Fiorentina have sacked Fabio Grosso after just three games. Three defeats — against Roma, Frosinone, and Torino — and sporting director Fabio Paratici had seen enough, pulling the plug and bringing Paolo Vanoli back to Florence mere months after showing him the door at the end of the 2025-26 season.
It's a decision that tells you more about Fiorentina's dysfunction than Grosso's ability. Eight of the eleven players who started against Torino were summer signings. The squad was completely rebuilt around him, including a last-day sale of Moise Kean and a late replacement in Beto from Everton. Three games in, they expected cohesion. That's not a football decision — that's panic.
Vanoli returns to a team he doesn't recognise
Vanoli kept Fiorentina in Serie A last season during a genuinely difficult campaign. That's why his summer exit was strange. Now he's back, inheriting a patchwork squad mid-rebuild, with no pre-season and no goodwill runway. The irony is that everything making life difficult for Grosso will make life difficult for Vanoli too. The players haven't changed. The lack of chemistry hasn't changed. Only the name on the office door has.
Fiorentina's season odds just got more complicated, not less. Vanoli is a capable coach, but stability is the one thing this club needed and consistently refuses to provide itself.
Meanwhile, the player they sold in a panic — Moise Kean — came off the bench on his Como debut and immediately assisted in a 4-1 win away at Genoa. Under Cesc Fabregas, Kean has a system that suits his movement and a manager who trusts him. Two years ago at Fiorentina under Palladino, he scored 25 goals in all competitions. If he replicates anything close to that form, the Viola board will be watching from a very uncomfortable seat. Kean in Fabregas's Como is a genuine Serie A Golden Boot outsider worth tracking.
Juventus are waiting for Kolo Muani to exist
In Turin on Sunday, Juventus drew 1-1 with AC Milan. Federico Gatti's late equaliser saved them from a loss, but it did nothing to solve the actual problem: Randal Kolo Muani has yet to score this season, and his performances have been unconvincing enough that fans and staff are visibly restless.
Spalletti is backing him publicly. "I'm sticking with him. We'll see at the end where that takes us," he told DAZN after the draw. That's either genuine conviction or the kind of thing managers say before the axe falls. Nick Woltemade showed flickers of promise as a substitute, but he's nowhere near ready to carry a Juventus attack week-to-week.
The deeper issue is Kenan Yildiz, out for at least three months. Yildiz was the unpredictability in Juventus's attacking third — the player who could do something no one else in the squad can do. Without him, teams know exactly what they're facing. A striker who isn't scoring, a system that's becoming readable. Juventus are listed among the Scudetto contenders at most books, but they look nothing like a title-winning attack right now.
