Juventus: Where did it all go wrong in the squad planning?

Juventus have been eliminated from the Champions League from the Round of 16 in two straight competitions, and they have struggled in Serie A this season. After nine straight Scudetti, the Bianconeri could be headed for a finish behind rivals AC and Inter Milan, and they are actually tied on points with fourth-place Atalanta.

So where has it all gone wrong for Juve? Clearly, something is up in Turin, and the 2020-2021 struggles surely have a starting point prior to the current campaign. And they do. Because haphazard squad-building plans have led Juventus to a point where even a goal per game from Cristiano Ronaldo and a few highly talented youngsters like Matthijs de Ligt and Federico Chiesa cannot lift them into first.

Juve’s first problem was signing too many mediocre players. They went with a quantity over quality approach, particularly in midfield. And now we are seeing the repercussions, as Juve’s midfield is almost single-handedly responsible for their poor play. Aside from recent acquisitions Weston McKennie and Arthur Melo, nobody in the midfield has played to a Juventus level. And even Arthur and McKennie aren’t yet true stars in the middle of the park.

“Free” transfers are one of the biggest traps in football. Many of these players are not that great to begin with, otherwise their teams would have re-signed them or another team would have jumped on the opportunity to buy them in the previous year. And because they are “free” in terms of their transfer fee, they often command huge wages.

Juventus signed too many mediocre free agents in midfield

There’s nothing inherently wrong with signing players for free, because you can find overlooked veteran talent. But you have to be careful before handing out contracts to too many of these players, especially if they are at the same position. That’s where Juventus have gone wrong. They managed to offload Sami Khedira to Hertha Berlin, but they are still stuck with the injury-prone Aaron Ramsey and then Adrien Rabiot, who is decent but honestly not at the level required to start for Juve. In comparison to his wages, he has to be considered a bust.

The other squad-planning issues deal with trusting the wrong players or not being proactive with certain areas of need. Juventus currently don’t have reliable attacking options on the left-hand side, unless they invert Chiesa on the left, which then affects how much width Juve can get in their play. Alex Sandro is not good enough in the attack to be a modern-day left back, and the club has no valid left midfielder in a 4-4-2. Federico Bernardeschi is too inconsistent to be a starter.

More depth issues take place in the attack, where Juve have just one striker in Alvaro Morata. They tried to sign another player in the winter transfer window, but they soon realized that there aren’t many affordable options at such a premium position.

Juventus did well in the last summer transfer window, picking up Morata to fill a need and then youngsters like Chiesa, McKennie, and Arthur. Looking at what they did right is an interesting way to also ascertain what they previously did incorrectly. For too long, Juve were not proactive in adding young talent, nor were they proactive with managing their depth and future needs. By making those moves in 2020, Juve are setting themselves up for a better future, but the mistakes of the past cannot be washed away immediately, as we are seeing in 2020-2021.