Palermo impress but victory isn't always enough for their manager-eater

Davide Ballardini might want to quit while he's ahead. Nine days on from his appointment as Palermo manager, Ballardini was all smiles on Saturday after watching the Rosanero thump Roma 3-1 at the Stadio Renzo Barbera. "We were excellent," reflected Ballardini in the post-match interview. "I am delighted."

Not that it matters what Ballardini thinks. Only one opinion matters when it comes to Palermo, and that belongs to the team owner, Maurizio Zamparini, a man who proudly describes himself as a "mangiallenatori" - a manager-eater. "Now there's nothing left to do except sack myself," chortled calcio's favourite egomaniac after dismissing former incumbent Stefano Colantuono one game into the Serie A season. The smart money says, despite yesterday's win, that Ballardini will be the one packing his bags before the season's out.

Zamparini has sacked 10 managers since buying Palermo in 2002. Before that he axed 17 bosses during nine seasons at Venezia. Only one manager – Walter Novellino, who took Venezia up from Serie B in 1997-98, then kept them up the following year – has worked under him for two consecutive seasons without getting the boot. Even he acknowledges that "in those days Zamparini didn't spend money like he does today".

"Results are the key," explains Novellino when asked recently what his secret had been. "In the end I always won." If this were the case, Ballardini would be in with more than a fighting chance. This, after all, is the coach who took over Cagliari when they were bottom of the league with 10 points after 17 games in January, and steered them to 42, enough to comfortably avoid relegation, by the end of the season. Sadly, with Zamparini things are rarely so straightforward. This is not the first time he has sacked a manager one game into a season - at Venezia he once sacked Giampiero Ventura after his team had opened with a win. In January 2004 he fired Silvio Baldini at a time when Palermo were comfortably on target to get promoted from Serie B.

As Ballardini will discover, there is little consistency. This is a man who demands European football every season, only to encourage his team to lose when they get there; who sacked Francesco Guidolin in March 2007, saying "he ruins the team", only to hire him again three weeks later insisting: "I have always greatly admired him"; and who told Colantuono his job was safe for the immediate future on September 3, then sacked him the next day anyway.

Right now the most important attribute Ballardini can possess is an ability to toe the line. In that regard Saturday's game bodes well. Zamparini had been openly critical of Colantuono's tactics, questioning his decision to stick with a 4-3-3 formation, insisting that Palermo would be better served by lining up in a 4-3-1-2 with Fábio Simplício playing in the hole behind Fabrizio Miccoli and Edison Cavani. Since Ballardini arrived the team have trained exclusively behind closed doors, yet nobody was surprised to discover on Saturday that he had taken the president at his word.

To be fair to Zamparini, on this occasion he may have been right. Against Roma, Simplício did an excellent job of linking midfield and attack, providing a relentless stream of passes for Miccoli and Cavani to run on to. Miccoli, meanwhile, seemed liberated by no longer being forced to play so wide. Further back a three-man midfield bank of Antonio Nocerino, Fabio Liverani and Mark Bresciano, the latter only called up at the last after initially being left out of the matchday squad on account of having played a World Cup qualifier for Australia away in Uzbekistan just three days earlier, swamped their Roma counterparts and starved them of possession.

Roma will point to a lengthy injury list: they were without Francesco Totti, Philippe Mexès, Simone Perrotta, Juan and Mirko Vucinic, while Daniele De Rossi left the game before half time with a neck complaint. But Palermo's performance was nevertheless impressive. Despite selling Amauri to Juventus they have made some shrewd moves over the summer, bringing in the accomplished goalkeeper Marco Amelia from Livorno, as well as Liverani from Fiorentina and defenders Cesare Bovo and Moris Carrozzieri from Atalanta. Miccoli was picked up last summer, but on yesterday's evidence looks ready to flourish in Amauri's absence.

On paper Palermo are strong enough to challenge for a Uefa Cup place, but as always much will come down to Zamparini. If he wants his side to do well Zamparini will sit back and let Ballardini work. Sadly, all he usually wants is attention. How else to explain his threat to sue Roma last season because their "sly ballboys" returned the ball too fast? Or the 2003 outburst when Zamparini claimed he would kill his players, then "cut off their testicles and eat them in my salad" if they didn't stop "being shit"?

By keeping Cagliari in the top flight last season, Ballardini earned himself a reputation as a miracle worker. Palermo fans will be happy if he can just do enough to keep people talking about their performances on the pitch, rather than their owner's performances off it.

Crunch-time for Carlo

"Every time people start talking about my job security, the team has a positive reaction." So spoke Carlo Ancelotti before Milan's visit to Genoa yesterday, but there was little evidence of that reaction as the Rossoneri slumped to a 2-0 defeat. Milan have now lost their first two league games for only the second time in the club's history.

The Genoa manager, Gian Piero Gasperini, deserves great credit for his team's fluid passing game, while Diego Milito was a constant thorn in Milan's side as he returned for the Grifone after a three-year spell with Real Zaragoza. But after a busy summer in the transfer market the Rossoneri had expected a much better start to the season than this and reports that they are preparing to replace Ancelotti with Roberto Donadoni or Frank Rijkaard refuse to go away.

"If you know something more than I do, then please go ahead and tell me," growled Ancelotti after the game when a hack asked him to comment on such speculation but he will have faced far more taxing questions from the club's vice-president, Adriano Galliani, late yesterday evening. The messages coming out of Milan have so far all been supportive of Ancelotti, and Silvio Berlusconi is always reluctant to let a good company man go, but without the possibility of a Champions League run to distract from poor league form, the current state of affairs will not be allowed to persist for long.

Round two talking points

· Just how good is Mauro Zarate? After almost rescuing Birmingham from relegation last year, Zarate scored a brace on his Serie A debut and followed up yesterday with Lazio's opening strike in a 2-0 win over Sampdoria. Lazio sit top of Serie A after two games, and travel to Milan next week.

· Gigi Del Neri's Atalanta are the only other team to have collected the maximum six points after two games after they beat newly promoted Bologna 1-0. Can Atalanta kick on from last year's ninth-place finish and challenge for Europe? Maybe, but only if they can stop Del Neri – previously responsible for leading Chievo from Serie B to the Uefa Cup – from having his head turned by a bigger side.

· Jose Mourinho's Inter have their first league win, but only after two own-goals gave them a 2-1 win over Catania. But did the ball actually cross the line for the second?

Results: Bologna 0-1 Atalanta, Genoa 2-0 Milan, Inter 2-1 Catania, Juventus 1-0 Udinese, Lazio 2-0 Sampdoria, Lecce 2-0 Chievo, Napoli 2-1 Fiorentina, Palermo 3-1 Roma, Reggina 1-1 Torino, Siena 2-0 Cagliari