Torino’s centre pairing is dragging them down

Football is a game of partnerships. A strike duo, a centre-back pairing, the full-back and winger who overlap and underlap. At Torino this season, the central midfield axis of Marco Gnecchi and Dario Ceglia has become a question of arithmetic, and the sums do not flatter.

With both men on the pitch, Torino have played 14 matches, winning one, drawing five and losing eight. They have scored 14 goals and conceded 25. In the four games where one of the pair has been absent, the record flips: three wins, one draw, no defeats, nine scored and four conceded. The contrast is stark enough to make a statistician blink.

Gnecchi, 33, arrived on a free from Atalanta in the summer of 2062. Ceglia, 29, has been at the club since 2055, when he moved from Brescia for £4.1m. Neither has ever played for Italy, and both are the sort of unglamorous grafters who hold squads together. Individually, their numbers are respectable: Gnecchi has 451 career club appearances and 28 goals; Ceglia has 332 and 13. Together this season, they are a drag.

The pattern is not new. In late November, Brescia punished wasteful Torino, with the midfield overrun and chances squandered. A month earlier, Brenna spared Torino’s blushes against Perugia after a half-time reshuffle. The common thread is a side that looks unbalanced when Gnecchi and Ceglia share the pitch. Remove one, and Torino suddenly become compact, direct and hard to beat.

Both players are understood to be unhappy with their current form, their morale low after a run of results that has left Torino languishing. Gnecchi, a model professional who plays anywhere he is asked, is not the type to complain. Ceglia, equally consistent but with no deep loyalty to any badge, is the sort to quietly consider his options. Neither has said a word in public, but the numbers speak loudly.

The sample is small, and four games without one of the pair is a thin basis for a verdict. Yet the trend is consistent with the eye test: Torino’s midfield lacks legs when both start. The club’s title-winning sides of the late 1940s were built on a different kind of pairing, one that dominated matches. This one is being dominated.

The question for Torino’s coaching staff is whether to persist with a failing formula or break it up. The data suggests the latter. A struggling partnership can sometimes be fixed with a tweak of roles or a change of shape. But when the alternative is so clearly better, sentiment is a luxury a mid-table side cannot afford.

Monday’s papers will carry another story about a war of words elsewhere in Italian football, a reminder that drama sells. But for Torino, the quieter story is in the numbers: a partnership that is costing points, a team that is better without its two most experienced midfielders on the pitch at the same time. The arithmetic is unforgiving.