Given that Genoa had made no less than nine managerial changes between April 2017 and November 2021, Andriy Shevchenko will have known that he’d have to hit the ground running in his first ever coaching role at club level.
But even by Genoa’s standards, Shevchenko’s 69 day, 11 game reign feels slightly on the short side.
The 2004 Ballon D’Or winner was handed his P45 over the weekend with the club just one point off the bottom of the Serie A table.
Genoa lost their first game of the post-Shevchenko era 6-0 to Fiorentina on Monday night. Clearly, the problems at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris go well beyond the identity of the man in the dugout.
And if Andriy Yarmolenko felt that a move to Italy was the change of scenery he so badly needs, Shevchenko’s unceremonious departure could pave the way for a U-turn that would give even Fabien Delph a nasty case of whiplash.
Does Andriy Yarmolenko have a future at West Ham?
It is no secret that Yarmolenko wants a fresh start.
The £17 million Ukraine international has played just 84 minutes of Premier League football this season. Nonetheless, his agent admits in that there is a ‘lot of interest’ in his 32-year-old client.
For a while, Genoa looked like, if not a likely destination, then certainly a possibility.
“As far as I know, Shevchenko wants to buy Yarmolenko,” said former Ukraine boss Yozhef Sabo in November.
Yarmolenko played under the former AC Milan and Chelsea striker for the national team. He even scored one of the Goals of the Tournament at this summer’s European Championships.
And though Shevchenko admitted that a reunion in Italy would be easier said than done due to Serie A’s stringent non-EU representation rules, an agreement between West Ham and Genoa appeared to suit all parties.
Yarmolenko needed a clean break. Shevchenko needed a game-changing forward he knows and trusts. And West Ham needed Yarmolenko’s sizeable pay-packet off their wage bill.
Where next for Yarmolenko?
But with Shevchenko packing his bags – Sheva the manager failing to emulate Sheva the player on Italian soil – Yarmolenko will have to look elsewhere for a club willing to break him free of his West Ham prison.
Then again, who else would be willing to meet the substantial wage demands of a 30-something forward who’s played less than the equivalent of one full game all season?
What’s Qatar’s diall code again?
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