Juventus player ratings vs Hellas Verona: Ramsey and Ronaldo lead Juve comeback
By John Vaccaro
CM: Blaise Matuidi 6.5/10
It’s inexcusable that Adrien Rabiot hasn’t been given the chance to start over Matuidi yet, but Matuidi appears to be playing well enough to keep his job. He made some dangerous runs during the match, but wasn’t able to turn them into anything meaningful. He wasn’t asked to do much on the defensive end in this match, so the fact that he isn’t really an asset in the attacking half really makes me question exactly why he continues to start. I’ll continue to hope for Rabiot to take over this spot.
CM: Rodrigo Bentancur 5/10
The downgrade from Miralem Pjanic to Rodrigo Bentancur was pretty clear in this match. We saw last year how badly Juve struggled to create chances when Pjanic wasn’t on the field and that unfortunately doesn’t appear to have changed since then. The decision to start Bentancur in this spot made a lot of sense before the match, but it is troubling to see that he still hasn’t really grown into the role. He didn’t create very much for the attack in this match and was lucky that Juve was able to score twice without a creative presence in the midfield. Bentancur isn’t really suited to this role, so hopefully he will get the chance to play alongside Pjanic to show his abilities.
CM: Aaron Ramsey 8/10
You can already see the difference that Aaron Ramey is going to make for this midfield. His performance highlighted a lot of what Juve’s midfield has been missing over the last few years. There hasn’t been a midfielder in the squad who could comfortably take a shot from long range like Ramsey’s in this match and actually finish it. Miralem Pjanic has offered that ability sparingly, but not at the level we can expect from Ramsey. He made the kind of deep runs that Juve needs from the midfield to open opportunities for the attack and likely would have added an assist to his goal if Juve had somebody making a far post run when he played his dangerous ball across. I’m more excited than ever about what Ramsey can bring this team after this match.