Like The Best Horror Villains, Juventus Are Creeping Up On Serie A

Like the greatest horror villains, that sound you hear is the heavy footsteps of Juventus climbing back up the Serie A table, slowly ambling, slowly creeping, towards the top four.

Miraculously, or perhaps due in part to the sheer inconsistency of every other side in the division bar Napoli, Juve are only seven points away from fourth-placed Milan in the race to secure Champions League football for next season, and only 11 off of Lazio in second. Had it not been for the -15 points deduction incurred for alleged financial doping, Juve would be Napoli’s main contenders, and sitting on 56 points.

Since the turn of the year, they’ve only lost three times in all competitions, and after a horrendous start to the season, Max Allegri has finally found a formula and a system that’s working.

It hasn’t been pretty on the eye. Nobody would sit down to watch a Juventus match for aesthetic reasons, if Angel Di Maria isn’t on the pitch, this iteration of Juve can be truly dire to watch, with a real lack of imagination. Yet in that most classical of Juve attributes, they are grinding out results, grinding out wins and grinding their way back up the table.

Never was this more so than in the latest Derby d’Italia. Juve won 1-0 thanks to a crisp goal from Filip Kostic, who has been one of Allegri’s key performers in the second half of the season. The Serb took time to adapt to life in Serie A, but has now managed eight assists and three goals this season.

Against Inter, Juve had just 30.8% possession in the game. It is their lowest in a Serie A game since the 2003/2004 season when data was first collected. And yet, Wojciech Szczesney was barely troubled in the Juve goal at San Siro. Moreover, it was the first time Juve had kept two clean sheets against Inter in a single season for six years.

After Napoli and Lazio, Juve has the third best defense in the league, and in the 3-5-1-1 system Allegri stumbled upon, he’s managed to make Juve more resolute, while simultaneously getting the best out of players like Danilo, Bremer, Alex Sandro and even Federico Gatti, who’s beginning to show the reason why Juve bought him from Frosinone last summer.

In midfield, Allegri has turned to youth in the shape of Nicolo Fagioli, who has been one of the best performers of the season. Initially kept out of the side in favour of Weston McKennie and Leandro Paredes, Fagioli took his opportunities when the pair were unavailable, and Fagioli has now rubber-stamped his mark on the side. Part of the reason McKennie, who Allegri was a fan of, was allowed to leave for Leeds on loan was due to the young Fagioli’s growth over the last several months.

It’s remarkable to think that Juve’s form is also with two of their three most creative players – Paul Pogba and Federico Chiesa – both of whom have been out for the majority of the season. Pogba has played all-but 35 minutes of football this season due to various injuries, while Chiesa has been slowly nursed back to full fitness by Juve’s medical staff, with the club not looking to rush his return from his ACL injury. In fact, Chiesa was forced to come off in the Inter game after himself coming on as a substitute. The Italian only played for 17 minutes when he was taken off for Paredes with only seven minutes remaining.

Di Maria has also not been without his injury issues, and so the fact that Allegri has produced results without his three creative stars for long periods of time is a feather in the Tuscan’s cap. Stylistically, Allegri isn’t going to win any awards for the football Juve produce, but the man who lives by ‘corto muso’ was never one to care about style. Juve, bar a brief dalliance with Gigi Maifredi in 1990/91 and Maurizio Sarri nearly 30 years later, has never been a club concerned with how football is played, and on this Allegri’s philosophy fits perfectly with Juve’s. Winning is the only thing that matters, as the club’s motto says.

It would be a surprise to no one – yet at the same time a damming indictment of Serie A – if Juve were to finish in the top four even after being deducted 15 points. Given their form since the start of 2023 and if Pogba and Chiesa can stay fit (a very big if at this point), it really cannot be ruled out. They face four of their Champions League rivals in the final two months of the season, and come the final day of the season in the first weekend of June, don’t be surprised to see The Old Lady clinging to fourth spot and Champions League football somehow secured.