this year, so I don’t think the other teams are perfect,” he said.

“We’re not perfect either, but I’m holding onto the spirit I saw from the substitutes. For a coach, it’s beautiful to see this and it’s something I hope can be a hallmark of this Bologna team.”

And yet for all of Italiano’s optimism – a “glass half full”, as he described it on Saturday – the overriding impression is that his team are caught in a tactical no man’s land ahead of their Champions League debut against Shakthar Donetsk on Wednesday night.

The customary warning lights again flashed on the Rossoblu dashboard at the Sinigaglia. 

Much to Italiano’s frustration, Bologna managed to be simultaneously ponderous in possession, yet wide open to counter-attacks.

“We made too many mistakes in our passing and ball distribution, and they were very good at turning the ball over,” he conceded.

“We need to be much sharper on the ball. We’re making too many mistakes and they are costing us.”

Ahead of the trip to Como, the former Fiorentina manager had called for his players to be more clinical in the final third.

That turned out to be wishful thinking as Bologna created almost nothing until Tommaso Pobega rattled the post 15 minutes from time.

Bologna are stuck in a tactical quagmire

Having deployed a 4-2-3-1 formation in home draws against Udinese and Empoli, on Saturday Italiano returned to the 4-3-3 he’d used in the 3-0 shellacking at the hands of Napoli.

For a while it looked as though the result would be the same, as Como spurned a bevy of chances to put the game to bed.

As if to underline the tactical confusion, everything the Rossoblu tried in the first half went through Riccardo Orsolini, their main attacking weapon.

But once he was replaced by Iling-Junior in the second half, the shackles finally came off as the England Under-21 star combined brilliantly with Castro, who replaced the similarly ineffective Thijs Dallinga.

Italiano maintained the latter needs time to find his feet in Serie A after joining from Toulouse in the summer, but Castro and Iling-Junior have made a resounding case to be included from the start.

After their Champions League bow on Wednesday, Bologna travel to Monza, hardly an easy trip considering Alessandro Nesta’s men were minutes away from beating Inter Milan on Sunday night.

It’s the first step of a brutal stretch, which sees Atalanta and Parma visit the Dall’Ara before the international break, with the small matter of a trip to Anfield sandwiched in between.

Two weeks later, Bologna are back on English soil as they face Aston Villa, before hosting AC Milan on October 26.

Italiano may well need time, but his team desperately needs wins. Something may well have to give over the next month.