Juventus fans, blaming Andrea Pirlo is no cure of the ailment

Juventus manager Andrea Pirlo silently walked down the tunnel with a slight grin on his face. And why wouldn’t he be happy? His team had just won a pivotal game against Lazio convincingly with a 3-1 scoreline, his modified tactics and formation hadn’t backfired, and most importantly, they could once again dream of leapfrogging Inter Milan, the current Serie A leaders.

But things were not so healthy through the entirety of the night. Juve conceded a sloppy goal in the early minutes of the game, again raising questions over the decision-making and the management skills of the man at the helm, Andrea Pirlo.

And subsequently, those criticizing the manager at that moment started eulogising Pirlo’s courage to try new things during a league match holding massive significance when Alavaro Morata’s second seemingly secured the three points for the Bianconeri.

The game itself was apparently a practical manifestation of Pirlo’s roller-coaster tenure at Juventus stadium so far. Sometimes before criticising his management skills, we forget that this is the same boss that has lost just once (against Napoli) in Serie A since the turn of the year.

Yes, the waste of points with the 1-1 draw against Hellas Verona followed by the 2-1 defeat in the Champions League against Porto deserves some intense scrutiny, but that should be all.

On the other hand, if you don’t think that Pirlo is the right man for Juventus, you should be sticking by your opinion — most people, just saying, fail to do that little thing these days.

This piece doesn’t want to elaborate whether the hiring of Andrea Pirlo for the head coach role at Juventus was good or bad or force you to believe that you should be supporting each decision made by the boss but does want to look closely into how things have gone for the Old Lady and their 41-year-old gaffer.

A topsy-turvy start to the campaign

Hit hard by the adverse consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, the Juventus board felt the financial burden right on their shoulders last summer.

Despite these economical vulnerabilities, Juventus chose to execute some smart business, carrying out a money-involved swap deal between Arthur and Miralem Pjanić, who joined FC Barcelona subsequently.

There were some astute loan deals conducted by Juventus as well, with the likes of Alvaro Morata, Weston McKennie, and Federico Chiesa joining the Turin-based club on a temporary basis from Atletico Madrid, Schalke, and Fiorentina respectively.

Though, Juventus have recently triggered the option to buy in McKennie’s contract. In total, the permanent move for the midfielder is expected to cost Juve a reasonable sum of €18.5 million.

The signing of the aforementioned names provided Andrea Piro with loads of options. But the definitive contrast in philosophy between the current manager and the previous man in charge, Maurizio Sarri, left the players in need of some more time to comply with the Pirlo-imposed system.

A fluid yet complex way of playing football took the requisite time to settle in as Juve, along the way, amassed three draws from the first four opening matchdays in Serie A.

As things became clearer and the manager started to see the pros and cons of his players, the Italian, after trying various versions of structural construction, decided to stick with the 4-4-2 formation.

Despite Pirlo using an unorthodox 4-2-3-1 formation in their key 3-1 home victory over Lazio lately, the 4-4-2 has now become a go-to formation for Prilo week in, week out.

Juventus hold a perfect plan but lack perfect executors

Having chosen which formation he should opt for regularly, Pirlo now needed to pick out eleven candidates to assign different roles on the field. And with months passed since the first time he launched the 4-4-2 formation, that dilemma still persists.

As already written by James Cormack in a detailed piece about Pirlo’s principles and Juve’s in-game tactics, there is not much to exaggerate on this matter at this moment other than Juve need proper players to appropriately execute the orders of the manager.

While defence and offence — despite seemingly running out of ideas in some matches — are two areas reflecting encouragement to the Old Lady enthusiasts, the midfield that comprises two wide players and a double pivot is a region lacking the real conviction.

More specifically, the conundrum lies within the selection of the midfield pairings — who should get the nod ahead of whom. After a slow start to his new life at Turin, Arthur had started becoming a regular until injury put a brake on his progress.

The likes of Adrien Rabiot, Federico Bernardeschi, Rodrigo Bentancur, and Aaron Ramsey proves to be too inconsistent when it comes to playing an astute role within the two-man midfield. And since the midfield is the area where a game is won or lost, Juventus definitely need some refurbishment over the next summer transfer window.

An option like Paul Pogba would be an ideal addition to this Juve roster.

Injuries haven’t had surely helped Pirlo’s cause

Just to see how an injury-ravaged squad could spoil the party for a manager, we should take a look at the English Premier League champions, Liverpool. They won the league title last season, having garnered 99 points — 18 points better than the runners-up Manchester City.

And this time, they are down to seventh, still unsure of whether they could retain a spot in the Champions League next season — all thanks to the injuries some of their pivotal prodigies have had sustained over the course of the ongoing campaign.

In the Juventus camp, things, however, have not been that worse but would have been better without the absentees the Juventus manager is having to deal with this time.

starting with a knee injury to Paulo Dybala, Juventus’ injury crisis has seen a rapid rise in the graph, with senior figures such as Leonardo Bonucci, Giorgio Chiellini, Juan Cuadrado, and Arthur all missing a fair number of games due to their respective fitness issues.

Despite this mess, we haven’t seen Pirlo losing his cool yet. Instead, he has demonstrated his leadership quality, keeping the squad together in a time of sheer misfortune.

And with Juventus not having enough reliable bodies to fill up the cracks inflicted by the injured figures, Andrea Pirlo has somehow been able to handle the situation quite cunningly so far.

“Trust the process!” — this should be the motto

We heaped praise on Pirlo’s philosophy, his tactics, his leadership qualities on the touchline and even in the dressing room; but a manager never deserves praise in this magnitude until his team’s performances echo actual progression.

From the goal-scoring points of view, Juventus, as per the stats from Fbref.com, have failed to surpass or match the xG (expected goals) of 1.0 only three times — 0.4 in the 3-0 defeat against Fiorentina, 0.5 in the 2-0 humbling against Inter, and 0.2 in their 2-0 win over AS Roma —  this season in Serie A.

It means Juventus did create to score at least one goal per game in the remaining 23 games, bearing the sign of improvement.

With Inter Milan mounting a herculean challenge ahead of Juve, it is never going to be easy for a boss, who himself is often marked as protégé in the field of management.

Pirlo needs the backing — not only from the board and the hierarchy but also from the fans. And only then, he might be able to bring the aspirants for the consecutive 10th Scudetto title back to what appears to be a very open title race this term.