Raffaele Palladino's right side has been a provisional arrangement all season. Per La Gazzetta dello Sport, Emil Holm's injury has confirmed surgery and a 4-to-6-month recovery, a timeline that removes him from any realistic Serie A calculation this calendar year, and the same outlet reported earlier this week that Bologna are looking at Matteo Darmian as a consequence. That recruitment decision matters more than it might appear against a backdrop of two points from five games: Bologna are conceding at 1.20 per game this season and have scored at only 0.60, and a back line still finding its shape is a harder place to absorb a long-term absence than a settled one. The other news from training is more immediate — Jens Odgaard remains separate from the group, while Federico Bernardeschi, the side's joint-leading scorer in Serie A with one goal from five appearances, has rejoined collective sessions, which at least restores one familiar option in the final third. The Holm role, though, is the decision that travels to Via del Mare on Sunday 11 October — whatever Palladino selects on that right flank will tell us whether the recruitment answer arrived in time, or whether the shape is still being improvised.
Jens Odgaard is training separately, per La Gazzetta dello Sport, which is a harder problem for Raffaele Palladino than a four-week timeline suggests: Odgaard is Bologna's joint-top scorer in Serie A this season alongside Dovbyk and Piccoli, each on one goal, and removing him from group training nine days out from Sunday 11 October at Via Del Mare removes the club's most direct attacking option at the moment they can least absorb it. Federico Bernardeschi rejoining the group is the partial offset — his one Serie A goal this season is the same return — but his availability status is not confirmed as match-ready by La Gazzetta dello Sport's report. The broader picture is worsening: Emil Holm has undergone surgery and faces four to six months out, confirmed by sports.yahoo.com on 1 October, and La Gazzetta dello Sport reported Bologna were already monitoring Matteo Darmian as cover. A side sitting 18th on two points from five games, conceding 1.20 per match this season, cannot absorb selection attrition without it registering in the result column. Whether Bernardeschi is fit enough to feature at Lecce is the current selection question that matters most.
Jens Odgaard is sidelined for four weeks with a muscle problem, per Goal.com and Football Italia, and Emil Holm faces a potentially more serious situation — surgery not yet ruled out, with La Gazzetta dello Sport reporting that Bologna are monitoring the right-back market and weighing a move for Matteo Darmian. Two injuries in the same ten-day window harden a picture the numbers were already drawing: Bologna have scored three goals in their three most recent completed matches while conceding four, sit on two points from five Serie A games, and average 0.60 goals scored per game against 1.20 conceded across the season so far. Federico Bernardeschi and Artem Dovbyk each carry one Serie A goal — the sum of the attacking return through September. Lecce, on six points and at home on Sunday 11 October, concede at a rate of 2.00 per game themselves, which is the margin Bologna need to test with a squad suddenly shorter in wide areas.
Emil Holm's injury — surgery not yet confirmed but significant enough, per gazzetta.it, to send Bologna searching for cover at right back — arrives at a moment when Raffaele Palladino is still drawing the lines of his own authority at the club. A coaching appointment made mid-season reshapes not just the bench but every structural decision beneath it: who fills positions, how the back four is assembled, and whether the shape the players know can survive the personnel it loses. Bologna's season metrics — 52 per cent possession on average across five Serie A matches, 3.2 shots on target per game, and a conceding rate of 1.2 goals per game — suggest a side that controls the ball without yet converting control into threat, which is precisely the kind of profile that depends on its wide defenders being available and active. A right back who can carry into the final third is not interchangeable, and Federico Bernardeschi and Artem Dovbyk have one Serie A goal each so far this season, a slender attacking return that makes the margins around wide supply more consequential than they might otherwise be. At Via del Mare on Sunday 11 October, whether Palladino has resolved the structural gap Holm leaves — with Darmian or otherwise — will tell us more about his grip on the squad than the result alone.
Two draws and a defeat from Bologna's first five Serie A matches represent exactly the kind of return that validates what the board chose when they moved on from Tedesco and appointed Raffaele Palladino — an unresolved question of whether the squad reflects the new coach's structural ideas or simply the ones inherited from the previous regime. The 2-2 home draw with Sassuolo at Renato Dall'Ara offered that tension in its clearest form: enough attacking intent for Federico Bernardeschi and Artem Dovbyk to each register a Serie A goal this season, not enough defensive cohesion to hold what the attack had built. The 0-1 away loss to Napoli at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona and the 1-1 home draw with Torino at Renato Dall'Ara left Bologna on two points from nine available, conceding four goals against three scored across those three fixtures, and per Goal.com and Football Italia, Jens Odgaard is now out for four weeks with a muscle problem — a loss that narrows Palladino's forward options precisely when the role structure he wants on the pitch is still being settled. Sunday 11 October at Via del Mare, where Lecce sit on six points from five games, will tell the Palladino project whether its shape is his or merely the one he inherited.