Well, that escalated rather quickly
A few days ago I was writing about how San Diego had become almost too successful, how the rebuild had happened faster than I expected and how I was struggling to find the same sense of jeopardy in games that I had felt earlier in the save. I had started approaching the games on autopilot and was essentially trying to manufacture ways of making a project I had built deliberately feel difficult again.

Then Venezia came calling. They had finished 19th in Serie A on 26 points, and the board invited me to interview for a job with a very different brief: a scaled-back club, a promotion challenge and the opportunity to rebuild rather than refine. I went into the interview without really knowing whether I would take it, but the more I looked at the situation, the more it felt like the kind of problem I had been looking for.

San Diego actually made the decision easier. The board called me in to discuss my future and offered to negotiate a new contract, but by that point I had made up my mind. I had achieved what I wanted there. The club was in a very good place, the squad was strong, the tactical identity was established and there was a genuine pathway for the next manager to continue the work. I didn’t want a bigger contract to become an excuse to stay in a save I had started to lose interest in – so I rejected it.

And now, slightly unbelievably, Tomás Villalba is the manager of Venezia after just six months in California.

The contract is for two years, through June 2033, at $909k per year, with a $15m transfer budget and a $50.86m wage budget. The immediate objective is wonderfully simple: automatic promotion back to Serie A in 2031/32, while the club’s only actionable contractual objective is to remain within the wage budget. There are some interesting constraints too. The board favour short contracts for older players – two years maximum over 32, three years over 30 – while simultaneously favouring minimum three-year contracts for first-team players. That should make the squad rebuild particularly interesting because I don’t want to simply throw money at the problem and assemble a promotion-winning side that immediately needs replacing.

And that’s probably what excites me most about this move.

San Diego was about building a machine. Venezia is about finding out whether I can build another one: a new league, a new squad, new recruitment markets and new tactical problems. A relegated club with €15m to spend and one season to get back up. After the strange feeling of having solved San Diego too quickly, this feels like exactly the reset I needed.

All roads lead to Rome, but, probably, these roads will end in Venice – certainly for FM26.

With the move to Venezia, I want to make the recruitment side of the save much more deliberate. I only have one season here before FM27 arrives, so rather than relying on reputation, star ratings or simply searching for players who look good, I want to use the 2030/31 league data to identify the best-performing players for the specific roles I use in my 3-4-3.

The idea is to build a transparent scoring model for each role, using only statistics and weighting them according to what I actually want that player to do. These are the first versions of the formulas, and I expect to refine the weightings once I see how they behave across the full league datasets, but this gives me a starting point for finding players who have actually performed the job, rather than simply looking like they should be able to do it.

• Progressive Centre-Back: Progressive Passes, Passes Completed, Pass Completion %, Possession Won, Key Passes, Dribbles, xA, Interceptions, Clearances and Headers Won are all weighted positively, with Mistakes Leading to Goals carrying a negative weighting.
• Destroying Centre-Back: Headers Won, Interceptions, Tackles Won, Clearances, Possession Won, Blocks and Pass Completion % are weighted positively, with Mistakes Leading to Goals again carrying a negative weighting.
• Wide Runner: Progressive Passes, xA, Key Passes, Chances Created, Crosses Completed, Dribbles, Sprints, Possession Won, Pass Completion % and xG are combined, with the emphasis on players who can provide both progression and genuine attacking output from wing back areas.
• Controller: Passes Completed, Progressive Passes, Pass Completion %, Key Passes, Possession Won, xA and Chances Created are weighted positively, while Possession Lost is negatively weighted. The aim is to identify players who can control games through volume, progression and retention.
• Runner: Progressive Passes, Possession Won, Tackles Won, Interceptions, Sprints, Key Passes, xG, xA, Dribbles and Distance are combined to identify midfielders who contribute across both sides of the game rather than simply accumulating possession.
• Forward Connector: xA, Key Passes and Chances Created carry the biggest weight, supported by Progressive Passes, Dribbles, Pass Completion %, Assists and xG. This is designed to find the attacking midfielder who links the midfield and front line while still producing measurable end product.
• Wide Forward: xG, xA, Goals, Key Passes, Chances Created, Dribbles, Progressive Passes, Sprints and Shots on Target are combined, giving us a measure of both threat and production from the wide forward position.
• Channel Forward: xG and Goals are the biggest components, supplemented by xA, Key Passes, Chances Created, Dribbles, Shots on Target, Progressive Passes and Assists. The intention is to identify forwards who can threaten the channels while still providing genuine goal and chance-creation output.

All statistics in these formulas are expressed per 90 minutes, rather than raw totals, so the model compares performance rather than simply rewarding players who have played the most minutes.

With the recruitment model built, I wanted to test whether it actually told me anything useful by running the existing Venezia squad through it. The important thing to clarify is that these aren’t rankings against other Venezia players, or simply a measure of who has the highest raw numbers. The scores are percentiles against all of the players in the Serie A dataset – over 1000 minutes and not a goalkeeper – for the statistics that make up each role. It isn’t a perfect method, and I wouldn’t pretend that a 76.8th percentile automatically means a player is a better Progressive Centre-Back than someone scoring 70.4th score, but it should help us identify a player’s statistical style rather than simply his position.

That distinction became obvious with Leslie Okai. The model sees a strong Progressive Centre-Back profile, but his actual attributes and positional experience make him much more naturally a wing-back, so I’m not going to force him into the centre-back role because the spreadsheet says so – particularly when it is weighted on progressive passes, which – as a pretty stay at home full back, he’d have done plenty of. Instead, the result is useful because it tells me something about the way he plays: there are progressive qualities in his game that we might want to exploit from the wing. Jackson Tchatcheou is another good example. His results are strong across several different roles, and rather than immediately deciding what position he should play, I want to see where those different qualities can best fit into the 3-4-3.

The same applies to Alessio Zerbin. His attacking percentiles are excellent, but given his age, I’m unlikely to ask him to be a high-volume runner simply because the Runner profile scores well. His qualities may be better used through a playmaking role, where he can influence the game without being asked to cover enormous distances. Again, the model isn’t telling me what role to play; it’s helping me understand the statistical profile we already have and then decide how that fits the football I want to play.

There are also a few players who are already effectively removed from the equation. Busio and Bartol Franjic are leaving, while Carlo Holse and Branimir Mlačić are returning from loan, with their deals expiring and no option for me to keep them. The data is still useful because it shows what we’re losing stylistically, particularly in terms of Busio and Franjic’s Controller profiles and Holse’s attacking versatility, but I don’t need to make selection decisions around players who won’t be here next season.

Ndur is another player where I don’t want to make a definitive judgement from the model alone. His percentiles aren’t particularly strong across the roles we’ve tested, but that doesn’t automatically mean he’s out. He’ll have to fight for his role in this team and show that there is something in his game that the numbers aren’t capturing particularly well.

That’s really the purpose of this exercise. I’m trying to identify a style before I identify a position. The model gives me a statistical fingerprint for each player, and then I can combine that with their attributes, versatility, age, contract and tactical fit. It isn’t going to replace scouting or watching players, but if it can help me find players who statistically resemble the type of football I want Venezia to play, rather than simply searching for someone listed as a wing-back or midfielder, then it has done its job.
The next step was to see whether the model could help us look below the Serie A level rather than simply identifying players we already know. I ran the same role-based percentile system across Serie B and then Serie C, looking for players who are performing strongly in the specific statistical profiles we’re trying to build around. The idea isn’t necessarily to sign the highest-ranked player in every category, but to find players whose numbers suggest they have the style we’re looking for and then work out whether that translates to what we need at Venezia.

Serie B is already throwing up some interesting names. There are several players appearing repeatedly across the different roles, which is probably more useful than simply having one huge score in a single category. The likes of Corrie Ndaba, Alessandro Riccio, Luca Falbo, Michele Carboni, Jason Ceka and Alhpdjo Cissé keep appearing across the rankings, while players such as Rada Belahyane and Antonio Gallo give us some interesting midfield and wide profiles. There are also some familiar Serie A names appearing at the top of individual categories, which gives us a useful benchmark for how strong the numbers actually are.

Serie C is where it starts to get more speculative, but that’s also where the exercise becomes more interesting. Players such as Mattia Capoferri, Luca Falbo, Michele Carboni and Manuel Nardozzi appear repeatedly across the role rankings, while there are a number of younger players showing up in the attacking categories. I’m not going to assume that a player dominating a Serie C statistical category can simply step into a promotion-chasing Serie B side, but these are exactly the profiles that are worth scouting further.

The important thing for me is that this is starting to look less like traditional recruitment and more like building a database of playing styles. I’m not searching for “a left-back” or “a midfielder” and then deciding whether I like the player. I’m searching for the statistical fingerprints that fit the way I want Venezia to play, then using scouting, attributes, age, contract and level to decide whether the player is actually worth pursuing. Serie B should give us some relatively safe options, while Serie C potentially gives us the undervalued players where the model can really earn its keep.
With just a day left before the season data rollover and no previous saves available for me to check data of already-rolled-over leagues, I needed to move fast. I know the registration rules in Italy are tough on non-EU players so tried, where possible, to focus on Italians or Italian based players. We have, amazingly, over €150m in the bank and a budget of €15m with the likelihood of a) more wiggle room once the wage decreases for relegation are put in b) even more wiggle room when the parachute payment, of €25m, is paid and c) even even more wiggle room when we, inevitably, have to sell our better players because they are simply not interested in playing at this level. However, I will maintain financial discipline at this early point – trying to find quality for as little outlay as I can. With that principal in place, the first four additions of the Venezia rebuild have been made through the data-led recruitment process, with the more important question being how those profiles now fit the tactical structure I’m trying to establish.

Siaka Diallo is the best example. He ranked first in Italy – not just his league – for the Destroying Centre-Back profile despite only playing 1,350 minutes in Serie C, with 5.9 headers won, 3.6 interceptions and 20.9 possession wins per 90. His attributes back up the idea of a physical defensive player, with 14 heading, 14 strength, 13 tackling and 14 positioning. In the current shape, I’m looking at him centrally in our back three rather than asking all three centre-backs to be progressive. Diallo can provide the defensive security while the players around him handle more of the circulation and progression. On loan from Genoa, he was the first of the four players who have all signed on free transfers at the end of their contracts.

Javier Gil is the more proven version of that role. He played 3,622 minutes in Serie B at Catanzaro, ranked fifth for the Destroying Centre-Back profile and averaged 4.0 headers won, 2.6 interceptions and 18 possession wins per 90, alongside 90% pass completion – yet, in my eyes, feels more aligned to be more of a ball player than a pure ball winner. He’s therefore less of a gamble than Diallo and gives us another player who can defend the central spaces without needing to become something he’s not.

Federico Matarán – who spent last season on loan at Frosinone from Fiorentina – is potentially the key addition to the midfield. His 92% pass completion, 48 completed passes and 6.5 progressive passes per 90 in Serie B give us the beginnings of the Controller profile I identified as missing from the squad. His 15 passing, 15 technique and 15 first touch support that, while Looks For Pass Rather Than Attempting To Score fits the idea of a player who helps us control the game rather than constantly trying to force the final action. At the moment he’s alongside Ndour, but I’m still trying to establish exactly what that partnership looks like. Matarán potentially becomes the player who gives us the rhythm, while Ndour has to demonstrate what his own contribution is going to be.

Then there’s Alphadjo Cissé, who I think could be particularly important to the attacking shape. He produced 7 goals and 6 assists, which is quite a large xG/xA underperformance – in 3,054 Serie B minutes on loan at Modena from AC Milan, with 2.6 key passes and 3.4 dribbles per 90. His attributes — 13 passing, 13 vision, 14 technique, 14 first touch and 15 flair — and his traits of Tries Tricks, Likes To Beat Opponent Repeatedly and Cuts Inside From Left Wing make the plan fairly obvious. I like the idea of the right-footed Cissé starting from the left, coming inside and becoming a connector rather than simply staying wide. It’s the same basic relationship I liked with Broggio at San Diego. He feels like a particuarly good foil for Gaetano Oristiano, who I’m sure will attract some attention from bigger clubs soon.

I’ve made a couple of additions to the squad now, with Samuele Birindelli – son of Alessandro, ex Juventus fullback – and Nicolò Fagioli both coming in on free transfers. Neither is really about the long-term project in the same way as some of the younger players I’m looking at, but I think there is a lot of value in bringing some experience into what could otherwise become a very young squad. The Serie B registration rules mean we can only have 20 players over 23, so I’m trying to be quite careful about who gets those places. If I’m going to use them on older players, I want them to be players who can genuinely contribute rather than just make up numbers.

Birindelli is probably the most straightforward signing. He’s 31, but he’s just played 2,930 minutes for Palermo in Serie B, so this isn’t a player who has been sitting around doing nothing. The numbers are good for the role I’m looking for as well: 87% pass completion, 6.7 progressive passes per 90, 1.9 tackles won and 3.7 interceptions. He’s got 14 pace, 14 acceleration, 14 agility and 14 natural fitness, with 13 passing, 13 technique and 13 work rate, and he can cover right-back as well as both wing-back positions. I’m not expecting much attacking output from him – and the 0 goals, 0.05 xG and 0.13 xA per 90 last season certainly confirm his scoring isn’t great but he’s creativity isn’t terrible – and as an experierenced rotation option who can come in and keep the structure intact, I think he’s a very sensible free transfer. I actually had him on trial before deciding, and the more I looked at the profile, the more I thought there was very little downside to bringing him in.

Fagioli is a different proposition altogether. There’s no useful statistical data from last season because he was without a club after his release from Milan in January of this year, so this is one where I’m relying much more heavily on the player attributes and what I think he can do for us tactically. 15 technique, 15 vision, 14 passing, 14 first touch and 14 anticipation is a really nice technical base, and then you’ve got 15 teamwork, 15 aggression, 15 agility and 15 natural fitness as well. He’s not a defensive midfielder in the traditional sense – 9 marking, 11 positioning and 11 tackling tell you that – but that’s actually fine for what I have in mind. I want him involved in the build-up and controlling possession rather than spending 90 minutes chasing people around.

He’s on €20k a week, which isn’t insignificant, particularly for a 30-year-old who has just had a six months out of competitive football, but I don’t think it’s excessive given the amount of wage budget we’ve got available and the fact we’re paying no transfer fee. If he can get back to something close to his previous level, he should be one of the better midfielders in Serie B. The big thing for me is that both players are Italian, both are coming in for nothing, and both give us experience without creating any problems with the non-EU restrictions. I’m still very much looking at young Italian players as the main recruitment market, but I don’t want the entire squad to be 19–22-year-olds learning everything at the same time.

So, at the moment, I’m quite happy with these two. Birindelli gives us versatility and reliability, while Fagioli gives us technical quality and experience in midfield. They’re not the headline signings of the rebuild, but I think they’re exactly the sort of additions you need around the younger players. And given that neither cost us a transfer fee, I’m more than happy to use two of the senior registration places on them.

With six new players through the door, I’m starting to get a much clearer idea of what I want this Venezia side to look like, and this is where I’m deliberately starting to bring some different influences together. The basic principles haven’t changed – I still want control, positional superiority, aggressive movement and a strong structure behind the ball – but I don’t want this to simply be a continuation of what I’ve done before. We’re in Italy now, and I think there is an opportunity to take some of the Italian tactical ideas around structure and defensive organisation and combine them with the more aggressive ideas I’ve taken from Gallardo, Milito and Gasperini.

The biggest change I’m experimenting with is two overlapping centre-backs in Gil and Vogliaccio. I don’t mean overlapping in the traditional sense of simply running beyond the wing-back, but actually allowing them to step forward into areas normally occupied by midfielders when the opportunity presents itself. If Gil carries beyond the first line, or Vogliaccio moves into the space in front of him, we’re effectively creating another midfielder without changing the starting shape. More importantly, we’re asking the opposition a question. If they follow the centre-back, they’ve potentially opened something elsewhere; if they don’t, we’re allowed to carry the ball into territory they don’t really want us occupying. That’s the Gasperini influence, but I’m trying to use it within a much more controlled positional framework.

Behind them I’m using Mataram and Fagioli as the two half-backs, but I’m not asking them to perform identical jobs. Mataram is more about providing the security and helping maintain the structure when one of the centre-backs moves forward. Fagioli is the more adventurous one on the ball, and this is probably the bit of the system I’m most intrigued by at the moment. Rather than seeing the half-back as somebody whose only job is to drop between the defenders and recycle possession, I’m giving Fagioli licence to be much more aggressive with his positioning and passing. I want him finding those little pockets where he can receive facing forward, and then looking for the longer or more ambitious pass.

The easiest way I’ve found to think about Fagioli’s role is almost like a quarterback. He’s sitting deeper than the rest of the midfield, but he’s not necessarily playing short, safe passes all game. If we create a positional overload on one wing, I want him to recognise it and hit that side early. Equally, if the opposition has collapsed towards one side to deal with our overload, I want him to have the ability to switch play quickly towards the opposite wing. So his role isn’t just about being the spare man in the build-up; he’s effectively trying to find the pockets from which we can launch the next attack. That does carry more risk, and there will inevitably be times when we lose the ball because of it, but that’s something I’m willing to accept because of the advantages it can give us.

The end result should still resemble a 3-2-5 in possession, but I don’t want it to be a static 3-2-5. The shape should be constantly changing depending on where the ball is and what the opposition gives us. It’s also why I’m quite comfortable with the idea of being aggressive in possession. We’re Venezia in Serie B; I think we should have enough quality to impose ourselves on most teams in this division. I don’t want our objective to be simply keeping possession and waiting for an opening. I want to move the opposition around, deliberately overload one side, use Fagioli to switch it when they’ve committed numbers, and then attack the space that they’ve left. When we lose the ball, the structure we’ve created should give us a good chance of counterpressing immediately, but if the first press is beaten, we should still have enough players behind the ball to recover.

So this is becoming something of a hybrid. Gasperini in the centre-backs, Italian positional structure underneath, Gallardo in the manipulation of space and Milito in the discipline of the overall shape. Fagioli is probably the player who makes the idea particularly interesting because I’m not treating him as a conventional half-back. I want him to be the player underneath everything who can look up, see where we’ve created the advantage and then actually exploit it, whether that’s a progressive pass into the next line or a longer diagonal towards a wing where we’ve already created a positional overload.

It’s still very much an experiment at this stage, and I’ve yet to even play a pre-season game with it, but I like – in my head – where it’s going. The six signings have given me enough different profiles to start building the team around functions rather than simply positions, and that’s what I wanted from the beginning of this Venezia chapter. We should be one of the best teams in Serie B, so the challenge isn’t just getting results. I want us to control games in a way that makes the quality of the squad matter, while giving the team a tactical identity that feels distinctly ours.
I’ve spent a bit more time thinking about the Venezia tactic and I think I’ve got the basic idea where I want it now. The interesting thing is that the in-possession and out-of-possession shapes are deliberately quite different, and I’m increasingly convinced that’s actually a strength rather than something I need to try and iron out. In possession we’re looking to create a 3-2-5, with Gil and Vogliaccio allowed to step forward from centre-back, Matarán and Fagioli underneath them and the wing-backs providing the width. Out of possession we’re dropping into a 5-2-2-1 mid-block, so rather than trying to make the same shape work in both phases, I’m essentially asking the team to transition between two very different structures.

The main tactical decision I’ve made is to turn off the counter-press and use Regroup instead. I think it makes sense for this squad and for the level we’re playing at. We’re supposed to be one of the best teams in Serie B, so I don’t feel any need to turn every turnover into a frantic attempt to win the ball back immediately. When we lose possession, there are potentially a lot of players ahead of the ball because of what we’re doing in possession, particularly with the centre-backs stepping forward and the wing-backs pushing on. Rather than asking those players to immediately swarm the ball and potentially leave huge spaces behind them, I want everyone to recover their positions and get back into the 5-2-2-1. The first defensive action after losing the ball is therefore to restore the structure, not necessarily to win the ball.

That doesn’t mean I want us to be passive. The other side of the transition is Counter-Attack, so when we do win it, I want us to go quickly. That’s where Fagioli’s role becomes particularly important. I’m using him as the more aggressive of the two half-backs, and I’m asking him to cover quite a lot of ground rather than simply sitting in front of the centre-backs and recycling possession. His job is almost quarterback-like: find those pockets underneath the opposition’s midfield, get his head up and look for the more ambitious pass. If we’ve created an overload on one wing and the opposition has shifted across to deal with it, I want Fagioli to be able to hit the opposite side early. So we’re not counterpressing after losing the ball, but we’re trying to counterattack the moment we’ve recovered it, with Fagioli potentially being the player who launches the first pass.

The general possession instructions are deliberately fairly restrained as well. I’ve gone with higher tempo but standard passing, which feels right for what we’re trying to do. I don’t want us playing unnecessarily direct football, but I also don’t want the ball moving slowly enough for the opposition to simply shuffle across and reset every time. We’re progressing through the middle, keeping patience at a standard level and encouraging the players to dribble when the opportunity is there. The idea is that the structure creates the overload, then the individual player is allowed to actually exploit it. I’m not interested in adding ten different instructions just because they sound aggressive; there is already plenty of risk built into the player roles and movements.

The goalkeeper is staying on short distribution to the playmaker, because I want to build the attack rather than bypass it. There’s a fairly clear sequence I’m looking for from there: goalkeeper into the back three, the half-backs providing the next option, Gil or Vogliaccio stepping into midfield when the space is there, and then the wing-back becoming the wide outlet. Once we’ve attracted enough players towards one side, we can either continue the combination there or use Fagioli to switch the play. It’s less about having one predetermined passing route and more about creating a situation where the opposition can’t cover everything.

Out of possession, I’m deliberately keeping things fairly conservative. Mid block, standard defensive line, standard pressing trigger and balanced cross engagement, with no short goalkeeper distribution trap or elaborate pressing scheme at this stage. I don’t want to raise the defensive line simply because we’re the better team, because our attacking structure is already quite aggressive. Gil and Vogliaccio are being asked to leave the defensive line in possession, the wing-backs are high and Fagioli has licence to take risks with the ball, so there is already plenty going on. Giving the defensive line more ground to cover on top of that feels like adding risk for the sake of it.

I’m also quite happy with the idea of protecting the centre and making teams work around us. The 5-2-2-1 should give us a good platform for that, particularly if Matarán and Fagioli can screen the central areas and the two wide players narrow up enough to prevent easy passes through the middle. We can allow the opposition to have the ball in areas that don’t really hurt us, then engage when it comes into the wider areas. I may experiment with being more deliberate about forcing teams outside once we’ve got some matches under our belt, but for now I think the balanced approach gives me a good baseline.

So, at the moment, the tactical identity is becoming pretty clear. With the ball, we’re aggressive and try to manipulate the opposition through movement and overloads. When we lose it, we recover the shape rather than immediately chasing the ball. Once we’re back in our mid-block, we make the opponent break us down. Then, when we win it, we attack the space they’ve left. It gives us a slightly unusual rhythm, but I like it: we’re not trying to be permanently aggressive in every phase just because we’re the better side. We’re choosing where the aggression happens.

And I think that’s probably the biggest difference from some of the football I’ve played previously. The Gasperini influence is there in the centre-backs stepping forward, the Gallardo influence is there in the manipulation and switching of play, and the Milito/Italian influence is probably most obvious in the emphasis on maintaining the structure. We don’t need to win the ball back in three seconds to dominate Serie B. We need to make sure that when the opponent does have it, they can’t hurt us — and when we get it back, we’re in a position to hurt them.

I’ve made another little move in the centre-back department, and I think Štěpán Chaloupek could be a really useful addition to what we’re trying to build here. He’s not coming in as a glamorous signing and he’s certainly not going to replace Gil or Vogliacco, but for £70k compensation and £15k a week, I think there’s enough here to make the deal worthwhile. He’s 28, has 13 U21 caps for Czechia and, importantly for us, he’s already a player who looks comfortable with the ball rather than simply being a defensive option.

The main reason I’ve become interested in him is actually his traits. He’s got Tries Long Range Passes and Likes To Switch Ball To Wide Areas, which are both extremely relevant to the way I want this Venezia side to play. We’re going to have situations where the opposition follows one of the half-backs and leaves a centre-back free, or follows the advancing centre-back and gives the half-back room. When that free player is one of the centre-backs, I want him to be capable of recognising the opportunity and immediately looking towards the opposite wing rather than simply recycling the ball. Chaloupek already has the behaviour I’m looking for, so there’s no need to manufacture it through training.

He’s also got 14 passing, 14 tackling, 14 marking, 15 heading and 12 decisions, which gives me enough confidence that he’s not going to be a liability when he actually has to defend. The physical side is pretty good as well: 15 acceleration, 13 pace, 15 stamina and 13 natural fitness. That’s important because the OCB role I’m using isn’t particularly kind to slow centre-backs. If Gil or Vogliacco steps into midfield, the player behind him needs to be capable of recovering if the move breaks down, and Chaloupek has enough pace and stamina to do that.

There are obviously weaknesses. 11 technique isn’t ideal for a player I’m asking to receive under pressure and play progressively, and his 12 decisions means I don’t expect him to be Fagioli with a beard playing centre-back. I’m not going to ask him to dictate every possession or constantly attempt difficult passes. The idea is more that when the opportunity presents itself, he has the technical ability and, importantly, the traits to actually take it. His 10 off the ball isn’t particularly exciting either, although I’m less concerned about that in this role than I would be with one of the 10s or wing-backs.

There’s another trait that caught my eye and the main reason why I moved for him: Gets Into Opposition Area. That’s not something I’m specifically recruiting for, but it fits rather nicely with the way I want the centre-backs to behave. We’re trying to create aggressive box occupation and third-man movements, and if Chaloupek occasionally recognises that there’s an opportunity to continue his run into the opposition area, I’m certainly not going to complain. I don’t want both OCBs charging into the box every five minutes, obviously, but having another player who can make an unexpected deep run is exactly the sort of thing that can make a structured attack become more fluid.