Serie A

Genoa Fire Luigi De Canio

Genoa have fired Luigi De Canio following the 4-2 defeat to Roma at the weekend, becoming the fourth manager to lose his job in Serie A this season.

Genoa led 2-0 in after 15 minutes, but could hold on to the lead and that was enough for Genoa president Enrico Preziosi to fire De Canio. The question that has to be asked of Preziosi is why now? If De Canio was one performance away from being fired, why not do it two weeks ago during the international break? That way the new manager would have had a little bit of time to work with the squad for the Roma match.

Preziosi has explained the thinking behind axing De Canio, telling the ANSA news agency:

“At this time it was right to change, I immediately took Del Neri because I was afraid he was going to be somewhere else.”

By Del Neri, Preziosi is referring to former Juventus coach Luigi Del Neri who is the club’s favoured choice to replace De Canio.

And the Genoa chief confirmed that he would be willing to strengthen the playing squad in January in a bid to avoid a relegation battle.

“Reinforcements arrive in January,” Preziosi added.

This just strikes me as a strange firing. Not only timing of it, but Genoa are currently ninth in the table, so its not as if they are deep in a relegation battle.