Claudio Marchisio has told Juventus that they must keep Paulo Dybala and Matthijs De Ligt when talking ahead of today’s Torino derby clash.

The Old Lady are believed to have held talks with the Argentine forward, and were even reported to have a verbal agreement with him previously, only for the deal to break down, supposedly due to agent fees.

De Ligt’s future is also being talked about in the press, with a number of top clubs around Europe said to be tracking his progress, but my biggest issue with any proposed exit is how that leaves our defence, knowing that both Leo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini are well into their 30s already.

Marchisio doesn’t believe we should even be contemplating a future without them either, telling the club not to allow them to l

“The derby? Allegri ‘s team is the favourite, but the game is tough and must be unlocked,” Claudio told La Gazzetta (via TuttoJuve). “Max prepares very well for these races and his secret is lightness. Today we will need ‘hard skin’ as my dad always said, while for the future I would like to advise the management not to lose two like De Ligt and Dybala.”

I want to see both players tied down to new deals sooner rather than later, and find it absurd that we could be considering any other option really. De Ligt and Dybala are too important to our current team, and both should still have their best years ahead of them, and selling either would definitely weaken our team. We need to be building on what we already have, and cannot afford any backward steps after a couple of years on the downturn.

Patrick