New Genoa coach Alexander Blessin insists they have ‘nothing to lose’ and described his style of football as ‘aggressive in every moment.’
The German was a surprise pick for the role after Davide Ballardini and then Andriy Shevchenko were sacked this season, leaving the club in the Serie A drop zone.
They bought him out of his contract with Belgian club KV Oostende, reportedly at a cost of €1.5m, and Blessin had his first training session with the team today.
“My football is high-speed football and pressing. Genoa for me means a traditional club, big club, nine times champions of Serie A, crazy fans, positive fans, and all this makes this club so good,” Blessin told Genoa Channel.
“This situation needs the fans, the club, the staff, the team to work together and do everything to make the best out of this situation.
“We have at the moment nothing to lose, so this is showing the right mentality to come back.”
It’s hardly accurate to say Genoa have nothing to lose, seeing as they run the very real risk of relegation from Serie A.
They have a big relegation dogfight coming up with Udinese this weekend.
“I want my players to show mentality, that they are willing to play our style of football and being ugly for any opponent.
“Every game is important, for sure, it’s only about three points, but I want grit on the pitch, for us to play ugly with the right mentality, speed, play forward and be aggressive in every moment.”
General manager Johannes Spors explained the reasoning behind Genoa hiring Blessin on a contract to June 2024, a long-term project with a coach who came from the RB Leipzig school working under Ralf Rangnick.
“The choice of Blessin is a clear decision from our club to go in a certain direction. He has a clear playing style, he is a coach full of energy and positive emotion and this is what we need in this very difficult situation.
“He is also a choice for the future, to help us develop the club and players. Our philosophy will be an attractive, offensive playing style where we try to win the ball, have more transition movements, more speed on the pitch.
“In this moment, we need to act as a team. The coach and me will go in the same direction, very active together and speak the same football language. It’s important that everyone follows this same direction as a team.”
Lets hope its a long term project and they have lost hope of staying up because that would take a miracle and they cant get a coach able to do that. So, let Blessin express himself in serie b and see what he is all about wothout firing him before end of this season because he cant do the impossible