Re: Juventus 2017/2018 Serie A and Coppa Italia thread

[rincon]

I had a look at the stats since we have the break and I'm bored at work

In the first 7 games we have 20 goals, more than I can remember us ever scoring. I can't think of a Juve that scored 3 per game.

Dybala 10
Higuain 3
Mandzukic 2
Sandro 1
Bernardeschi 1
Cuadrado 1
Pjanic 1

We conceded 5 which is 1 more than last year, and all of them away from home. Genoa and Atalanta away are done which is great.

Pjanic has been killing it with the assists, Cuadrado has also been in fine form and Bernardeschi for not playing much has been very productive. Dybala with 0 assists looks weird.

Pjanic 5
Cuadrado 3
Bernardeschi 2
Higuain 2
Mandzukic 2
Sandro 1
Lichtsteiner 1

From most minutes played, our 11 has been on average

Buffon; Sandro, Chiellini, Rugani, Licht; Matuidi, Pjanic; Mandzukic, Dybala, Cuadrado; Higuain

[Tomwin Lannister]

Don't get me wrong, I used to advocate a 4-2-3-1 back in the day and as has been said, it is viable for many of our games. But to me, you want some serious energy and physicality in a 4-2-3-1. I was thinking more of the Vidal type players. Now we have Pjanic, who would thrive in a MF 3. With a player like him, we should be looking to give him the platform needed to dominate teams at the highest level.


And on a side note, ain't nobody wanting a 4-2-3-1 with Asamoah - Mandzukic on a flank. It's just not going to cut it.



I hope Caldara has a great season goals aside, because what we have now does not cut it. Our RB is still a problem, i'm hoping against hope that MDS can at least become a typical defensively solid Italian full back, now that we have more wingers to do the attacking. Chiellini is the only defender I have faith in now at CB. Rugani is not ready, Benatia is shit let's be real here, and Barzagli is fighting the age monster, still capable of a great game but he's not a point of reliability any more.

[Warrior]

I didn't get you wrong since your 1st paragraph describes my exact opinion about the midfield, word by word. Marchisio-Matuidi is our best model of double pivot if we face top teams, and i don't think it's that good...

Caldara seems the real deal, associated with Rugani they will form our backbone for many years. Barzagli is not clever in coverage anymore and Benatia is unconvincing, so now we have a problem.
Howedes is the short term solution, i think he will take a lot of importance in the squad.

[Tomwin Lannister]

That was for posters in general who might remember me hyping a potential 4-2-3-1, it was just not the one I had in mind lol.

[rincon]

I agree with most of that except the Pjanic part. He is completely bossing his role. If we change to a midfield 3 then we only have two players that we can rely on to play in front of the defense: Pjanic and Marchisio. Marchisio is incredible at that but he can't play too often. So moving Pjanic from a double pivot to a full regista just makes him lose freedom.

I think we are seeing the best of Pjanic in his current role, he really grew into it.

Bentancur could in theory be that regista that releases Pjanic to play mezzala but I don't know if we are ready to change the formation to give a 20 yo the most central role.

If Bentancur makes it, and he and Marchisio were our registas, then Panic would be on the right.

Matuidi - Marchisio - Pjanic

Which looks fantastic for a midfield but then what about the attack? if its a 4-3-3 then Dybala would have to play right (Higuain ain't getting dropped). Dybala would probably make that work as an inside forward spending a lot of time centrally. He wouldn't offer a lot of width. Pjanic as our main creative mid wouldn't offer that width either. So then we rely 100% on our RB to be the only real wide man and this is already our weak spot.

It doesn't look like it would work for me. On the left for example you could have Mandzukic because Matuidi loves going wide and then Sandro is there to overlap too. But the right side looks congested towards the center.

If Pjanic plays regista then this as a higher chance of working imo. Put Bentancur on the right and he'll run to wherever he is needed to cover. That would be cool, but the argument can't be that we are doing it to make Pjanic shine since we would restrict him more than right now. That is of course unless Pjanic goes full Pirlo and becomes a GOAT regista.

I think the 4-2-3-1 is giving us the right balance for now. The teams just needs to shake off that CL loss and find its feet on defense.

Allegri will probably make this experiments to test them in time.

A cool experiment could be playing Bernardeschi as RCM and Dybala RW. Then asking Berna to go wide when Dybala cuts in. In terms of attack its not too different as what they were doing vs Atalanta, but it would change the midfield to have Berna further back, Pjanic more central, and Matuidi more to left (since Matuidi is already doing that all the time).

LW - Higuain - Dybala

Matuidi - Pjanic - Bernardeschi

[Tomwin Lannister]

In my ideal 4-3-3 Pjanic would not be the one holding tbf. I'd put Marchisio in there but at this point he's unreliable until proven otherwise due to his fitness. In a dream world i'd have Pjanic - Marchisio and perhaps SMS.

[Warrior]

Pjanic did not perform well against Barcelona in this role, but he destroys weaker opponents. That's my concern.

Pjanic-Mandragora-Sergej

[Tomwin Lannister]

Yeah my line of thinking is midfield 2 against the few clubs we'll be competing for CL with is not going to cut it, not with the 2 we have. Pjanic ends up spending half of his time running about trying to regain possession with not much to pass to in midfield. It's different if we had a prime Vidal next to him to compensate and tbh as of yet I wouldn't say any of our wing pairings are doing enough to justify not having an extra midfielder.

Mandzukic can be clutch but as we see sometimes, especially without A.S behind him, he's just kind of lost. Cuadrado is either great or absolutely horrific, Costa might cut it but he'll have to do something most wingers of his type never do, and perform consistently at all levels. Berna looks really one dimensional as a winger, his future might be in a more central position.

[Warrior]

Mandzukic as a winger... mmmm... same problem as Pjanic in the double pivot. Works only against B- opponents and below.

My suggestion is to try him as a CM in a midfield 3. Just to see how it goes, not a permanent strategy. When it comes to dribbling and technique, he is not any worse than Matuidi. For example Mandzukic-Bentancur-Pjanic ?

We have enough talent to score a lot of goals from whatever 3 forwards combo. It's a paradox to play 4 attackers but only one midfielder to feed them

[Tomwin Lannister]

I'd worry for Mandzukic's personal mental health if he was forced to move any further away from goal than he currently is


If we're going to move him make him a RB please.

[Warrior]

still better rb than Sturaro

when he plays CF it's in a useless role, kind of an offensive pivot whose only purpose is to make 5 meter pass, never takes a shot

[Tomwin Lannister]

Yeah unless your wide men are Messi, Ronaldo, Prime Robben, Prime Ribery, Prime Pedro etc there's no point having current Mandzukic up front. Don't really need a ST to create space for somebody like Cuadrado to stuff a shot at goal.

[rincon]

It will be interesting to see what Allegri does this season as usual. Some of the more entertaining part of watching Juve for me is that.

Personally I don't think we are ready to ditch the 4-2-3-1 and I don't think its bad. It has basically only had 1 and a half bad showings. This last game against Barca and the 2nd half vs Madrid.

Winger-Mandzukic and pivot-Pjanic did allow us to destroy Barca in the semifinal, as well as the rest of the teams since we switched formations. Also Mandzukic didn't play in this Barca loss.

We were missing WAY too many players in that game to take much from it.

Basically the only real big loss where winger-Mandzu played was the CL final and he scored a goal there. I still think that as we are right now, he is too important in our system to replace. As the season goes on and Berna, Costa, Bentancur and Matuidi settle I think we will be less dependent on him. For now, I chose winger Mandzukic.

Even in this draw away to Atalanta (decent result) we failed a penalty, Buffon costed us a goal, and Mandzukic had a goal disallowed. Its hard to pin the draw down to tactics when we usually under these conditions we would have surely won.

[Luca]

http://www.juvefc.com/juventus-injury-updates/

-Mandzukic could be out four weeks
-Pjaca will be returning to full training next week
-Khedira should be fit for Lazio
-De Sciglio will be ready at the end of October/early November
-Marchisio ready to join the team
-No timetable for Pjanic yet

[rincon]

That sucks for Mandzukic. I doubt Khedira will start right away, unless he looks great in training.

vs Lazio we won't have too many choices.

Buffon; Sandro, Chiellini, Rugani, Lichtsteiner; Matuidi, Bentancur; Costa, Dybala, Berna/Cuadrado; Higuain

Fielding an 11 like that in an injury crisis feels great.

[Luca]

A midfield 2 against Lazio...

It's nice to get some game time come in for Costa and Bernardeschi.

[rincon]

I don't know how much choice we have. Pjanic and Marchisio will be unavailable, Khedira probably unfit, Sturaro is Sturaro. Our only mids are Bentancur and Matuidi.

Unless Khedira comes back so sharp that he will contribute more than Cuadrado/Bernardeschi.

[Luca]

We have no choice but Matuidi and Bentancur and the match being at home should see us through, I hope

[Warrior]

if there is one match that i feel might end our unbeaten at home streak, it's the next one vs Lazio

Lazio plays with 6 midfielders and we are gonna use 2. You get the picture i suppose...

From Inzaghi's perspective there is definitely hope to get a result.
They use 3-5-1-1: Basta/Lulic do an individual marking on our wingers to prevent the counter attacks. Leiva stays in front of the defense and covers the space between Dybala & Higuain. Don't forget the 3 cbs and Strakosha who's quite decent as a keeper.

With all that, our double pivot will still have its hands full of sand since Lazio applies lot of pressure. Bonucci, Marchisio, Pjanic are absent so the focal point of our ball possessions will be Bentancur by default. He will have about 2 seconds to reach Dybala (the main creator) before Parolo gets to him. See, with concentration Lazio can lock our midfield, and by that they also avoid most offensive threats.

And to be honest, can't blame Allegri in case we lose.
The only solution is Sturaro. You guys will be suprised, but i think we should go for it. Let's try to imitate Napoli and use 4-3-3 against them, our 4-2-3-1 system is too dogmatic in its application, if i can say it like that. For the possession phase, the third midfielder delays the pressure. Sturaro already has a tendency to go wide and give solutions while Dybala has a tendency to cut inside. The individual marking on the wings then becomes useless, more movement creates confusion.
For the defensive phase, 3 CMs will complicate their lives, it's simple mathematics.

Looking at this SS LAZIO team, on paper they are specifically built to destroy our 4-2-3-1.

[rincon]

I agree on the midfield battle but I just don't want Sturaro to start over Cuadrado/Berna. I don't think he contributes enough for that. If it was Marchisio or Khedira I would go for a mid 3.

For how much they dominate the center, they are also weak on the wings. Costa and Cuadrado should do a ton of damage.

[DeviAngel]

Sturaro is a pure old fashion DM. When played as such he'll preform. He is no box to box or RB.

[rincon]

good news!

Apparently Khedira, Marchisio and Pjanic are all joining the team. Khedira seems to be ready, Marchisio, like Khedira, played in the friendly too. Pjanic is targeting the Sporting game next week for his return.

[jetvancake]

All positives for the midfield. Bentancur playing great this game too. Hints of Marchisio in that role.

But damn, Sergej - that is a midfielder we really need to go all in for. Can we just keep him in Turin after this game?

[Luca]

Sergej is immense. I’m convinced that we’ll go for him this summer but it won’t be a move short of competition.

Khedira has had a positive return.

Higuain is working hard. Costa deserved that goal @rincon

Lichtsteiner and Lulic is an interesting side.

More of this, second goal is needed

[Tomwin Lannister]

Shocker, investing almost nothing (net) for 2 years running has allowed other Serie A teams to close the gap.

Injuries are no excuse either, we're always carrying injuries.

[rincon]

I'm not able to watch the game. But I see that once again Immobile is destroying us.

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