Juventus
I guess the lads are not going to feel the pressure to perform at their best until the heat is really on because against Sassuolo the same problems that affected them all season long reared their ugly heads again, even though they had appeared to go away before the meltdown at San Siro. After easily going 2-0 up in no time at all, the team completely mailed it in, but the opposition were nowhere near dead. They should have known better as the Neroverdi have been not only feisty, but also very effective recently. It is even more baffling considering that the squad can actually wake up when they realize they have messed up, re-flip the switch back to ‘on’ and resume attacking with some purpose.
They collectively have such high ‘highs’ and low ‘lows’ that for the most part it seems like they are playing against themselves and that they are being their own worst enemies. Such inconsistency is maddening and even the coach could not come up with answers for what is happening. Perhaps he has indeed lost the pulse of the situation and there are nasty rumours floating around in case of another faux pas, but, while pretty absurd, they are natural because, in the recent past, it has rare that we go three games without winning, let alone four.
While the defence has never been in its full composition and at the top of its strength in the resumption, the amount of goals conceded lately is intolerable and, even more worryingly, only one or two have been caused by individual blunders. Besides the merits of the opponents, the rest were systemic. Giorgio Chiellini got hurt again, Matthijs De Ligt and Leonardo Bonucci are banged up, Merih Demiral just came back and Daniele Rugani is what he is at this point, so I am not sure things can really improve a lot there, if not thanks to a concerted effort. The dip in form of Rodrigo Bentancur also contributed. The attack sputtered only in the Coppa Italia tilts, so most of this year’s blackouts have arrived when there were troubles in the back and it is bleak right now. Hopefully they can find a way to steady the ship.
The only positive aspect of the Sassuolo game was that a couple of players managed to bounce back after not-so-great performances: Wojciech Szczesny was superb and Miralem Pjanic set up two goals. The goalie was pretty poor against Atalanta and Milan, which was uncharacteristic since has been a rock throughout the season. Pjanic is clearly in a weird spot with the whole Barcelona thing, but he is the most capable of pulling the strings and break the monotony of the midfield. Also, Alex Sandro was pretty strong.
Big picture-wise, Juventus need three wins out of five matches, and they should be able to get it done as the schedule eases up as they will soon stop facing high-flying opponents. One could argue that will begin here given Lazio’s recent results, even though it has been billed as the mother of all matches for months.
There are few doubts regarding the lineup which will forcibly change since Federico Bernardeschi is suspended. The most streamlined option would be to just put Douglas Costa there, but the manager could take a couple of different routes, like advancing Juan Cuadrado or using the star-studded trident, which has at times been deployed to send a message, more inward than to the outside.
Bonucci and De Ligt will probably gut it out, while I guess we are not going to see Chiellini for a while even though he did not pick up a serious injury. Bentancur is also dealing with a small muscular problem, but Adrien Rabiot has looked at ease on both sides of the midfield and, while never completely convincing, at least Blaise Matuidi at least brings some energy, so there are okay ways to replace him should he need to rest.
Probable lineup
4-3-3: Szczesny; Cuadrado, De Ligt, Bonucci, Sandro; Bentancur, Pjanic, Rabiot; Costa, Dybala, Ronaldo.
Injured players:
Khedira (thigh).
Suspended Players:
Bernardeschi.