Serie A 2018/19: How will Gian Piero Ventura try to save Chievo?

When Italy were knocked out of the World Cup play-offs by Sweden last year, Gian Piero Venturas reputation took a severe hit. Italy have hardly been much better under his replacement Roberto Mancini, but Ventura has been out in the cold in the unforgiving world of Italian football. But now, almost 11 months to the day since Italy failed to score at San Siro, Ventura is back. The 70-year-old has been appointed coach of Chievo Verona. It will be an even greater challenge keeping them in Serie A as they are still on minus points. Chievo will be hopeful the veteran can turn -1 into a new Serie A contract over the next seven months.

In this tactical analysis, I will look at how Gian Piero Venturas tactics will suit Chievo and if there should be hope Ventura could turn Chievos season around.

Tactical analysis: Gian Piero Venturas tactics

Ventura traditionally uses either a 3-5-2 or a 4-2-4. His style of play is extremely reminiscent of the way Antonio Conte sets his teams up. In fact, Ventura has replaced Conte twice; at Bari and with Italy. Given Chievos situation and the catastrophic nature of the 4-2-4 experiment with Italy, I think Ventura will go with 3-5-2. He used that shape very successfully at Torino where he enjoyed huge success to earn him the Italy job.

Defence

Venturas style of defence is a positionally-orientated setup. In this very organized defensive style, Ventura has launched the careers of players like Leonardo Bonucci, Andrea Ranocchia and Matteo Darmian. He wants his side to be very compact vertically and to block off the central areas for the opponent. The starting positions defensively of a Ventura team often resembles the image below. His teams dont tend to press high but rather opt for a more passive start to their defending and drop deeper. When the ball is won they often counter-attack rapidly through the front-two.

As the above image highlights Ventura, like most coaches, wants strong cover of the central areas. He wants his team to force the opponent wide where theres obviously less chance of a good chance being created and where its also easier to press the opponent.

Below, Ive created a scene focusing on how Ventura deals with the opposition full-backs. He has two ways of dealing with the wide areas. The first option is the one highlighted below and the most frequent. The ball-near central midfielder simply moves wider and press the opposition full-back. This means the wing-back stays deeper and prepares to press the opposition winger rather than pushing high on the full-back. As the central midfielder moves out to press, the other two central midfielders shift across as well to maintain compactness.