After two seasons in Serie B, Cremonese secured their promotion to Serie A following a long and gruelling 2024/2025 campaign, which saw them defeat Spezia in the play-off final.
It is essential to emphasise that Spezia were ahead of Cremonese in the standings by five points.
Still, despite this, Cremonese managed to defeat their direct opponent in a two-legged competitive battle, ultimately winning 2-3 in the away leg.
This result means that I Grigiorossi are back in Serie A after two years of absence.
With the signing of experienced Serie A head coach Davide Nicola, the club and its fans hope to guarantee their stay in Serie A for the following season and avoid relegation.
But to succeed in achieving that, Cremonese’s mission will not be easy, as the competition is high between the teams that usually play to avoid relegation.
This tactical analysis article aims to identify Cremonese’s transfer market needs that suit Davide Nicola’s philosophy.
The analysis will also examine Nicola’s playing style at Cremonese, assessing whether he can help the team avoid relegation.
Davide Nicola Style Of Play
Nicola is a former defender who has been coaching teams since 2010, starting from Lumezzane.
In 2016, he attracted the interest of Serie A newcomers Crotone and became their head coach.
He ensured that they remained in Serie A that season and avoided relegation by finishing in the 17th spot.
Following that season, he joined both Udinese and Genoa, but without notable success, before moving to Torino and helping them escape relegation after Marco Giampaolo‘s sacking in January 2021.
Nicola was then appointed head coach of Salernitana in February 2022 in an attempt to help the team avoid relegation.
He succeeded in doing so by winning 18 points in 15 matches.
This experience has helped Nicola gain a remarkable reputation as a head coach who excels at assisting teams to escape the relegation zone and preventing those just starting in Serie A from facing relegation again.
That’s one reason Cremonese opted for Nicola’s profile instead of another Serie A head coach.
The idea is to have someone who is accustomed to these kinds of situations and who would not start experimenting without considering the risk of relegation.
Nicola also led both Empoli and Cagliari to safety after battling to avoid relegation, which further confirms the Italian head coach’s experience in such missions.
It is also safe to say that he is actually considered the man of miracles in Italy, thanks to his numerous successful missions to avoid relegation with the various teams he coached.
Cremonese also decided to sack Giovanni Stroppa following their promotion to Serie A, mainly because Stroppa had previously shown himself to be more suitable for Serie B football and less successful in Serie A.
Nicola is a head coach who prefers playing with a very low defensive block, using physically powerful and aggressive defenders, especially inside the box, while ensuring that the defensive lines are very close to each other.
He also prefers dynamic midfielders with defensive abilities to help extensively in the defensive phase, while not overlooking technical midfielders.
In fact, Nicola prefers midfielders with both defensive and technical skills, but values those who are dynamic and capable of helping in covering, marking, and defending, especially when out of possession, against those who are more static and less dynamic.
This makes his teams more complicated to attack.
This idea helps Nicola’s teams reduce the spaces inside his team’s own half, with the defensive lines constantly moving and closing the spaces for passes or penetration attempts.
Davide Nicola Defensive Tactics
The following example illustrates Nicola’s use of a compact defensive line comprising five players, with a second line of four players positioned just behind the defensive line.
This means that he transforms his 3-5-2 formation into a 5-4-1 formation in the defensive phase.
Attacking-wise, Nicola believes in the importance of exploiting both wings and works a lot with the wingers to play wide as often as possible.
That’s why wing-backs often excel under his management, and the danger is usually created from those sides.
Nicola encourages his players to move towards the wings as often as possible, including midfielders.
Thanks to such situations, the team can have numerical superiority on one of the wings and penetrate towards the box.
Davide Nicola Cagliari Wing Play Goal Action
A notable example is Cagliari’s goal against Venezia in one of their recent matches last season.
Nicola’s Cagliari made a spectacular action on the left wing to create a goalscoring situation.
The quick passing and the joining of a midfielder and a wing-back to this action highlight the importance of having the players lean to the wing in Nicola’s system.
Additionally, being highly reactive and ready to move quickly or penetrate whenever possible is considered one of Nicola’s key impacts on the team.
Davide Nicola & Cremonese Formations
It is also important to note that Nicola usually prefers to play according to the 3-5-2 formation, based on the catenaccio system, even though he transforms it into the 5-4-1 formation in the defensive phase.
As an alternative, he sometimes uses the 4-4-2 formation when trying to play more attacking football, and also the 5-4-1 formation.
However, his main priority has always been the 3-5-2 formation.
Therefore, he is expected to start the season with Cremonese according to that 3-5-2 formation.
What is even more adequate for both Cremonese and Nicola is that Cremonese are already accustomed to these formations and used them last season.
This would undoubtedly make things a bit easier for the players and Nicola, as he will find players who already know how to move according to such roles.
Another fundamental aspect to focus on in Nicola’s preferred playing style is that he encourages vertical passing and vertical football.
He opposes possession-based styles and prefers a direct approach based on wing play, counterattacking, and progressive passing, especially from the wings.
Davide Nicola Crossing & Reliance On Key Strikers
He also favours crossing and prefers to have reliable strikers within the team to concretise such crosses.
Here is another confirmation that Nicola prefers wing plays, crossing, and strikers’ ability to escape from marking and be crucial in terms of finishing.
This goal action also highlights the chemistry and understanding between the player who crossed the ball and the one who finished, which is crucial to develop at Cremonese to ensure coordinated timing and avoid timing errors, whether in terms of crossing or choosing the right moment to escape marking.
Nicola’s teams are also very important because they are built to defend against counterattacks and attacking transitions well, and avoid being put in complicated situations, even against teams that rely heavily on transitions or counterattacks.
This limits the number of conceded goals for Nicola’s sides and puts teams that rely solely on a counterattacking style in trouble.
However, Nicola’s teams can suffer from one weakness related to dealing with situations during which his team has to attack to get back in the game or when the opposing side retreats to play defence only.
In such cases, Nicola’s teams face some issues because they are not accustomed to playing attacking football or staying in the opponent’s half.
Training on such scenarios and accustoming his teams to play under these circumstances, where opponents prefer to retreat, will be very beneficial, especially for Cremonese, as they will undoubtedly face direct opponents who might score one goal and retreat for the majority of the match.
Cremonese Team Analysis – Possible Player Choices & Necessary Reinforcements
Cremonese recently signed Lapo Nava from Milan Futuro for the goalkeeper role.
He will most likely be battling with Andrea Fulignati for a starting role.
Although Fulignati has more experience, Nava can be a better choice mainly because he played at a higher level at Milan despite not participating with the A team.
Defensively, Federico Ceccherini, Valentin Antov, and Matteo Bianchetti, with Francesco Folino being a promising alternative talent for the defence.
That said, adding an experienced Serie A defender to the squad will be welcomed and necessary.
Cremonese will be facing complex attacking teams and, therefore, will need an experienced Serie A defender to further guide the defence.
Furthermore, adding a more experienced and reliable left-back with better crossing attributes and increased defensive strength will greatly improve the team’s defensive compactness.
It would be perfect for Nicola to get one of his former left-backs, even though one of his best left-backs, Tommaso Augello, has just moved to Palermo.
The alternative for Augello would be Giuseppe Pezzella, who plays for Empoli and could be a great addition to Cremonese, given his experience in Serie A.
Additionally, Paulo Azzi could be a suitable option as a left-back or left wing-back.
On the right flank, Cremonese have already signed Romano Floriani Mussolini as a right-back in addition to Tommaso Barbieri.
It will be essential for Nicola to work with both players to upgrade their level and make them fit his tactics, knowing that neither of them are world-class players but one with a considerable margin of progress.
For the midfield roles, Nicola will mainly rely on Alberto Grassi, a defensive midfielder who has recently been transferred to Cremonese.
Names like Jari Vandeputte and Franco Vázquez are expected to make a significant impact on Nicola.
For the attacking roles, Nicola will most probably rely on Dennis Johnsen as the second striker, but will need a more reliable main striker than Manuel De Luca and Federico Bonazzoli, even though Bonazzoli can be useful on certain occasions.
Conclusion
Nicola is capable of making Cremonese challenge for higher spots in the standings and avoid the relegation zone.
That said, a few deals will be needed during the transfer window to add more Serie A-level players, particularly in the striker role, midfield, defence, and especially on the left wing.
It will be interesting to see how Davide Nicola tactics influence Cremonese and if he is able to keep them in Serie A for another season.
