Italian journalist Ivan Zazzaroni claims the Juventus hierarchy could decide to lend a hand in January to salvage Thiago Motta’s project.
The Bianconeri replaced Max Allegri with the Italian Brazilian tactician who earned the plaudits following his sensational tenure at Bologna. The club also backed him on the market with a war chest of circa 200 million euros that triggered the arrivals of nine new players, including the likes of Douglas Luiz, Nico Gonzalez and Teun Koopmeiners.
But although the club remains undefeated in Serie A this season, the Bianconeri’s league campaign has been largely disappointing thus far, settling for a whopping 11 draws in their first 18 fixtures, leaving them trailing behind in the sixth place in the table.
Therefore, Zazzaroni notes how the club’s project is behind schedule, while the management will struggle to raise funds to sign new players in January, which could force the club’s owners EXOR to inject some cash into the club’s coffers.
“The Motta project is clearly lagging behind. There are still few certainties and too many question marks, both technical and physical,” wrote the veteran journalist in his editorial for Il Corriere dello Sport (via IlBiancoero).
“Furthermore, there are players who are enduring serious difficulties. I’m thinking of Vlahovic, but also Kenan Yildiz and Nico Gonzalez. I can’t even consider Douglas Luiz. It’s clear that in January, Giuntoli will have to work hard to deliver two defenders and another centre-forward to the coach.
“The problem is that he won’t be able to get resources from sales, given that the only players who have a market are Bremer, who is out of action for a long time, Yildiz, Fagioli and perhaps McKennie, who is negotiating a contract renewal.
“Therefore, I don’t rule out that the owners will intervene from their own pockets,” concluded the CdS editor-in-chief.
Needs to happen, although I’d try to appoint Zizou as well
I agree with Zazzarroni exceptionally. But unfortunately I am sure that Exor will not invest money in Juventus.
They’ve been attempting to bleed the club dry but have ended up having to pay more due to being cheap (selling off/letting go of CR7, De Ligt, Dybala, Bonucci, Di Maria and countless others to gut the wage bill to keep Allegri).
People like GJustJuve and AllJuveCast have been cheerleaders of such actions, swearing that getting big earners off the wage bill is important for rebuilding, only to then plead poverty on behalf of the board as they refused to sack Allegri for the disgraceful way he conducted himself and blamed the players who the club was trying to get off the wage bill.
They ignored how Max played Alex Sandro for enough games to trigger an automatic renewal of his contract on 6m/year (only to barely play him afterwards) while doing similar with Cuadrado & Danilo. They said that cheribumcheeks and arrivabenne deserved statues for doing worse than paratici among other attempts to brainwash fans into not going after the board (whose members apparently deserved statues for financial mismanagement and keeping Allegri).
The board should imo, invest early in January, get the business done. Also, stop pleading poverty when EXOR themselves stripped the club of a 40m annual revenue stream by ending the JEEP Sponsorship Deal. Another of Alberto from AJC’s favourite excuses is “we’re not Manchester City”- no, we’re bigger and have owners of similar wealth levels to Man City’s- why not get what the club needs or sell it?