Carlos Cuesta joined Parma from Arsenal in June.
The Spaniard was Mikel Arteta’s assistant for five years before he moved to Italy.
While the move to Parma was seen as a coup in Italy, hype has faded quickly.
Cuesta’s side are 15th in the table and have only six points in seven games. They’ve scored the second-lowest number of goals in the campaign so far.
Journalist Giuseppe Pastore spoke to Cronache di Spogliatoio about ex-Arsenal assistant’s impact. Cuesta has been accused of playing ‘negative’ football.
He said, relayed by ParmaLive: “Arteta and Arsenal’s style of play, a team that almost always scores from set pieces, has not exactly been Las Vegas, and so being Spanish isn’t enough to play well.”
Arsenal have more individual talent
Pastore further noted how Parma have recently broken records for generating very low xG numbers in Serie A.
“Cuesta was chosen by CEO Cherubini, who had him at Juventus in the youth academy, and then he went to Arsenal. Honestly, beyond the normal experience he needs, Parma would be safe right now, so evidently it’s not even like the results against him. He’s playing negative football, with a record 0.03, 0.05 expected goals, which is the lowest figure ever recorded at least in the last two seasons.”
The journalist further claimed that Cuesta’s side barely seem to try new things in attack.
“Above all, it’s a team that almost doesn’t seem interested. They don’t try and fail, they don’t even seem interested in posing any danger.”
Cuesta is still early in his managerial career, and is managing a side which struggled for large parts of last season. Indeed, that’s why there was a vacancy.
His approach to games has mirrored Arteta’s system, though. Parma barely create any clear-cut opportunities and the Arsenal manager’s influence is clear to see on a weekly basis.
Parma, notably, don’t have the individual talent of Arsenal to produce moments.