I have decided to revert from the half-season updates back to the seasonal reviews. Put simply, it is a much easier process for me and means I don’t end up putting the game on pause for days halfway through a season when I don’t have time to write up the posts.

Following back-to-back promotions, the board finally saw some sense and decided that this season our sole aim should be to avoid relegation, even if it came by way of keeping ourselves up by scraping through the relegation playoffs, we would be able to class the season as a success.

Transfers

Prior to this summer, we had only ever brought in 2 or 3 players per window to strengthen the squad but with the club jumping into the professional leagues we would need to bring in a few additional faces on top of that in order to be able to survive.

But with the board giving us a hugely improved wage budget of £22.5k per week, against the £7k we were spending at the tail end of last season and a step up in division it made sense to make some big changes to the squad. In the end, we brought in 10 players, 4 on loan deals with 6 arriving on permanent contracts. Followed by a further 2 new faces in January.

Neither Roberto Di Jenno nor Christian Scorza made the grade with the former eventually leaving the side to join FC Südtirol for £10k in January with the latter only making 1 start and 4 appearances from the bench over the course of the entire season.

The other 8 summer signings were all first-teamers, relegating some of the key players from last season to the bench but the majority of them could easily be labeled as big improvements on their new teammates.

Alessandro Dalmazzi joined from Serie C/C side Campobasso and would be the new centre-back partner for Ryan Nolan. He didn’t really have much game time last season but attribute wise he edges out the ageing Gentili, defensively at least.

Christian Arboleda was granted the number 3 shirt and would become a first-team regular, primarily playing as left-back but doubling up to play on the opposite flank when fellow summer signing Alex Arnofoli, who joined on a season-long loan deal from Bologna, was unavailable or needed a rest.

Talented Albanian striker Brijan Ibrahimi joined from Alessandria and would become arguably the club’s best player, adding goals and assists galore endearing himself to the Livorno fans in the process.

Alessandro Bordin signed on a free following his release from Fidelis Andria after they suffered relegation to Serie D, two seasons prior he cost them £170k, a whopping outlay for clubs at this level.

The last 3 of the summer were all loan signings, Gaetano Oristanio from Inter Milan along with Giacomo Olzer and Angelo Dario, both from Brescia. All with the added bonus that we are paying nothing towards their wages whilst they play for us.

In January we made a further two signings, both youngsters. 16-year-old Mattia Taranto became the first player we forked out money for, granted it was only £5.75k with a sell-on fee included but he does look like a talented kid. Andrea Ferri was the other player to arrive, an 18-year-old from Forli. Both players were in and around the first team from the moment they joined.

On The Pitch

Serie C Coppa Italia

It was a short lived run in the cup for us this season, being knocked out in the 3rd round following a 2-0 loss to Foggia, who made beating us look easy despite the low scoreline.

Prior to that we disposed of Paganese 6-2 on aggregate, winning 0-3 and 3-2 then beating Follonica Gavorrano by the same aggregate scoreline with 2-1 and 2-4 victories.

The competition was not a focus for us and in all honesty, being knocked out early allowed us to focus solely on the league.

Serie C

Anything above 16th place and the season would be a success, and looking at how the league ended the last few seasons the points target would be 42, which has been enough to avoid the playoffs in recent years.

An opening day victory over Fermana seen us to a flying start but we were quickly brought back down to earth with a loss against Arezzo as we headed into a busy September. A further 7 points earned out of a possible 12, with both wins coming against fellow relegation candidates seen us end the first full month of league fixtures in a comfortable 9th position

To go the entire month of October undefeated, 6 league games was no mean feat however there were only 2 victories in there, picking up maximum points against Pistoiese and Ancona Matelica with the other 4 ending in draws. If I had been asked prior to the season starting would I be happy with only suffering 2 losses from the opening 12 games I’d have bitten your hand off.

We grabbed to wins to kick of November quickly followed by back to back defeats, which seemed to kick the team into life as it started us on a 3 month unbeaten run from December through to the end of February.

Granted, only 5 of those 12 matches were victories but it showed that we could cut it in Serie C, and does give me hope for next season. Only 4 losses so far this season but a whopping 12 draws along with the 12 wins.

We had hit the 42 points at the start of February and with the threat of relegation now at the back of our minds it was time to see how high we could actually finish in our debut season. With playoff spots for finishing between 2nd to 11th, allowing for the potential of promotion, and currently sat in 8th, we couldn’t do the unthinkable and get back to back to back promotions. Could we?!

A defeat at the beginning of March would prove to be a kick up the backside as we then won 4 and drew 1 of our next 5 matches putting us in an unexpected 6th place heading into the final few games of the season. We then lost our bounce and suffered 3 defeats in a row dropping from 6th to 9th in the league but a victory over Sambenedettese on the final day of the season put us into 8th place.

To put it into perspective, the other six of the other 9 sides who won promotion to the three Serie C divisions last season have gone straight back down with the other 2 only narrowly avoiding relegation by finishing just above the playoff spots. Something which really never looked to be on the cards for us as we sat just above mid-table all season.

The 8th place meant we were into the playoffs, and drawn against Reggiana who finished one spot behind us in the table. After an evenly contested 81 minutes, we took the lead through an own goal scored by center-back Paolo Rozzio and looked to be on our way to securing a spot in the 2nd round. The lead was short-lived as Riccardo Ciervo equalized less than 120 seconds later.

At this point, I was resigned to the match going into extra time or penalties. However, a quirky rule in the playoffs meant that the higher positioned side in the league table automatically goes through in the event of a draw after 90 minutes!

That is where our adventure ended though, as we were drawn against 4th placed Serie C/C side Reggina who spanked us 3-0 to end whatever outside chance of promotion we had. They would eventually go to on to win the playoff final taking the 4th and final spot in next seasons Serie B.

Finances

The club was bought over between the end of last season and this one starting, and although there was no initial investment they took out a loan of £425k to wipe out our negative bank balance. They also invested money fairly regularly throughout the season, totalling £475k leaving us sitting in a healthy position of -£69k come the end of the season.

We are still to receive this seasons prize money for our finish in the league so we should actually be in the black come the in game date where that is issued.

Our wage budget for next season has been reduced from £22.5k p/w to £17.5k p/w but as we were £10k under budget anyway, I still have some wiggle room to play with heading into the new season!

Round Up

An excellent season by all means, much better than I had hoped for or expected. The players have all adapted well to the rigourous demands of going full time, all switching over upon being offered new deals following promotion last year.

We also had an overhaul on the staffing side, making numerous changes to improve the standards right across the board, and while still nowhere near where the some of the other sides are in terms of strength in our coaching there have been inroads made in getting there.

Next season, I am aiming to again finish in the top half and maybe have an outside chance of promotion via the playoffs but realistically, I don’t see us going up at our 2nd attempt either. While the board have already said that avoiding relegation is their priority so we should be all good on that front, I’d hope!

As always, I hope you enjoyed the update, and look forward to hearing any feedback or answering any questions you may have. Hopefully it won’t take me three weeks between updates like it has this time! Retweets, likes and follows on Twitter are always appreciated.