Torino's 2019/20 season ended up lasting well over a year and for most of their supporters it was a long old slog.
After guiding them to an excellent 7th place finish last season, Walter Mazzarri led his side into the Europa League qualifying rounds in July. Unfortunately for the Granata they drew strong Premier League side Wolves and were outclassed over two legs, falling at the final hurdle.
Torino made a decent start domestically, kicking the league season off with back-to-back wins including a wonderful come-from-behind win at Atalanta. Inconsistency started to creep in though and they won just once in their next 9 Serie A matches. That was virtually the story of the season for the Granata as they would get a string of good results and then fall off a cliff.
A revival in form towards the end of the year with 5 wins in 8 league games gave Toro hope of another European finish but then they went into a completely meltdown. They lost 6 games in a row before the Coronavirus pandemic struck, some of them embarrassingly so. A 7-0 home drubbing by Atalanta was followed by a 4-0 defeat at lowly Lecce, making Mazzarri's position untenable.
Samuele Longo came in and couldn't stop the rot, taking charge of 3 of those 6 defeats before the COVID-19 lockdown. It didn't get much better when football returned as the new manager guided his side to just 3 wins from the final 13 league games, limping to survival.
Unsurprisingly, Longo wasn't kept on as coach and Marco Giampaolo was named as the new man at the helm after his unsuccessful stint at Milan. Torino seems more like a club that would suit the former Sampdoria boss.
Giampaolo has plenty of quality to work with. The one man he'll want to keep hold of is Andrea Belotti whose 16 goals were a massive factor in keeping the club up. Il Gallo scored in 7 consecutive Serie A matches after lockdown.
Torino conceded a whopping 68 goals in the league, only the four teams below them let in more. It would have been worse if not for Salvatore Sirigu who remains one of the top keepers in the league.
The club didn't give Mazzarri a lot to work with in the transfer market last summer but perhaps seeing the side finish 28 points less off will make them realise that Giampaolo needs more backing.
