Juventus player ratings vs Torino: de Ligt goes from zero to hero
By John Vaccaro
CM: Rodrigo Bentancur 6.5/10
I’m still struggling to figure out what Rodrigo Bentancur’s role in this squad actually is and based on his performances, I think he is too. Juve has played him all over the midfield and as the trequartista this year, but he hasn’t seemed particularly suited to any role he has taken on this year. In this match, he finally took over Sami Khedira’s spot in the starting lineup and he was better than Khedira has been at any point this year, but that didn’t make him particularly influential. I’d like to see him given the chance to settle into this role before taking the job away from him, but he’ll certainly need to play better soon to keep Sarri from going back to making the Khedira mistake.
CM: Miralem Pjanic 7/10
Juventus badly missed Miralem Pjanic in the match against Genoa and against Torino we saw once again the impact Pjanic can have. He was a huge part of Juve’s turnaround in the second half that saw they take control after being outplayed in the first half.
Juve would have really been in trouble if his muscular fatigue had kept him out of this match. It would be great if Juve would give him back free kick duties instead of letting Ronaldo waste them with shots from ridiculous ranges, but the fact that he can have such an impact even without the most impressive facet of his game is pretty incredible. Hopefully they realize this problem soon because giving Pjanic more dead ball opportunities could make a huge difference for Juve’s stagnating attack.
CM: Blaise Matuidi 5.5/10
I said before the match that Blaise Matuidi would start and be ineffective because of his fit in the flow of the match. Then we got to the match and Blaise Matuidi was ineffective because of his fit int he flow of the match.
Matuidi didn’t even actually have much of a defensive impact in this match, which would have been nice when Torino was finding success in Juve’s end in the first half. That just made the fact that he provided Juve’s attack with just about nothing even worse. Matuidi doesn’t belong in these types of matches and if this is what Juve is going to get out of him this year, they need to find another option.