Corradi set to return home

Jettisoned from the side in recent weeks as one of the culprits behind the woeful 'goals for' column this season, Bernardo Corradi has hardly done his chances of forcing his way back into the side with a critique of both manager Stuart Pearce and captain Richard Dunne:

"Pearce is a pure English coach. He never knows how the
opposition plays because they do not sit here and study their next opponents.
"If that was not enough, the morning before the Cup quarterfinals I read in
a newspaper that (Richard) Dunne, the captain, had attacked the foreign players
here."

The MEN described Corradi this week as the 'Italian hitman' - something which alone should have seen them subject to libel action, and it has been apparant that Corradi has struggled to adapt to the Premiership this season after enjoying a (relatively) succesful Serie A career and appears likely that he may return back to Italy (with former club Lazio reportedly keen) just one season into a (at least a season too long) three year deal.

Whilst it may be dismissed as ramblings of a failing 'johnny foreigner', his comments regarding Pearce perhaps expose a worrying lack of preparation by Pearce and the coaching staff when it comes to analysing and assessing forthcoming opponents.

In Italy, this is an area that is still ahead of the Premiership in general terms (although Benitez and Mourinho are probably on par), but added to critcisms of the training methods at the club it does paint a worrying picture of what goes on at the club when preparing for games, and, is perhaps easy to see why some of the foreign players are somewhat disillusioned.