Grading last summer’s Juventus transfers a year later

Mattia Perin: B-

It’s not his fault at all, but the best way to describe Mattia Perin’s first season at Juventus is unimpressive. He was brought in to be the long-term replacement for Gianluigi Buffon, but he ended up being pretty unnecessary thanks to Wojciech Szczesny. We were led to believe heading into the season that Perin and Szczesny would compete for the starting job, but it quickly became clear that there was no reason for Juve to start anybody other than Szczesny. This led to Perin starting only 9 matches all year and none against tough opposition.

He played well early in the season, keeping 4 clean sheets in his first 5 starts, but he had a brutal finish to the season. His last 4 matches included allowing 3 goals against Parma in a draw, and 2 each to Genoa and SPAL in losses. He didn’t have Giorgio Chiellini in front of him for any of those 3 matches and was missing Leonardo Bonucci for 2 of those matches as well, but allowing 7 goals to 3 teams who finished 13th, 14th, and 17th in the league is a really bad look.

Perin is another one of last year’s transfers who could find himself playing elsewhere next season. There are already rumors circulating about him possibly moving on to a team where he can get regular playing time. Again, it’s not Perin’s fault, but this transfer wasn’t exactly what Juve had hoped for at the time they signed him. Luckily this move didn’t cost Juve as much as it probably should have at the time.