THE FIORENTINA PROJECT — JANUARY ’26
“22 shots, one goal, and a man in my DMs asking me to save the game again”
There is a particular kind of madness that FM breeds in a man, and it is this: I finished January sitting 3rd in Serie A, having won the Supercoppa, reached my third cup semi-final in a row, qualified for the Champions League knockouts and beaten Milan, Juventus and Ajax — and my overriding emotion was still, somehow, grievance. Grievance at xG. Grievance at Isak. Grievance at a man called Iain
Let us begin, as all good months do, with paperwork.
The Window
By the time the shutters came down I’d spent £218m across the season and clawed £134m back, which either makes me a shrewd operator or a man laundering money for the Della Valle family. The headline January business was already done — Endrick from Real Madrid (£32.5m), Lucca hijacked from you-know-who at Udinese (£11.75m), and Mamardashvili prised out of Liverpool (£40m rising to a frankly threatening £67m). But deadline day is where character is revealed, and mine revealed itself as needy.
Marc Cucurella arrived on loan from Chelsea. The board, who spend most of their waking hours reminding me we are a Vision Club For The Under-23s, immediately filed a passive-aggressive note pointing out that Cucurella is 29 and “doesn’t immediately appear to align with the club’s objective.” Reader, I signed a 29-year-old full-back on deadline day and asked Marc Pubill to go and make him feel welcome. The fans gave it a B-. I gave it a shrug. We needed a left-back who has met a professional footballer before.
The Kayode pursuit collapsed. Brentford, who apparently understand the concept of a right-back better than I do, told me to go away. So the RB hole remains a hole, plugged by Pubill and — crucially — by Cristian Mosquera, who was the subject of feverish deadline-day interest from Bournemouth, Brentford and West Ham. I turned them all down. A quality backup who can play three positions and never complains is worth his weight in gold, and I have learned the hard way what happens when you sell those men.
Which brings us to Álvaro Fidalgo. Fidalgo was unhappy about being left out of the Champions League squad and made his feelings known, so he made his departure to Sunderland for £11.75m, with — and I want this on the record — my very fondest wishes. Ben Doak, dropped from the same squad for the twin crimes of overcrowding and a torn calf, took the news in good spirits. Which is a relief, because that boy is violent enough already.
And then there was the one that hurt. Napoli came in for Francesco Pio Esposito — my Italian son, the teenager I plucked from obscurity and built half a plan around. He wanted to go. So I did the paternal thing: I looked him in the eye, wished him well, and slapped a £26m asking price on his head. Napoli, to their eternal shame and my quiet relief, didn’t meet it. He stays until summer. But something has broken between us now, and if the right number arrives in June, I will sign the form without a tremor in my hand.
One piece of good news to leaven the ledger: Amir Richardson is back from AFCON, and not a moment too soon. Fagioli has turned to glass, Mandragora is still knitting himself back together, and my midfield had begun to resemble a triage tent. Richardson walked back in and immediately looked like the best of them.
The Football, Such As It Was
Here is the tactical fixation I would like to enter into evidence this month: we cannot stop generating chances, and we cannot stop making it hard for ourselves.
Juventus (H), 1-0. A tight, grinding win in which the single most important human being on the pitch was Giorgi Mamardashvili, £40m of goalkeeper doing £67m of work. Not pretty. Three points. Next.
Ajax (H), 1-0. Now. I want you to sit with these numbers. Twenty-two shots. Ten on target. 3.21 xG. Thirteen corners. Ajax had zero shots. Not one. Not a single attempt at goal for ninety minutes. And we won 1-0, through Harvey Elliott, and I spent the last twenty minutes with my head in my hands like a man watching his own funeral. Sweet Lord, why do they do this to me. Iain, ever the diplomat, popped up mid-match to inform me he was “glad Roma are suffering in 11th.” Small mercies, Iain. Small mercies.
Venezia (H), 4-1. They dared to go 1-0 up through Venturi, at which point we remembered we were the better team, scored four (Elliott, Lucca, Endrick, and a Lucca penalty in stoppage time), and got a Venezia man sent off for good measure. Comfortable in the end. It’s the “in the end” that ages you.
Liverpool (A), 0-3. Ah. Yes. This one is on me and I will not pretend otherwise. We were holding them — genuinely, defiantly holding Isak and Wirtz and Szoboszlai at arm’s length — and at half-time, in a moment of tactical genius that I can only assume was a stroke, I changed my defenders. Isak scored in the 48th minute. Then he scored again in the 49th. By the time Szoboszlai added a third I had stopped watching and started grieving. “Can you hit save one more time please,” asked Iain, who watches my suffering the way other people watch box sets. We were through to the Round of 16 regardless — 7th in the league phase, direct qualification secured — but I’d like the 48th and 49th minutes of my life back.
Cesena (A), 2-1. The now-traditional away banana skin. 3.84 xG to 0.69 and it was nervy. Lucca scored early, Miretti missed a penalty because of course he did, Cesena equalised, and then Lucca — 9.0, man of the match, the best £11.75m I’ve spent — won it late with an assist from Mosquera, the man three Premier League clubs wanted that same week. Lucca then had a stoppage-time third chalked off for offside, which felt like the universe reminding me not to enjoy anything for too long. Fifteen league goals now. I’d marry him if the board wouldn’t file a note about it.
The Coppa: A Third Semi-Final in a Row
Fiorentina 3-2 Milan. The pick of the month and the one that actually made me feel something warm. Nkunku put them ahead from the spot inside ten minutes — and then the game turned on a moment I have watched eleven times and still cannot fully explain. The official record says Chalobah own goal, 13th minute. My eyes, and my heart, insist it was a Harvey Elliott wonderstrike that a defender happened to be standing in front of. I’ll let history decide. Either way: 1-1.
Richardson, back from Africa and clearly in the mood, gave us the lead (7.8, superb). Nkunku dragged Milan level again with a quarter of an hour left. And then, when it mattered, Fabio Miretti won it in the 81st minute — the assist coming from Cucurella, welcomed to the club barely 48 hours earlier and already justifying the deadline-day panic. 3-2. Samu Omorodion started his debut up top and did enough to suggest there’s a player there, before I hauled him off at half-time to protect his delicate ligaments, which have the structural integrity of wet paper. Three semi-finals in three years. Next up: Napoli, over two legs, in late February.
Where We Stand — Serie A (after 4 February 2026)
| POS | TEAM | P | W | D | L | GD | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Inter | 23 | 17 | 3 | 3 | +39 | 54 |
| 2 | Bologna | 23 | 15 | 4 | 4 | +20 | 49 |
| 3 | Fiorentina | 22 | 14 | 5 | 3 | +27 | 47 |
| 4 | Napoli | 22 | 15 | 2 | 5 | +14 | 47 |
| 5 | Atalanta | 23 | 13 | 7 | 3 | +17 | 46 |
| 6 | Milan | 22 | 13 | 5 | 4 | +30 | 44 |
| 7 | Lazio | 22 | 12 | 5 | 5 | +13 | 41 |
| 8 | Juventus | 23 | 12 | 2 | 9 | +22 | 38 |
| 9 | Cagliari | 23 | 10 | 7 | 6 | -1 | 37 |
| 10 | Monza | 23 | 9 | 6 | 8 | -3 | 33 |
| 11 | Roma | 23 | 9 | 5 | 9 | +5 | 32 |
| 12 | Torino | 23 | 8 | 6 | 9 | -9 | 30 |
| 13 | Sassuolo | 23 | 7 | 5 | 11 | -7 | 26 |
| 14 | Palermo | 23 | 8 | 1 | 14 | -19 | 25 |
| 15 | Cremonese | 23 | 6 | 4 | 13 | -19 | 22 |
| 16 | Udinese | 23 | 5 | 3 | 15 | -21 | 18 |
| 17 | Cesena | 23 | 4 | 5 | 14 | -28 | 17 |
Third, 47 points, a game in hand. Inter (54) have pulled clear, Bologna (49) sit just ahead, and Napoli are breathing on my neck, level on 47. It is a four-horse race and I am the horse with the best xG and the worst blood pressure.
Champions League: Round of 16, drawn in early March, opponent still unknown.
Coppa Italia: Semi-final first leg, 25 February, vs Napoli.
Now the run doesn’t stop — it sharpens. Roma at home on Saturday, in gusty light snow at -1°C, Fagioli out with a twisted ankle and Doak’s calf still doubtful. Then Torino away, Inter at home, Napoli in the cup, Bologna away. Halfway through the brutal stretch and, against all my instincts and most of my defending, still standing.
All going well. I’d feel better about that sentence if I believed it.
