Just like we saw in October, Juventus’ first Serie A fixture out of the November international break was nothing special whatsoever. The only difference was that Juve actually got three points on that night against Lazio, whereas Thiago Motta’s squad making a second trip to the San Siro in less than a month was every bit of a drab draw that the 0-0 final score would suggest that it was.
The thing is, Juventus returned to the field in the Champions League a few days later. The performance that day resulted in the only loss on Thiago Motta’s managerial record in Turin thus far, with even Mattia Perin’s heroics proving to not be enough in a 1-0 heartbreaker of a loss to Stuttgart.
So, just like that meh performance against Lazio, Juve are now looking at a European fixture right in the face again for their second fixture out of an international break. This time around, though, they’re not going to be playing in front of their hometown fans in Turin. Instead, they’ll be heading to play on English soil in the Champions League for the first time since November of 2021 — and what a night that was to forget against Chelsea in London — when they face an Aston Villa side that is both struggling domestically but actually ahead of Juventus in the new 36-team league phase table.
But just like over the weekend, Juventus will be severely shorthanded when it comes to the options available to Thiago Motta. It’s hard to believe, but it will be even worse than things worse against Milan just a few short days ago. At the San Siro, Juventus were without seven players due to injury. That number has now gone up to eight with Weston McKennie dealing with muscle fatigue over the last couple of days.
As a result, Motta’s traveling squad has all of 14 outfield players available to face Aston Villa.
The injury situation is not good. In fact, it’s worse than just it was this past weekend. And it comes at a time in which Juventus have two extremely important games domestically and in the Champions League. Motta’s options are limited — or maybe even something to consider extremely limited, and that’s probably putting it lightly.
But we can say this about Juventus compared their opposition Wednesday night: at least they have a win in the last month.
Villa’s 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace over the weekend put an end to their four-game losing run in all competitions that dated back to late October when they were dumped out of the English League Cup by ... Crystal Palace. However, they’ve now gone six games without a win and have shown very much there for the taking defensively.
How so?
During the course of their six-game slide, Villa have allowed 12 goals in total. So, not only is the Villa defense leaking goals, but they also seem to be missing a midfielder who can recover the ball like they had last season when they surpried everybody and qualiftied for the Champions League. Somebody like, say, Douglas Luiz. (Whatever happened there? Sure would be nice if he could do that with Juventus!)
But even with a 1-0 loss to Club Bruges part of that recent downturn in form, it’s been in Europe where Aston Villa have found their most amount of success. They were one of the biggest surprises during the first three league phase matchdays, and entered Matchday 5 sitting in eighth place in the table, three spots ahead of 11th-place Juventus.
So, does that mean Unai Emery will stick with the high line that Premier League teams have exploited but hasn’t cost them nearly as much in the Champions League?
Or will month-long struggles that Villa are currently in the midst of cause them to change things up considering they are playing a team that has done well against teams that play that kind of way? (See: PSV Eindhoven or RB Leipzig ...)
So on one end we have a team that hasn’t won in over a month and at the other end there’s a team that is going through one hell of an injury crisis and is simply trying to survive at the moment. It’s quite the interesting matchup despite all of that, and even moreso when you consider where both are in the league phase table.
It certainly creates quite the interesting encounter in Birmingham, England. Whether that’s a good kind of interesting still remains to be seen.
TEAM NEWS
The big injury news to come with Juventus’ traveling squad being announced early Tuesday was that Dusan Vlahovic will be forced to miss his second straight game due to the muscle tweak he picked up during the international break.
There’s also a new name on the injury list: Weston McKennie, with the American midfielder forced to miss training due to muscle fatigue. He is the eighth player to land on Juventus’ injury list heading into the trip to Aston Villa.
Those other six injured players are: Gleison Bremer, Juan Cabal, Arek Milik, Douglas Luiz, Nico González and Vasilije Adzic.
All of this means means Thiago Motta will have just three outfield players on the bench against Aston Villa. That’s just crazy.
Motta hinted that Timothy Weah could very well get the started up front, but wouldn’t commit to saying who would step into Vlahovic’s spot in the starting lineup.
Motta said that Teun Koopmeiners is still dealing with a case of the flu but, like Saturday night, will still be in the starting lineup. Where he will play, however, is something we won’t know for sure until the starting lineups are announced an hour before kickoff.
A big component to Wednesday night’s game, according to Motta? He said “being first to the loose balls could play a very important role in the match.”
Juventus has won just three of their last 15 away fixtures against English opposition in European competitions. Of those 15 games, nine of them have been losses.
JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH
So, it’s going to be a second straight game without a natural No. 9 called up due to injury.
And while the first time around I went with the guy who I thought was going to be taking Vlahovic’s place in the starting lineup, that didn’t exactly work out well. So let’s just go ahead, maybe do a little deductive reasoning, and go with the guy who actually attempted to step into the big hole left up front in Vlahovic’s absence.
AC Milan v Juventus - Serie A Photo by Sportinfoto/DeFodi Images via Getty Images
We don’t know if Teun Koopmeiners will once again be the mask tasked with filling the shoes of the false nine, but we do know that his first time out in that spot was a bit of an adventure — and not in a good way. So if Tim Weah is not ready for a heavier workload than the 10 or so minutes he ended up playing over the weekend or if Thiago Motta has an idea up his sleeve that we’re not thinking of at the moment, it will be another go up front for a player Juventus didn’t exactly sign to play in that kind of position.
So in a start to a Juve career that has yet to see him match the same kind of production that Koopmeiners put together during his time in Bergamo, now there’s this little wrinkle to things.
No matter if the talented Dutchman plays up top like he did this past weekend or back to his usual spot behind whoever the heck is the false nine come Wednesday night, it’s safe to say that his importance is very much as high as its been over the last three months. We’re still waiting for his first goal in bianconero, with there being both close calls and games in which he’s done very little in front of goal.
What’s that old saying ... desperate times call for desperate measures? Well, considering Juventus have all of about 14 outfield players available to face Aston Villa on Wednesday night, I would say that’s a pretty desperate situation. And hopefully it’s something that goes a little bit better than what we saw from Koopmeiners over the weekend.
MATCH INFO
When: Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024.
Where: Villa Park, Birmingham, England.
Official kickoff time: 9 p.m. in Italy and the Central European time zone, 8 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 3 p.m. Eastern time, 12 p.m. Pacific time.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: TNT Sports 2 (United Kingdom).
Online/Streaming: Paramount+ (United States); DAZN Canada (Canada); Amazon Prime Video (United Kingdom); Amazon Prime Video (Italy).
Other live viewing options can be found here, and as always, you can also follow along with us live and all the stupid things we say on Twitter. If you haven’t already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.