Mirko Vucinic - The man under the radar

Carlos Tevez has also featured in Vucinic’s position

Who can replace Vucinic in the present squad?

Giovinco has often been used to fit into this role, but because of a lack of physical attributes, he has failed to execute them. Marchisio and Pogba have played in this role and have failed. With the arrival of two new strikers, Conte will be taking a big risk by fielding both of them right from the start of the season.

The pre-season matches have certainly shown that the Tevez-Llorente combination is not working out as expected, but given a certain amount of time, it may produce results. Conte should rotate Vucinic and Llorente in the role behind the main striker, rather than employing Carlos Tevez solely in this role.

Tevez, like Llorente, is a proven goal scorer and he will guarantee a 20 goal season. Llorente, however, will take a certain amount of time to fit into this system. In all of the pre-season games so far, Tevez’s hunger for goals and assists has made his vision while playing seem one–dimensional, and that is to only move forward.

Tevez doesn’t look to move the ball to the flanks or play it backward to the midfielders. His eagerness to provide individual statistics will dampen the system that Juventus have been playing for a couple of years. He will not bring the centre halves higher up the pitch, and Juventus will fail to penetrate through most defences, as it was illustrated against Everton. Tevez needs to be used as a goal scorer and Llorente needs to be trained as a trequartista.

Llorente does possess very good ball control, but his vision for passing is indifferent compared to that of Tevez. He can hold the ball and help us retain possession. The Tevez-Vucinic combination was supreme in the Super Coppa Italia game against Lazio.

Vucinic will never be a proven goal scorer, but he will always be a goal-getter. His departure will force Conte to experiment and start right from the fundamentals. Conte has hardly a week left, and to try a new system now is not what everyone wants. Most of the successful teams in the past have retained their best players and added players in required positions to improve the team. We need to keep our best players and let go of dead weight that is in present in abundance at the attacking front. Vucinic is not replaceable in this team, not now at least.