Juventus projected lineup vs SPAL: Juve reshuffles depleted midfield

CM: Rodrigo Bentancur

Now is the time for Rodrigo Bentancur to really step up for Juve. The midfield has been somewhat shorthanded all season, but injuries and fatigue have really started to pile up now. Sami Khedira tweaked his ankle in training last week and is doubtful for this match.

Miralem Pjanic’s fatigue led to an injury over the international break and he is also unlikely to play against SPAL. Emre Can has been out for more than a month because of his thyroid surgery and although he has returned to training he’ll need some time to get back into form before rejoining the starting lineup.

Bentancur has been playing increasingly well as he has earned more regular starts and Juve will be hoping that trend continues here. It is rare for Juve to play a match without Miralem Pjanic and Bentancur will need to take over a sizable portion of his playmaking responsibilities for Juve to find attacking success against SPAL. This is a big opportunity for Bentancur and whether or not he takes advantage of it could decide the outcome of this match.

CM: Blaise Matuidi

Blaise Matuidi might not be far from joining the list of Juve’s injuries. He has had an unbelievable workload since the start of last season and has admittedly become fatigued. Unfortunately, Juve won’t be able to give him a rest any time soon.

This is especially troublesome because of Matuidi’s style of play. He plays with an unbelievably high work rate in his box-to-box role and at some point he’s going to run out of gas.

Hopefully, this won’t be the match where that happens because Juve losing Pjanic and Matuidi at the same time would be catastrophic. Juve will be relying on him to break up SPAL’s attempts to counter so he’ll need to hold off on planning his vacation.