That's a good point. I think it's a mixture of both. It's obviously not only Del Neri's fault, or only the players' fault alone. I think it started last year when our 'project' failed miserably thanks to our manager's idea of building a team around Diego. We bought the necessary players for a 4-3-1-2 to work. It didn't, and we shipped Diego off.
We didn't buy the necessary players for a 4-3-1-2 at all. That's why it didn't work. We just bought Diego and tried to make the rest of the team fit around him.
That wasn't our only problem; we also had defensive worries with our fullbacks. That issue was not dealt with properly, here I blame the management and the coach for not making sure a good fullback was brought it. This season; we abandoned the 4-3-1-2 and went back to the classical 4-4-2. We bought players like Krasic and Martinez to play on the wings. One did fairly well, the other didn't.
I wouldn't call our first choice formation as a "classical" anything. It is/was a hybrid. Krasic playing a very different role to his counterpart on the left side. Quagliarella didn't play as a typical centre forward or as typical second striker. De Ceglie plays/played very differently to Sorensen. Even the Dane has spoken about "the three in defence" (him, Chiello, Bonucci).
The error here is placing too much hope on Martinez when we should have invested in a player who would be a little more dependable. As for Pepe, I think he was just bought as a decent backup, nothing more. Selling Trezeguet without getting a replacement was another major error.
We definitely over-paid for Martinez.
Releasing Trez while keeping both Amauri and Iaquinta is probably the worst decision Marotta has made at Juve IMO.
Clearly, Del Neri isn't to blame for everything. There were many aspects that should have been dealt with the board and weren't. However, I still think this squad should do better. We aren't as good as Inter or Milan but we're definitely on the same level as Roma, and overall, we are better than Napoli, Palermo, and Lazio.
Us being better than Napoli, Palermo, and Lazio is very debatable. Especially the first two.
It is the coach's job to get the best out of his players, and I honestly don't think Del Neri has consistently done that this season. Too many ups and downs and there doesn't seem to be any level of consistency in this team. Add to that the fact that his idiotic substitutions and questionable decisions concerning the starting line-up.
I agree about the inconsistency, which is very frustrating. Losing to Lecce the week after beating Inter ffs. Both management and players have to take some blame for this. I'm convinced it would improve if Delneri was given more time with a relatively injury-free squad.
Which substitutions would you describe as "idiotic"?
When a team has a shit season, everyone is to blame. It's that simple. Do I think Del Neri should be fired? Yes. Not because it's all his fault but because a new coach might revitalize the squad somehow and change things around. Right now, we need change. We need to take a gamble because the way things are going, we will be lucky to see 7th place.
We've tried the "we're under-performing. Let's sack the manager, that'll make everything better" tactic too many times recently. It worked for what, 3 matches, under Ciro? I think we need to give Delneri more time and hope that he can at least get us cemented in the top 4 for a couple of years. I believe he's capable of that with this squad plus a couple of reasonable additions.
I reckon if we had our squad all season, like Napoli, we'd be top 4 now, no problem.
We need to recruit their version of Dr. Agricola.
Buy on AliExpress.com
