Who On Earth Is… Rolando Bianchi?

If the sign of a good striker is scoring goals whilst playing in a poor team, then Manchester City’s latest acquisition Rolando Bianchi must be a fine player.

Last season with Reggina, he and his strike parter, the veteran Nicola Amoruso, netted 35 Serie A goals between them. With Reggina having been docked 11 points at the start of the season due to the ‘Calciopoli’ scandal, Bianchi’s emergence as an effective target man was central to them avoiding relegation.

Bianchi is a 5′10″ striker with an eye for goal and a decent amount of craftsmanship. He is considered by Gianfranco Zola, amongst others, as being one of the best young forwards in the Italian game. Italy is a country where strikers tend to bounce around the smaller clubs until their mid-twenties – Christian Vieri played for Torino, Pisa, Ravenna, Venezia and Atalanta before joining Juventus at 23 – and peak later in their career. Luca Toni did not win his first cap until he was 27, now he has 12 international goals in his locker.

So it shouldn’t concern City fans that Bianchi is yet to be capped by Roberto Donadoni or his predecessor Marcello Lippi. A bigger puzzle for Sven-Göran Eriksson will be how to use him. Bianchi’s partner at Reggina, Nicola Amoruso, is a 6′1″ target-man, but attempting to re-creating that balance with one of City’s ineffectual giants in Georgios Samaras or Bernardo Corradi may test the patience of the Eastlands fans.

Will Bianchi prove to be a success at City? Share your views by leaving a comment below.