Predicted Juventus lineup vs Roma: Ronaldo looks to dispatch Roma with 3rd team
By John Vaccaro
Juventus has a chance to head into the winter transfer window with a big lead atop Serie A, but first they’ll need to get past Roma on Saturday.
Juventus currently holds an 8 point edge over second place Napoli with the rest of the league mostly fighting for Champions League and Europa League spots at this point in the season. Juve has yet to lose a match in Serie A and their only dropped points came in a draw against Genoa 2 months ago. Since then Juve has won 7 consecutive Serie A matches and kept clean sheets in their last 4. They have also claimed 1st place in their Champions League group in that time.
This season hasn’t gone quite as smoothly for Roma. They currently sit in 7th in the league thanks in large part to a defense that is currently tied for 7th worst in Serie A. That defense has surrendered 11 goals in Roma’s last 6 matches across all competitions in a span that has seen them claim only 5 points and includes losses to Viktoria Plzen and 17th place Udinese. Their attack has started to turn things around, but it might not be enough for Eusebio Di Francesco to save his job. A shocking upset over Juve would certainly help his cause, but it would take a much better performance than Roma has put on all season to claim a win in Torino.
For this match Juve remains short-handed at right back, but is beginning to get healthy elsewhere. Joao Cancelo and Juan Cuadrado will both be unavailable until 2019, but Medhi Benatia should be available again for this match and it appears that Sami Khedira will return as well after a long absence. These absences shouldn’t impact Juve’s formation choice and we should see Juve utilize their usual 4-3-3 as they try to make it to 2019 without a loss in Serie A.