Juventus player ratings vs Bayer Leverkusen: Higuain carries Juve through rough start

CAM: Federico Bernardeschi 7.5/10

This was a pretty average match for Federico Bernardeschi until he scored Juve’s second goal. He still looks like he isn’t quite in form, which should be expected from a player who was making his first start of the year in this match. This will once again be Aaron Ramsey’s spot on Sunday and it may be time for Bernardeschi to start looking for a way out of Juve. It doesn’t look like he’ll ever reach his peak with the playing time he gets at Juventus.

ST: Cristiano Ronaldo 8/10

Cristiano Ronaldo eventually did get his goal in this match, but it was far from his best performance. He wasted a couple of very good chances before he eventually scored his goal and looked sluggish throughout the first half. He turned things around in the second half along with the rest of the squad, but Ronaldo should have put this match away for Juve much earlier. Juve won’t have nearly as much room for error against Inter on Sunday and that means Ronaldo will need to get off to a much faster start in that match.

ST: Gonzalo Higuain 9/10

Maurizio Sarri has quite the dilemma on his hands now. What do you do when you have to find a way to start Gonzalo Higuain, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Paulo Dybala, but can’t start all 3 together? I don’t know what the answer is and Higuain has made it very difficult to choose between him and Dybala thanks to his fantastic performances in the Champions League. He put Juve on his back in this match when they were struggling to make anything happen. His goal against Leverkusen was another clinical finish that the keeper had no chance to stop and there was no doubt somebody would be scoring from his cross that set up Bernardeschi’s goal. It looked like Paulo Dybala was running away with this starting spot, but Higuain is making it clear he won’t go down without a fight.