The reserves that do best in Serie A and the teams that use the benches best – Corriere.it

With other purposes, but the Little Prince also said it: it is the time you have lost for your rose that has made your rose so important. But there is pink and pink. And the one in the hands of the coaches can bloom this spring or lose petals at the first gust of wind. Simone Inzaghi he begins his fiery April with nine games without the playmaker who made him turn around in October after a creepy start: Hakan Calhanoglu will be out at least twenty days due to a first-degree strain to the adductor of his right thigh and will miss the first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final against Juve, hoping to be there in the second leg (April 26). The recovery in view of the Champions League quarter-final with Benfica in 19 is more complicated.

It’s up to Brozovic

From the shadow of the bench he therefore emerges in a stable manner Marcelo Brozovic: who knows if being the undisputed starter will benefit the Croatian who between an injury and a relapse focused his season on the World Cup, has lost his position as starting director, probably also for the future. But the problem now is the bench, which is getting shorter: Asllani, who will have to give Brozovic a break, played little, missed a goal in the final at the Camp Nou and even in Albania he is still too shy to give guarantees.

Now you need those: you need people who come in and change your game. And that they are not sentences of circumstance is confirmed by two facts: once at a disadvantage, Inter who have lost 9 games out of 27, have only come back from Atalanta and Cremonese. So Inzaghi’s changes have little effect (Will Correa be able to silence the boos at San Siro before it’s too late?), with 7 goals but just 2 points earned (in Lecce, on matchday one with Dumfries scoring in the final fray). Not only that: tomorrow Vincenzo Italiano’s Fiorentina will arrive in Milan, the very team that uses the most five substitutions and the one that – after record-breaking Napoli – has earned the most points (7) thanks to the 10 goals of its substitutes.

The Gold Reservists

The gold reservists curiously for now have all been brought into line by Daniel Ciofani, striker from Cremonese last in the standings, capable of scoring 4 times as a substitute. The other specialists are co-owners who have their status weighed when they join. But so far they are all still at 3 points: Jovic from Fiorentina, Beto from Udinese, Simeone and Lozano from Naples, Dia from Salernitana and Luis Alberto from Lazio. The case of Sassuolo is noteworthy, which scored 6 goals and earned 6 points (the best after Napoli and Fiorentina) but all with different players.

If Spezia is the only one who has not scored a point with the bench, it is striking that Juve too, like Inter, have earned just 2 points from all the changes made, scoring just 4 goals (only six teams have scored fewer goals of the bianconeri from the substitutes). Allegri however instead of losing key men like Inzaghi with Calhanoglu, finds Arkadiusz Milik again
after two months of absence: on the bench (he scored his first goal as a substitute) or as a starter, sole striker, connection striker, where you put the Pole, he’s staying. And he may be the extra man in this long two-month sprint.

Milan uses the bench little

Not that Stefano Pioli with his Milan has squeezed so much more out of those who leave the tracksuit: 5 goals that have yielded 3 points. Origi (scoring in the defeat against Sassuolo) and De Ketelaere, still dry, remain a hope, even if the triple challenge against Napoli also reveals this difference with Spalletti, who received 10 points (and 13 goals) from his substitutes, or those of Milan, Juve, Inter and Atalanta put together: a figure that once again confirms the Neapolitan dominance. But also the thorns of the other roses. Though not all the time wasted.