On Saturday, a Luca Antonelli goal was enough for Milan to beat erratic Torino at the San Siro and extend their positive run to nine games as the Rossoneri stay in the hunt for a place in Europe next season.
This is a fine moment for Milan but the same cannot be said of Torino who suffered a 10th defeat in their last 21 matches.
To trace the start of Torino’s woes, one needs to go back to October 3. On that day, Giampiero Ventura’s men suffered their second defeat of the term at the hands of newcomers Carpi.
Apart from being a debut victory for then Carpi coach Giuseppe Sannino, it was a historic success for the side considering that it was their first ever in Serie A.
Torino’s season took a different twist and between the seventh and 27th day they only managed 19 points (an average of less than one point per game).
In the space of few months, Torino’s ambitions of a top-five finish and a berth in the Europa League turned into a struggle not to get embroiled in the relegation dogfight.
During the January transfer window, Torino bolstered their attacking prowess with the signing of 2013/14 Serie A top-scorer Ciro Immobile from Sevilla.
In the meantime, seasoned striker Fabio Quagliarella was offloaded to his former club Sampdoria after he fell out with the supporters.
Torino are currently in a mid-table position but they need to up their game significantly in their remaining 11 fixtures to make sure of safety as early as possible.
Contract negotiations
Surprisingly, Torino’s dip in form came at a time when many of the club’s senior players were being offered generous extensions to their contracts.
It is a known fact that the likes of team captain Kamil Glik, Nikola Maksimovic and Bruno Peres were highly sought after by more ambitious clubs.
Only last summer, Napoli were reported to have offered Torino around €20 million to prise central defender Maksimovic away from Turin.
Peres, also, was a transfer market target for Roma. But Torino supremo Urbano Cairo always resisted the temptation to part with his best players.
Meanwhile, Ventura and sporting director Gianluca Petrachi, touted to be the brains behind Torino’s ascendancy before hitting the mid-season slump, had their respective contracts improved as a clear sign of confidence in their operate.
Apart from keeping their best talent, last summer Torino signed a few promising players including Inter’s share of Marco Benassi, Daniele Baselli, Davide Zappacosta (both from Atalanta) and Andrea Belotti from Palermo.
Belotti’s move alone made history as Torino forked out their highest ever transfer fee (in the region of €8m) since Cairo had taken over in the summer of 2005.
So, no one is blaming the fans for expecting better results this year.
The squad looked competitive in all departments and the best players, with the exception of Matteo Darmian (who joined Man. United), had all been retained.
Ventura is highly regarded as a top calibre coach, particularly when it comes to develop young talent. That makes it even stranger to see the Maroons currently misfiring so badly as Ventura has always adopted pleasing-to-the-eye tactics.
The negative sequence has led a faction of Torino’s supporters to vent their criticism against Ventura who is now being named as a possible replacement to Antonio Conte, should the current Italy national team coach decide to return to club management after Euro 2016.
Meanwhile, Genoa’s Gian Piero Gasperini is also being mentioned as the ideal candidate to step in for Ventura should the latter decide to leave at the end of the season.
Ventura has 11 games left to demonstrate that Torino’s five-month dark patch was a temporary blip. However, he has to make sure that Torino, who lifted their last piece of silverware in 1993 (Coppa Italia), at least remain in a safe mid-table position at this crucial phase of the championship.
Failure to improve on that position will make this a campaign to forget for Cairo, Ventura and Torino.