Fiorentina – Napoli: Center-Midfielders Tracking Fullbacks Puts Strain On Palladino’s Plans (0-3)

With the other contenders battling out in Riyad, Napoli had a tricky away game in Florence to contend with. Though Fiorentina posed early problems, issues in their defensive block gave Napoli access and Antonio Conte’s men are back on top of Serie A.

Tactical analysis and match report by Joel Parker.

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Midway through the Serie A season, the chase for the Scudetto threatens to break away into three teams.

After nine wins from ten games, Fiorentina looked like they were part of this group, but defeats to Bologna and Udinese have pushed Raffaele Palladino’s team three points away from Lazio. Much like his Monza team, Fiorentina is strong in the defensive phase but their goalscoring form has been higher than their expected goals suggest. They are in the bottom half of the total shot count, though the clinical form of Moise Kean has put him in the race for the Capocannoniere.

Meanwhile, Napoli is a team that could use more ways to find goals. Their buildup still has them playing a very wide game, although the physical play of Romelu Lukaku has declined, it is still the right-sided underlap that is the best source of Napoli’s entries into the final third. Antonio Conte has seen games through without Alessandro Buongiorno at center-back, but this will be the first major test without his best defender in the team. 

Palladino appeared to switch to a back five, from the 2-2 draw away at Juventus. Danilo Cataldi was replaced in midfield by Rolando Mandragora, whilst Albert Guðmundsson came out of the attack for Lucas Beltrán. Matias Moreno made his first Serie A appearance of the season, having appeared regularly in the defense throughout the Conference League, in place of Andrea Colpani.

Conte was without both Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Matteo Politano as his regular wingers. David Neres kept his place from the win over Venezia and Leonardo Spinazzola was the only addition from that game.

Center-midfielders pressing fullbacks

It was the high press from Fiorentina that set an interesting tone at the start of the game and Napoli produced some sloppy phases in possession because of it. Against Napoli’s deep buildup, Fiorentina arranged themselves in a 3-4-1-2 shape with Kean and Riccardo Sottil blocking the pass from center-back to center-midfielder. As Napoli passed the ball to Giovanni Di Lorenzo, it was Mandragora who pushed outwards onto the fullback and Fiorentina could lead the ball into the outer channel because of it.

This created an interesting dynamic between Luca Ranieri and Frank Anguissa: when Anguissa was high up the chain, Ranieri would man-mark and Neres was left in an even more isolated position with Fabiano Parisi keeping him from turning inward, so a distanced pass towards Scott McTominay would have to be made. When Anguissa dropped, Ranieri did not follow but both he and Beltrán could press if the midfielder were engaged on the ball.

7^th minute: Napoli’s deep buildup versus Fiorentina’s aggressive high block. As the ball was moved from Alex Meret to Di Lorenzo, Mandragora stepped up on the left and Adli retreated to cover McTominay. Parisi followed Neres as the next receiver in and Ranieri was in a zonal position to intercept the inside pass.

On the right of the Fiorentina block, Yacine Adli would also step up towards Mathías Olivera, although Scott McTominay was more comfortable duelling with Moreno when Napoli played down the left side of their build. As a result, Fiorentina produced several middle-third turnovers in the first ten minutes of the game, but their pressure was unsustainable with center-midfielders both jumping onto the fullbacks and having to recover their midfield positions.

Once more, Stanislav Lobotka moving closer to the center-backs created more of a distance between Beltrán and Anguissa, when Anguissa dropped closer to Di Lorenzo. This left a free man for Napoli to circulate the ball too and Fiorentina had no mechanics to keep the ball high up the pitch to build attacking momentum. After a short period, Fiorentina where soon reverting to their medium block and the game state moved in a different direction.

Conte finally builds his goal

Now Napoli was able to hold the ball on the halfway line against Fiorentina’s 5-2-1-2 medium block. In this process, Olivera took up his regular inverted positions with more effectiveness as Adli would follow, whilst Conte’s team constantly made overloads in the second line when the fullback remained in the same line as Juan Jesus and Amir Rrahmani: one Fiorentina midfielder would jump forward, the other would drop and man-mark McTominay which left the opposite fullback free to pass the ball too.

In this process, spaces were created for direct runs to be made from the defensive line or McTominay dropping to collect the ball against a narrow block. This led to a lot of flexible positions when Napoli moved the ball around and Fiorentina’s press was disengaged from the action, but the same problems still arose when Napoli was trying to break through their opponent’s block.

Most notably, the inversion from Olivera and central responsibilities from McTominay left Spinazzola (the left winger for this game) isolated on the flank with few combination options. With both McTominay and Anguissa trying to support Lukaku in the box, whilst Olivera and Di Lorenzo stepped inside, it left a lot of leg work for Spinazzola and Neres to cut the ball back onto their strong foot and produce some creative substance from the wide channel.

Another issue within Napoli’s buildup work has been a more limited Lukaku unable to spin around center-backs or force them deeper with his back-to-goal play like he used to. However, the high commitment of Fiorentina’s center-midfielders gave Lukaku a lot more space to play with, as the wide center-backs would also jump onto Anguissa or McTominay and Adli or Mandragora still jumped towards the fullbacks in possession.

28^th minute: Buildup to Napoli’s first goal. After Di Lorenzo had passed the ball, he was able to drag Mandragora wide and space opened for Neres to dribble inside and make a one-two with Lukaku.

By filtering out, the lane opened towards Lukaku more than usual and just before the half-hour mark, Napoli created one of the goals that Conte had been aiming for earlier on in the season. Fiorentina’s narrow arrangement tried to follow Napoli outwards and Di Lorenzo dragged Mandragora to the channel once he passed to Neres, who dropped close to the halfway line. As Di Lorenzo stepped outward, space opened for the Brazillian to escape Parisi’s pressure and a one-two with Lukaku took him past Pietro Comuzzo too. He still had work to do, shifting the ball onto his right foot and running around Ranieri. From a tight angle, Neres fired into the roof of the net and Napoli broke the deadlock in fantastic fashion.

Fiorentina forgetful in chance creation

As scripts under Conte have often followed, once Napoli goes in front they are susceptible to conceding the control. Fiorentina got back on the ball, but their limits were clear to see. As Ranieri stepped high down the left and possession circulated towards the right, there was no offensive action taken down the right side as Dodô often dropped to support the buildup and Beltrán did the same from a much more central position, which often left a midfield run from Adli being the only consistent run, but Spinazzola remained close to Olivera to make the two-versus-one on the only receiver.

Palladino’s center-backs constantly recycled the ball into these positions where Napoli could easily step up on them. Between Moreno and Ranieri, it was the left-footed captain who was more reliable in taking possession inward, which encouraged Napoli to collapse towards the ball and more space was made out wide. Just after the half-hour mark, this pattern of play was engaged and Fiorentina thought they found an equalizer when Kean possession back out onto the left before converting the following cross, but a connection with his hand ruled this out.

45+1^st minute: As Fiorentina circulated the ball back to the center-backs, Napoli could easily approach as Lobotka was left free to step up onto Adli and McTominay could move onto Moreno. With Dodô still deep, a two-versus-one was left on Beltrán as Spinazzola was in a position to collapse onto the receiver.

That being said, Fiorentina could only put pressure on the Napoli box from deep crossing situations, unable to create holes once Napoli dropped into their deep block. Sottil was more active down the channel in the halfspaces from the left, but Parisi remained deep in the process and the lack of flexibility made Palladino’s team an easy outlet to defend against.

The most dangerous phases of their buildup came on the right side where Olivera would be attracted to Beltrán’s position and Kean made a run against the grain of the defensive line’s movement, into this channel, or Beltrán made this run himself when Olivera was higher than the rest of the defense. However, turning this into chances came few and far between as Jesus was alert to this run on the couple of occasions that it was triggered.

Napoli gifted the kill

A few minutes into the second half, Napoli where able to connect with Lukaku again and Neres slipped McTominay through, his shot going wide. From the following phase, Napoli turned possession over and Anguissa appeared to have been dispossessed by Moreno, only for loose touches from the center-back put Anguissa through and for him to be swiped down in the process. Lukaku may have missed his spot kick against Venezia but slotted past David De Gea’s early jump, in practically the same spot as he had attempted last weekend.

Palladino looked for solutions, bringing on Robin Gosens and Colpani and switched to a back four in the process. Colpani was now the right winger with Gosens and Dodô as fullbacks. The addition of an overlapper appeared to have helped Sottil, as a few minutes after the second goal, Fiorentina moved the ball from right to left, after Kean connected with an early channel pass and Gosens crossed towards the back post. The ball dropped to Mandragora, whose shot was saved before the attempt from Beltrán was blocked on the line by Rrahmani. The danger was not cleared as Beltrán headed back towards Colpani,  denied by Olivera’s intervention.

This would be the only threat that Fiorentina could muster as sequences between Neres and Lukaku continued on the right of the Napoli attack. Some neat combinations took Comuzzo away from the Belgian before Lukaku slipped Neres through but the angle was too tight this time for that near post finish.

67^th minute: Buildup to Napoli’s third goal. After Neres was dispossessed, Fiorentina tried to move the ball to the right and both Anguissa and Lobotka stepped up towards Dodô’s position. A poor touch led to Anguissa regaining the ball and charging down the left.

Fiorentina could not harness control as Napoli was still capable of stepping out onto their buildup and they would concede on the transition as a result. Neres intercepted Mandragora’s pass, but Gosens made an intervention and the ball ran towards the center-backs. Comuzzo passed to Dodô on the turn, but Anguissa was in a position to pick up possession and charge down the left side of the field. He aimed for Lukaku, but Comuzzo knocked it back to McTominay for a composed finish past his former Man United teammate.

So comfortable where Napoli that Conte made all five of his substitutions before the game was out, whilst Palladino found no way to apply further pressure on the Napoli defense.

Takeaways

A poor showing from Fiorentina, even if the scoreline was a little harsh on the proceedings of the game. Palladino’s decision to allow the center-midfielders to jump onto the fullbacks led to a lot more central space opening up for combinations through Lukaku, and hopes of competing against Lazio and Juventus took a hit because of it. Games against Monza and Torino should build up steam before their trip to face Lazio, which should be a defining game for their European ambitions.

Forty-four points from nineteen games is an impressive turnover for Conte, but this result feels a little more definitive than more recent games. Napoli effectively killed the game and although this is a team with plenty of flaws, it is a team with plenty of profiles that do keep them competitive. January poses three significant games: Verona, which stunned Conte at the start of the season; Atalanta, fellow contenders who comfortably dispatched Napoli at the Maradona back in November and Juventus, who are still unbeaten.

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