Serie A: Fiorentina v Chievo

Fiorentina v Chievo

Sunday Afternoon

Our Christmas weekend match sees visitors come in from Verona representing Chievo at the Artemio Franchi on a beautiful winters day.

It's been a meteoric start to the season with many changes and defining matches but we are in no position to evaluate and take stock. Here is the league table:

Serie A.............Pld..........Pts
1. Inter.............16.............36
2. Fiorentina......16............32
3. Napoli...........16.............30
4. Juventus.......16.............30

Funny how we started off aiming for a high European spot and now that we are in a title challenging position, second place seems rather pathetic,, particularly after spending about a month on top of the table. Personally, I like this new us. The new, high expectation us. We also play with high expectations. We go up against any team with very little nerves and looking to create chances and put teams away rather than hope to maintain a respectable looking team with a respectable league position and look like we're quite good. We need to go beyond all that. Many teams are happy to put on a show - even neighbours Empoli. Neither Roma nor Empoli, both of whom have been cut off the table above are particularly far from us. We need to press on and continue with our good start.

However, it seems the players have rather caught on and have adapted to the new way of thinking in addition to the new style of play. “Our dream is to win the Scudetto,” Kalinic said in an interview with Rai Sport.

“Right now we are second and will always give our best. We’ll try to go forward in the Europa League too.

“I have a great rapport with Paulo Sousa, I like him a lot. The Coach is a fighter and a serious professional who knows how to impose the rules.

“You don’t get results without effort and I promise to always give the maximum.”

I don't think anyone can accuse Kalinic of not putting in effort. Kalinic has chipped in with the most goals and Sousa has recognised the potential weakness, calling on the team to provide more goals from other areas. Illicic has been good at converting the penalties and getting some good goals when needed and we do have Valero creating the chances. Remember Marcos Alonso's free kick at the start of the season? That was really something. More of those please Marcos.

That said, we are one too many points off first place to go in top from a good round of fixtures. That will have to wait until January.

For now, let us enjoy this globally warmed sunny winters day, hopefully with a win against the other northerners so we can sit back, relax in front of the tree whilst watching Premier League football.

Fiorentina 3-4-2-1:

Tatarasanu

Tomovic - Gonzalo - Astori

Bernadeschi - Badelj - Vecino - Marcos Alonso

Ilicic - Valero

Kalinic


Meggiorini - Paloschi

Birsa

Castro - Rigoni - Hatemaj

Gobbi -Dainelli - Gamberini - Frey

Bizzari

Chievo 4-3-1-2:

We take them on at 2pm/3pm.

That's 9am Boston, 1am Melbourne and 5pm Bahrain.

Serie A: Fiorentina v Chievo