A couple of Serie A strikers were consistently productive in the last month, Krzysztof Piatek and Arkadiusz Milik, but not enough to crack the EuroFantasyLeague Team of the Month. However, it might be cliché, but the Italian league is still very well represented in the most recent edition thanks to a plethora of defenders and Torino’s goalie Salvatore Sirigu, who trailed only to Sergio Aguero in the monthly tally.
Walter Mazzarri has always been known for his defensive style, which sometimes is even a little excessive and takes away from the other side of the ball, but they painted a masterpiece this month with four clean sheets, a total of five straight considering also the final game of January, and there were not many freebies either because they stymied Inter, SPAL, Udinese, Napoli and Atalanta.
The goalkeeper had his best performance against Udinese, where he saved a Rodrigo De Paul penalty with a superb dive on his left and also earlier had a great coming out on the onrushing Ignacio Pussetto.
He was understandably busy in Naples too, where he somehow deflected with his leg a sure-fire attempt by Lorenzo Insigne, tipped over the bar a precise long-range strike by Fabian Ruiz and batted away a sudden shoot by Arkadiusz Milik from the middle of the box. Another notable save was on a Jasmin Kurtic’s free kick from downtown against SPAL.
Obviously luck always plays a part in such a long stretch of clean sheets and he was a little fortunate against the Friulani, where a goal was disallowed by a VAR review for a slight offside of Kevin Lasagna, who obstructed the goalie’s vision on a successful effort by Stefano Okaka, and at the San Paolo Stadium, where Insigne hit the post with a curled shot and the Partenopei attackers missed the mark on other juicy chances.
The Torino back-line not only engulfed opponents, and the Atalanta clash was splendid in that regard, but also had an active role in their wins, since Armando Izzo broke the deadlock against the Goddess pouncing on a loose ball after a set piece and Ola Aina solved the fixture against the Zebrette with a header on open play. The two teammates join the goalie thanks to the 20+ point haul they have been able to put together in February.
The final Serie A representative was Emiliano Moretti, who racked up 19 points, filling in for either Nicolas N’Koulou or Koffi Djidji, same as an ex-Granata, Nikola Maksimovic, who has stepped up for Napoli after Raul Albiol went under the knife for a knee problem. The Azzurri too were able to tighten up in the back in the last month and did not concede a single goal, but their rotation on goal between Alex Meret and David Ospina did not allow one of them to tie Sirigu.
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