Juventus player ratings vs SPAL: Cristiano Ronaldo does it again

Blaise Matuidi 6/10

This was really a waste of an appearance for Matuidi. Juve needs to be resting their midfielders as much as possible, but instead, they brought a 3rd midfielder on for 22 minutes. His presence didn’t really accomplish much for Juve. He didn’t contribute defensively and Juve had stopped chasing goals by the time Matuidi got onto the field. He really should’ve been left on the bench for this one, but more will be asked of him on Tuesday.

Giorgio Chiellini: Incomplete

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The Juve captain was only on the field for 8 minutes and wasn’t asked to do anything of note in the match. Juve was firmly in control of the match by the time Chiellini got on the field and it didn’t take much for them to hold their lead. He’ll start on Tuesday and will be the key to shutting down Valencia’s attack.

Manager: Massimiliano Allegri 9.5/10

This was almost a perfect match for Allegri. He had quite a few injuries thrown at him for this match and only had 2 healthy central midfielders (Pjanic and Matuidi should probably only count as .5 each right now). He used the players he had available to start as well as he could have. With the 4-4-2 necessitating an attack that works its way down the outside he had to start Mandzukic to give the wide midfielders a target. He smartly made that decision instead of making Paulo Dybala the target in the middle.

He started both Rugani and Perin, giving the future of the club some playing time. He even had the team trying to put the game away after they got ahead instead of sitting back and defending without searching for another goal. Everything was perfect until the 72nd minute. The only issue I had with Allegri is that Blaise Matuidi never should have come on in this match.

Juve’s midfield is injured and exhausted and Allegri should’ve given the one healthy midfielder who didn’t start a chance to get the full match off before Tuesday. He brought Matuidi on for Costa, who didn’t need the rest as badly and might not even start against Valencia. With all of the things working against Allegri this is really a small issue in what was otherwise a great game.

Now let’s just hope he puts out another smart lineup against Valencia.