Analyzing How Sinisa Mihajlovic Has Masterminded Sampdoria's Early Season Surge

A look at the very top of the 2014-15 Serie A table through the first six weeks of the season will come as no surprise, with Italy's two best teams, Juventus and Roma, respectively occupying first and second place.

However, just one spot below the peninsula's powerhouses sit Sinisa Mihajlovic's Sampdoria, a resurgent side who have dropped just four points from their opening six fixtures.

After a stint with the Serbian national team, Mihajlovic joined the Ligurian side last season and guided them to a mid-table finish in his debut term. Though Samp were an average offensive side in the 2013-14 campaign, they conceded 62 goals, the fifth-worst total in the Italian top flight.

They've looked a completely different side this season and have allowed just two goals through six matches, tied with none other than Juve, a club heralded as one of the premier defensive teams in world football, for the best defensive record in Serie A.

While their first six matches haven't been against the best competition—all six of Samp's opponents currently reside in the bottom half of the table—it's still a remarkable turnaround considering they sold Shkodran Mustafi to Valencia over the summer.

It's not as though they're a completely different side compared to last season—while serviceable, none of Sampdoria's summer acquisitions can really be considered above-average talents. 

Via Transfermarkt.com, Mihajlovic picked up the option to buy Lorenzo De Silvestri at the culmination of his loan from Fiorentina while securing a number of other signings including Gonzalo Bergessio, Marco Marchionni, Djamel Mesbah and Fabrizio Cacciatore. 

Aside from De Silvestri, the aforementioned summer signings have been journeymen throughout their careers and played for a combined 29 different clubs before Mihajlovic brought them to the Luigi Ferraris. 

The Serbian tactician also brought in two loanees: Alessio Romagnoli, a Roma-owned 19-year-old, and Serie A veteran Matias Silvestre, who is currently on the books at Inter. Romagnoli made Roma's senior squad in 2012 but went on to appear in just 12 league matches for the Giallorossi prior to his loan to the Blucerchiati. Silvestre spent last season on loan at Milan and hardly saw the pitch, featuring in a whopping four games for the Rossoneri.

Mihajlovic was taking a major risk. Replacing Mustafi, the best player of an already subpar back line, with a 19-year-old with minimal top-flight experience and Silvestre—who according to WhoScored.com has made a paltry nine league starts in the previous two years combined—bordered on madness.

Against conventional wisdom, Mihajlovic rolled the dice, signed a number of misfits with the hope they'd thrive under his tutelage, and is looking like a genius for it. 

Last season, per WhoScored, Mihajlovic tried a number of different formations, including heavy use of the 4-2-3-1, but seems to have settled on a 4-3-3 this year.

The two formations aren't totally dissimilar—four-man back line, two wide players and a centre-forward, with the biggest area of contrast being the midfield, where there's an extra central midfielder at the expense of an attacking one—but have evidently produced markedly different results. 

Carlo Baroncini/Associated Press

Roberto Soriano is the player whose role changed the most in the new system, but he's adjusted from attacking midfielder to central midfielder quite well.

Fielding another central midfielder alongside Angelo Palombo and Pedro Obiang seems to have paid dividends, as the added defensive grit has clearly played a part in Samp's miserly concession tally.

Italian youth international Manolo Gabbiadini has reprised his role on the right flank, while Eder, last season's primary centre-forward, has been pushed to left-winger in order to accommodate Mihajlovic's biggest reclamation project, Stefano Okaka. 

A professional since the age of 16, Okaka, now 25, vacillated between promising starlet and also-ran before joining Sampdoria last January. Finally a team's focal point, Okaka has begun to parlay his innate ability into on-field results.

Following his midseason transfer, the former Roma man notched five goals and assisted on another three in just 13 matches. This year, he's recorded a goal and an assist and is averaging 2.3 dribbles per game, tied for 10th-best in all of Serie A, according to WhoScored.  

Is this stellar start a byproduct of arguably the easiest schedule in Serie A thus far? Most likely; Samp is an average attacking side yet again, and thinking they can maintain such defensive excellence is overly optimistic. 

Beginning October 25, the Blucerchiati are due to square off against Roma, Inter, Fiorentina and Milan in four consecutive matches in the span of just two weeks. 

Those four trials-by-fire will likely determine whether Sampdoria are contenders or pretenders, but one thing is for sure: Their polarizing manager will have them well-prepared.