The coach is not satisfied with the midfield, where Miretti could find more space. In attack the only certainty is Yildiz
“Now we’ve played a few games, we’ve talked about something, we’ve had two or three tests… We’re at the point where we need to make some conclusions.” If you haven’t heard them live, you can imagine these phrases uttered by Luciano Spalletti on Dazn after the defeat against Napoli. With his slightly sing-song style and Tuscan accent, without raising the tone, but with a precise meaning: a direct message to the players that would seem to herald a next turning point. Yes, because so far, beyond a few isolated cases (a good impact in the first match in Cremona, the Champions League match against Sporting, the Italian Cup match against Udinese) Spalletti’s Juventus has not differed much from that of his predecessors. Slow and scholastic ball possession, few vertical plays, sometimes soft approach to the game, low goal average (1.5 goals per game) and poor defensive stability. “We need to take steps forward, even quickly, because otherwise it’s difficult,” declared the Juventus coach in the heart of “Maradona”.
the midfield
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But who could pay the price on the field? It is clear that the true Spallotti revolution would be the definitive transition to a back four, impossible in the mind of Certaldo’s coach until Bremer’s return (however expected soon), due to the shortage of available centre-backs. In the meantime, however, even with the 3-4-2-1, there are men who risk their jobs and others who are aiming to overturn the hierarchies. The target of Spalletti’s indirect message appears to be the midfield. “We were more timid in passing the ball around”, “we got bogged down”, “we did things that were too schooly” were the coach’s remarks to his team. And among the players who are struggling the most under the new management there is certainly Khephren Thuram: his characteristics as a box-to-box player who thrives on recovering the ball and making runs do not go well with the possession and management team that Spalletti has in mind. Miretti is keen, also because, unlike the Frenchman, in addition to his dribbling quality, he guarantees a lot of work without the ball in spaces which would help make the maneuver less predictable. Even Locatelli (“he stooped a bit too much”, Spalletti reproached him) is going in alternating current with the new coach, with whom the relationship had already experienced ups and downs during his time with the national team. It is difficult to predict his definitive exclusion, but it is a fact that (despite the due proportions of the opponent and the meaning of the match) against Udinese in the Italian Cup with the simultaneous presence of Miretti and Koopmeiners in the middle of the pitch the maneuver benefited in terms of speed and unpredictability. And also the team’s center of gravity, which was significantly higher. An experiment that deserves to be tried again in a more probative context.
the attack
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Finally there is the attack: not only the 8 matches under Spalletti’s management, but also those under his predecessors Thiago Motta and Tudor have shown that Juve, ironically, perform better when they only field one of Yildiz or Conceiçao from the start. On the other hand, both the Turkish and the Portuguese are footballers who like to receive the ball on their feet and aim towards the center of the pitch, so they end up being quite individualistic. Even with the coach from Certaldo on the bench, Juve’s best performances came when, in the attacking midfield, one between 7 and 10 plus McKennie acted as a raider/tactical weapon, behind a reference center forward. Not being able to give up Kenan, the team’s top scorer of the season and technical leader, Chico is now the one to risk his place, in favor of one of David or Openda. On the other hand, things don’t add up at Juve and, for Spalletti, it’s time to take stock.
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