Juventus: Taking stock of Serie A, and the mystery of Fernando Llorente

This season, Antonio Conte will have to tackle his first great footballing test since taking over at Juventus. Having made the summit with an unheralded team, he now has to dig his heels in to stay at the top.

This season, there are several other favourites in the title race, setting the stage for a mouthwatering run-in. There’s also a danger that focusing on two fronts might see the Old Lady falling between the proverbial stools. Juventus have a tough group in the Champions League, where they are yet to record a win and two matches against the mighty Real Madrid loom large on the horizon. In Serie A, major rivals have re-armed themselves during the window with new players and even, in most cases, new managers.

Let’s set a context to this race. The previous season, Juventus cantered to the league title with relative ease. Indeed, to the motorsports-minded, it was something of a Grand Chelem. The Bianconeri took the lead at the start, maintained it throughout and finished in the same position, with a comfortable margin of 9 points. The rest of the league woke up and spent a frenetic summer mercato (window) refurbishing their squads.

The result? Six matchdays on, the top 4 sides are yet to lose, greatly reducing the margin for error. Roma have won all 6 games thus far, Napoli are two points behind and their imports from Real Madrid have already made a mark, with Higuain and Callejon scoring with abandon. Inter Milan have been the surprise package thus far, and in the 7-0 thumping of Sassuolo showed that they can switch gears from defence to attack with ease.

All this makes the league very competitive – and possibly more interesting than any other in Europe. It may serve as the catalyst for a much-delayed image makeover in Italian football. As Juventus owner Andrea Agnelli stated yesterday in a letter to shareholders, Serie A has done a pathetic job of marketing itself abroad, resulting in dwindling TV revenues, decrepit stadia and low attendances. The overriding image of the league as boring, slow-paced and tactically negative has to change, and a tight, tense multi-pronged contest should do just that.

While all that is well and good, there is no denying that Juventus have to raise their game by a couple of notches and switch to fifth gear for us to pick up another major trophy this season. Heck, even staying in the Champions League should not be taken for granted. We need to be on the pace come March to be sure of the latter target, and to keep the pace beyond that for the primary one : Scudetto number 32 (or 30, have it whichever way you will).

Overall performance

Juventus are sitting at 3^rd in the league, having dropped points only at the San Siro. So far our performance has been typical – solid if unspectacular. It’s hard to pick a standout player, because goals are coming from across the field and everyone is chipping in. No Juventus player is among the top 5 goalscorers, and our highest assister is, strangely enough, centre-back Leonardo Bonucci.

That said, a shout-out to Carlos Tevez, who has been the most impressive Juventus player thus far – and only partly for his goalscoring ability. His dedication and high work rate have turned him into an instant fan favourite, with the tempo noticeably slipping every time Tevez comes off.

Another player who has started well is youngster Paul Pogba. The 3-5-2 formation remains efficient largely because the players are so well-drilled at using it, and other clubs across Europe are starting to take notice of this formation.

While the 3-at-the-back strategy continues to pay off, the arrival of Tevez hasn’t entirely solved our problems in attack, although the team balance still allows for goals to come from across the field.

Juventus remain hard to score against and harder still to defend against. A return of 11 goals in 6 games is hardly earth-shattering, but, curiously, Juventus have recorded the highest shots per game in Serie A, at a staggering 17.7 per match. Once every five minutes the Bianconeri are recording a shot on goal, but without the due returns.

The reason for this abysmal conversion rate is that sides are now playing ten men behind the ball whenever Juventus are in possession. This is an inevitable side-effect of success. So we have more possession than any other Serie A team (a comfortable 61.4%, seeing a minute more of the ball on average than Roma in 2^nd place), but have been unable to capitalize on it. In that sense Juventus are a bit like the 2011-13 versions of Liverpool – plenty of wasteful possession, though of course scoring more.

This has also resulted in the defence being largely free to get forward and support the attack. To buttress that point, I’m going to direct your attention to this quite brilliant graph that describes the defensive effectiveness of different teams thus far on the basis of shots on goal. Props to the creator.

Quite clearly, while Juventus’ defence has done its job well (4 goals conceded in 6 matches), the attack is a ragged patchwork job, far from being the laser-sharp precision beam that is expected of potential European and Italian champions. The best way to break a deep defence is to physically bully them – and it is here that Fernando Llorente steps up (or doesn’t).

Llorente was supposed to be a strong target man who could hold up the defenders while laying off balls for other, nippier attackers like Tevez and ‘atom ant’ Sebastien Giovinco. But we always knew that his height is not only his principal weapon, it is his sole weapon. Llorente’s problem is that Juve don’t have a good crosser to tonk balls from the wings. His first goal for the club, against Hellas Verona, was, as expected, a long cross from Vidal on the flanks.As stated earlier, Juventus are not really a crossing team so this would change the system every time he comes on. Vidal is capable of drifting to the flanks and playing long balls to Llorente, but this is an approach that Juventus haven’t tried over a sustained period of time yet. However, this strategy assumes greater urgency in the light of teams sitting deep and brick-walling all attacks – Tevez and Giovinco are never going to succeed against defenders much larger than them.

Conte seems loath to change his tactics unless absolutely necessary. He is confident in his system and its ability to produce results (which is not always true – as we saw against Inter, bringing on Isla had some impact). It may not hurt to experiment even in Europe, where again he prefers to stick to a tried and tested team. Against Galatasaray, Juventus attempted 221 passes in the final third, compared to 67 by the Turks. The match ended all square, but noticeably sparked to life when Llorente came on late for Bonucci.

While Vucinic and Tevez have forged a good partnership as a number 9 and a number 10, Vucinic individually has left a lot to be desired. Sticking Llorente in the penalty box and playing him long balls may not be the strategy Conte wants to use to win. But it may be called for occasionally when Juve are struggling to break down a determined opponent.

Conte has shown himself to be a competent manager, but he must now demonstrate his ability to adapt to changing scenarios mid-match. On Sunday against AC Milan, a team that has defended deep and done plenty of scoring in the last ten minutes this season, we may well get to see if that is the case.

*All statistics sourced from WhoScored and OptaPaolo