They say that you have to earn your own luck. I’m not much of a believer in luck, but Bologna’s performance on Saturday evening was not one of a team that deserved to lose 0-2. The problem they have is that, because they have deserved to lose so many games recently, it feels less of an injustice and more of chickens coming home to roost.
Atalanta mustered a mere four shots to the Rossoblu’s 23, and found themselves controlling a minority of possession, too. However, the same problem that has afflicted Bologna many many times this season haunted them once again – they could not score.
Admittedly, starting the game with a two-man forward line that have scored one goal between them in 29 games is not the best way of remedying that; neither Davide Moscardelli nor Robert Acquafresca will knock the knees of any defence together with terror, though the latter had a couple of chances to break his duck on Saturday evening.
Watching the game unfold was like a meeting with an old friend, who may have changed a great deal since last you met, but was able to get straight back into the swing of things. The names, the formation and the faces change, but Bologna remain consistent. Consistently difficult to break down. Consistently relying on the inspiration of one player to ignite their performance. Consistently unable to find the net.
There are of course, obvious positives and negatives to these approaches. Their defensive solidity means that results remain respectable, even if often negative. There are few players capable of the level of inspiration Alessandro Diamanti previously offered, and none of them play in red and blue. In not scoring, you cannot win; and it goes a little further than just a lack of goals, it is difficult to see where goals will come from.
Increasingly, in the changes of personnel and formation, it seems that Ballardini is throwing his spaghetti to the wall to see whether it sticks – as yet, it remains uncooked. He took over an underperforming Bolognese and has seemingly tried every trick in his coaching manual; another each week, in order to try to capture the correct recipe. That it remains so remote a possibility that supporters are thinking that a return for Stefano Pioli might be preferable only serves to indicate how poor the second half of the season has been – and what a bad taste has been left in the mouth.
There comes a point at which it has to be conceded that perhaps it is not the coach that is the problem; that even a joint brain-trust of Conte and Lippi would struggle to make a success of Bologna. A point where the players are the problem – either unwilling or unable to perform to a high enough level. It is time for the experiments to end. It is time for Bologna to return to either the 3-5-2 or 3-5-1-1 that was ‘successful’ under Ballardini when he first joined.
Time to return, then, to games of almost unbearable tedium with the Felsinei stagnating both themselves and their opponents. As a roadmap for survival, it is a depressing one, but it is one that might beget results.
Bologna’s easy run of games is over; their next five opponents could reasonably expect to claim victories against them – Inter, Parma, Juventus, Fiorentina and Genoa. Frightening though they are, likely relegation rivals Livorno face four of those five themselves in their final eight games; with both also facing Lazio, there will be a very easy way of comparing the performances of the two as we progress.
It is a fact that Bologna were unlucky to face Atalanta after the Orobici had won five games in a row; equally, as Ballardini himself did, you can make a very good case that the Felsinei deserved at the very least a point. Outside their two quick-fire goals, Atalanta produced very little in the game and faced a barrage of Rossoblu attacks, and yet were able to repel them all.
What next, then? Next week takes Ballardini’s changeable squad to the San Siro for a fixture with Inter that is not as unwinnable as it might look, with the Biscione having failed to beat Udinese and Cagliari in the recent past – why shouldn’t the Rossoblu come away with a point?
If you do not feel optimistic for the immediate future of the Rossoblu, at least there was good news for the longer-term this weekend as Bologna’s Primavera team were the first side to defeat Torino this season, a goal from Riccardo Benatti settling the encounter in the second half. A straw, maybe.
