Juventus vs. Roma: Projected Lineups

Over the course of his first season as Juventus manager, Max Allegri developed a habit of being rather hush-hush when it came to what his starting lineup would be. He'd answer the starting lineup-related question, but not really answer the question to the point where we would actually know what was going to happen.

So when you see that Allegri announces something like this...

.@OfficialAllegri: "@PauDybala_JR will start tomorrow night's game." #RomaJuve

— JuventusFC (@juventusfcen) August 29, 2015

...you tend to not only be a little more than just surprised, but also taken aback. So then Max goes and does something like the quote above for a second time in the same pre-match press conference...

.@OfficialAllegri: "#Padoin is the best solution to operate in front of the defence. He played well against Udinese." #RomaJuve

— JuventusFC (@juventusfcen) August 29, 2015

...and you wonder who has taken control of the man's mind and wonder if the real Allegri would like to stand up.

Yes, Allegri seemingly announcing 20 percent of his starting lineup 24 hours before kickoff isn't exactly something we're used to since he took over as Juve's manager 14 months ago. Who knows if this is a thing to pay attention to in the future, but I guess knowing that Paulo Dybala will be one of Juventus' starting strikers against Roma isn't the worst thing in the world. (But about Simone Padoin being a holding midfielder again...) We have other things to stress about, of course, like who is going to win the game. That's rather important.

But when it comes to the rest of Juventus' starting lineup against Roma, there aren't going to be any kind of difficult squad decisions that Allegri will have to make. Álvaro Morata is back from injury, but Dybala starting most likely means Morata will be an option off the bench. Same goes for Juve new boys Alex Sandro and Juan Cuadrado, who are both probably a little bit of time away before their first starts in bianconero.

I guess having certain players out injured makes the decisions a little easier for Allegri. At least we now have a game this season to base things off of, right? We figured this new-look Juventus to be exactly that as the days led up to the opener last weekend against Udinese, but the injury situation prevented things from being the all too revolutionary. We'll just have to be a little more patient as we watch Juventus-Roma and track the Julian Draxler transfer rumor mill every 30 seconds.

The more things change, the more the 3-5-2 stays the same...

Projected Lineups

Juventus XI (3-5-2): Gianluigi Buffon; Andrea Barzagli, Leonardo Bonucci, Giorgio Chiellini; Stephan Lichtsteiner, Roberto Pereyra, Simone Padoin, Paul Pogba, Patrice Evra; Paulo Dybala, Mario Mandzukic

Roma XI (4-3-3): Wojciech Szczęsny; Maicon, Kostas Manolas, Leandro Castán, Vasilis Torosidis; Miralem Pjanić, Seydou Keita, Radja Nainggolan; Mohamed Salah, Edin Džeko, Iago Falque