Report: Motta thinking of using Yildiz as a false 9 amidst Vlahovic's struggles

Yesterday at 02:35 PM

Could the Plan B involve somebody who's quite important to Plan A?

It is understandable that there is a little bit of concern after watching play out three consecutive scoreless draws against Serie A opposition. As much as the Champions League opener saw Juventus score and score and score against Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven, the other part of the Bianconeri's very unofficial motto of "it's 3-0 or nothing" so far this season played out once against Napoli.

One of the biggest things that both the Italian media and Juventus supporters have honed in on is the lack of scoring from star striker (and very well paid) Dusan Vlahovic, who has only found the back of the net against Hellas Verona this season. Vlahovic's lack of goals ere only magnified this past weekend when he was pulled at halftime of Saturday's draw with Napoli, a game in which the big Serb only had six touches and completed two passes.

So, is Motta thinking of some sort of changes? Yes, and it very much may involve two guys who are at the top of the 4-2-3-1 that he has been rolling out so far this season.

According to Tuttosport on Monday, Juventus' first-year manager is thinking of a new Plan B if Vlahovic's struggles — both in terms of simply scoring goals and overall effectiveness — continue on and Juventus remain stuck in neutral against Serie A opposition. The plan B for Juve's No. 9 coincidently involves Juve's new No. 10, Kenan Yildiz, who Motta is thinking about fielding as a false 9 in the same kind of way he did with Timothy Weah in the second half against Napoli. This would be as Motta waits for injured striker Arek Milik to return to the squad, which is expected to happen after the October international break.

OK, so there is probably a lot to digest here.

The first is probably centered around Vlahovic and how you think he is actually playing. Yes, we knew coming into this season that it was going to be a vitally important campaign for him — new manager, new tactics, bigger salary than ever before and raised expectations. But we also knew that he is very much not in the mold of somebody like Joshua Zirkzee that Motta really relied on last season at Bologna, which would likely put both men in a bit of an interesting situation of getting things done the way Juve's new manager wants to do it.

Two goals in the first six games of the season is not a good tally — especially when those two goals came in the same game — and the simple matter that Vlahovic barely saw any of the ball against Napoli just magnifies both his own and the team's struggles of late in the league. And not only does Vlahovic have just two goals, but he has recorded twice as many missed big chances, according to SofaScore.

Now comes the part about Yildiz.

We know he played well when he was positioned more centrally than as we awaited the arrival of Teun Koopmeiners last month. But the natural thing that Yildiz does if he is in the No. 10 role is to drift wide and do one of the things he does best — cut in, try to dump his marker and then get something toward goal or put a cross in. So the main thing about playing him as a false 9 would probably be how much freedom would he have to move wherever he wants considering Vlahovic is usually somewhere in the central channel.

It's certainly an interesting thing to consider. Yildiz is not what we think of previous No. 10s physically — he is 6-foot-2 compared to Vlahovic at 6-foot-3 — and there is some physicality to his game, so it's not like he would be totally out of his depth against big and strong central defenders. But you just wonder if what has allowed Yildiz to do so much of what he has been able to do this season might be taken away a little bit if he's a false 9 compared to where else he has played under Motta.