Juventus are in eighth place in the league after three wins and four draws

Juventus must keep things simple in their Serie A derby at Torino today as they look to turn around their poor form, manager Massimiliano Allegri said yesterday. Allegri’s side are under pressure having underperformed this season, while grappling with a lengthy injury list.
“Torino are an intense team that attacks, therefore, it will be a complicated match like all of them are. We must play a careful game, keep it short and tidy and work as a team to try to get a positive result,” Allegri told reporters.
Juventus are in eighth place in the league standings after three wins and four draws and will be looking to rebound after a surprising 2-0 away loss against Maccabi Haifa in the Champions League on Tuesday. Allegri denied that he has lowered the team’s ambitions in light of recent results and has ruled out stepping down despite the Italian club’s poor run of form. “The goals are always the same... but we have plenty of time to recover,” Allegri said. “The President has fired up the team and the atmosphere, now we need to come together even more between the club, the team, the coaching staff and the fans.”
The club said on Thursday that Angel Di Maria had suffered a low-grade hamstring injury and will be out until early November. Midfielder Paul Pogba and winger Marley Ake are still out along with striker Kaio Jorge and right back Mattia De Sciglio who has a hamstring injury.
“I haven’t yet decided on the lineup. Moise Kean didn’t start against Maccabi Haifa because in the final session, he had a little discomfort, and I preferred not to risk him,” Allegri said. “We are in a period in which we will play many games, we need to understand who needs a breather, both physically and mentally, obviously also taking into account the characteristics of the opponent that we will face.”
A month after reporting their biggest ever financial loss, Juventus are braced for yet more economic pain as they near elimination from the Champions League, where face the prospect of not making it out of the group stage for the first time since 2013.
Juve’s European struggles come at a particularly acute time for the club, who last month posted a loss of 254mn euros ($247.07mn) for the last financial year. Not making the Champions League knockout round would deprive Juventus of 9.6mn euros of prize money for reaching the last 16 plus a potential 38.6mn euros in the event they reached the final.
A bigger concern long-term would be a failure to finish in the top-four of Serie A and make it into next season’s competition, a very real threat with the team currently eighth in the Serie A standings.
The team’s poor results mark another low for Agnelli, one of the architects of the doomed European Super League. The proposed league, which collapsed two days after its launch in April 2021, sought to guarantee entry and increase prize money for the continent’s biggest sides and guard against the impact of one poor campaign.
This is Juventus’ most difficult period since the 2010-11 season, when they finished seventh in Serie A, although their struggles then could be explained by the devastating effects of the 2006 Calciopoli corruption scandal. Their current travails are harder to excuse.
Juve won a record nine consecutive Serie A titles between 2012 and 2020, a period in which they also reached two Champions League finals. Allegri returned as coach in 2021 in the hope he would restore them to their past glories after the unsuccessful appointments of Maurizio Sarri and novice Andrea Pirlo. But the coach has been accused of failing to move with the times, sticking rigidly to outdated tactics.
Meanwhile, AS Roma striker Paulo Dybala became the latest big-name players to be ruled out as clubs battle with a packed fixture schedule. Like other European leagues, Serie A has had to condense its schedule with the Italian top flight set to shut down for the Qatar World Cup, which begins on Nov. 20, and AC Milan manager Stefano Pioli said muscle injuries had risen by 20% because of the extra pressure.
Some clubs have been hit worse than others. Table-toppers Napoli, who have been barely affected by injuries, have won five league matches in a row to extend their unbeaten run since the start of the season in both Serie A and in the Champions League.
Luciano Spalletti’s side will host Bologna tomorrow after moving to the Champions League knockout stages with two games to spare with another comfortable 4-2 win over Ajax Amsterdam on Tuesday.
Roma are sixth in the table and four points behind Napoli but Dybala’s injury could also deal a huge blow to Jose Mourinho’s side as they travel to bottom team Sampdoria on Monday. The Argentina international has scored five goals and made two assists in eight league appearances since joining Roma from Juve in the close season.
Milan also have a long list of injured players, four of which – captain Davide Calabria, Alexis Saelemaekers, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Alessandro Florenzi – are not expected to return until next year. Tuesday’s 2-0 Champions League defeat to Chelsea, their second loss to the London side in a week, has dampened the mood as Pioli’s team travel to 18th-placed Hellas Verona on  tomorrow.