Debut Review: Francesco Pisano

Well this signing came out of the blue didn’t it! Bolton Wanderers were chasing Francesco Pisano seemingly all summer and finally landed their man after the sale of Tim Ream. Having read a series of reports on Pisano over the summer I have to say I am excited to be welcoming him to the club, if he can live up to what has been written about him he will make a great asset of that I have no doubt.

Pisano made his debut for the club against Brighton and Hove Albion so here is a lowdown on the Italian defender!

Pisano was born in Cagiari and had played solely for Cagiari Calcio mainly in Serie A. He was released at the end of last season after the club was unsuccessful in their fight against relegation from Serie A.

Pisano can play anywhere on the right but most regularly played at right back where he is described as using his pace to great effect. Now anyone who read my article on Lawrie Wilson will know how excited I was to have a right back in the squad at long last! Now that we have two it is like all my Christmas’ have come at once! Well it’s actually a lot better than that I don’t really like Christmas very much, but you catch my drift… It is fantastic that the club has gone from a position of having no right back to having two right backs who can hopefully provide healthy competition to each other.

It is also worth noting that as a player who can play anywhere on the right he will no doubt be well suited to playing wing back. Now I had also thought this of Lawrie Wilson who had also been used as a right midfielder and right winger while at Stevenage Borough. But despite that he was not used when Lennon used a three at the back system in that match I like to pretend never happened against some unimportant team from Middlesbrough. But his versatility down that flank will no doubt come in helpful, anyone who has read my previous articles knows that I am obsessed with versatility.

This for me also raises a question of whether there will be some games where we play both Wilson and Pisano on the right. Now this would be a very negative move, but considering that both can play in a more attacking position it may occasionally be advantageous to play both on the right to add some extra defensive steal to the team, maybe it will allow us to avoid another harrowing defeat such as against Middlesbrough and Huddersfield Town.

Now I know some people will be thinking having read that ‘Jamie did you go to a Dougie Freedman seminar on how to line your team up in the most boring way possible in order to make fans wish that they had stayed away?’

The answer to that is no (though I bet he would make a killing running those seminars), and I would not advocate that kind of tactic be used often especially now we have Wellington Silva, Tom Walker and Liam Feeney who I would want to see them play most games. But there are without a doubt teams in this league far better than us, and the use of a right back who can play further forward on the wing/ in midfield for those games may be a sensible move.

Having said that Huddersfield are not one of those teams and we still got crushed so maybe it’s an irrelevant idea.

At the very least the fact that he can play further forward offers more depth to an area where we only have three players on our books and one of them is on loan!

As for his debut itself Pisano is described as having been solid in defence but being underutilised in attack in one article I read, I think on this site but who knows. It is good to hear that he was solid at the back. The one positive of the season so far of course is that the defence, in the most part, has been solid so the fact that he can fit into that is great. It is a shame to hear he was not utilised going forward though. I had been put under the impression that this was a major asset of his. But hopefully as he plays more the rest of the team will tune in more to his run and we can make more use out of him going forward.

After a solid debut we can only hope it’s onwards and upwards for Pisano now that he has left Cagiari and become a Wanderer!