Eusebio Di Francesco’s Sampdoria troubles only showed signs of worsening as he was handed a 4-1 hammering upon his return to Sassuolo’s Mapei Stadium.
Domenico Berardi stole the show with a first-half hat-trick but his goals were less a reflection of his performance and more an indictment of the mess that is Samp’s defence.
It was actually the Blucerchiati who started the better of the sides and it took two good saves from Andrea Consigli to keep them out, first stopping Jakub Jankto and then Ronaldo Vieira, these after Fabio Quagliarella fired over himself from close range.
But that was about as good as it got for them before their defensive problems were so painfully exposed.
Francesco Caputo exposed Jeison Murillo’s rashness with half an hour played. The Colombian needlessly lunged into a tackle on the sidelines beyond the halfway line and the No.9 skipped past and down the line. Reaching the byline, he knocked a ball across goal and Berardi tapped in for the opener.
The second came just six minutes later and this time it was from Berardi’s head. Alfred Duncan whipped in a cross and the enigmatic No.25 header into the bottom corner of Emil Audero’s goal.
There was still plenty of time left in the opening 45 for another and it came in the 45th minute, with this coming through Berardi’s own work. Cutting in from the right, Berardi curled a low strike from 25 yards into the far corner that Audero had no chance of stopping.
Vieira made Di Francesco’s task even harder in the half’s final seconds as he was shown a straight red card for a challenge on Federico Peluso.
The second half was barely three minutes old as three became four and Sampdoria’s backline proved to be continuing just as they were in the first. Junior Traore was the beneficiary on this occasion, slotting into the bottom corner from inside the area.
Samp did get their first goal of 2019/20 and there’s little surprise that it came through their 36-year-old forward. Quagliarella stepped up and converted a penalty with just over 20 minutes to play.
Source: forzaitalianfootball.com