Juventus began their 2021/22 season awfully, failing to any of their first four games in Serie A — an unusual theme for a club as colossal as the Old Lady. Fortune turned its tide when they faced Spezia one week ago in an away fixture.
Thanks to a scrappy goal scored by Matthijs de Ligt, Massimiliano Allegri was handed his first Serie A win since joining the club for the second time in his illustrious career. Another 3-2 victory followed, this time against Sampdoria, which made him realise that he might not be doomed after all.
Now, the wait continues for the mother of all matches from the Bianconeri’s point of view this season — a midweek fixture against the current European Champions in Chelsea, where Juventus will play the role of hosts.
If anything, it is believed to be Allegri’s toughest game in his second stint at Turin so far, with Juventus the rare underdogs. However, Chelsea are not invincible. They faced the latest casualty against Pep Guardiola’s flamboyant Manchester City at the weekend.
So, anyone writing Juventus off before the start of the game is somewhat making a common mistake. Here, we discuss Juve’s three keys to success in the Champions League tie against Chelsea on Wednesday evening.
3. Juventus must keep the Chelsea wing-backs and Mateo Kovacic under control
Numbers from FBref.com shows why Chelsea, led by Thomas Tuchel, are so threatening offensively. The easiest guess is that they commit too many bodies forward. Not only does the team have a rich crop of talented attacking players, but their wing-backs are also offensively astute.
Stats reveal that three of the four players in the assist leaderboard for Chelsea are their wing-backs. Do you want to know the number behind it? Well, here it is: Reece James has accumulated three assists and one goal from six matches, César Azpilicueta has garnered two assists from eight matches, and Marcos Alonso has logged one goal and one assist from eight appearances across all competitions this term. They do their defensive duties, but even so, they are renowned for their forward runs and intriguing deliveries into the box.
The wide players for Juventus, at any cost, will have to prevent those deliveries from reaching the boxes as Romelu Lukaku will be licking his lips at the prospect of heading the ball into the nets. If Chelsea’s wing-backs are not the scariest thing that Juventus defence is expecting to cross paths with, the exceptional form of Mateo Kovacic doesn’t embody too much hope for the Bianconeri.
Let’s rewind: stats reveal three of the four players in the assist leaderboard for Chelsea are their wing-backs. Well, the one left on the list is Mateo Kovacic. He seems to have found a reinvigorated engine, already racking up one goal and three assists this season. If Juventus couldn’t keep hold of these outlets, there wouldn’t be any hope for salvation, not at least against this dominant Chelsea side.