Blaise Matuidi sounds very tired

One of Blaise Matuidi’s most endearing qualities as a player is that he just seems to go, go and go without much objection. It’s endless energy, endless running, endless effort in a Juventus midfield that has proven to need a player of Matuidi’s skillset.

But even a player like Matuidi needs a break every now and then to recharge their batteries and then go out and run things down close to empty again.

And it is sounding like Matuidi is in desperate need of one.

“I’d gladly take a week’s holiday by the sea, if only I could,” Matuidi admitted in an interview with La Repubblica. “It’s not possible though. I have a game with France on Friday, we’re world champions and we need to take the Nations League seriously.

“I’m trying to give everything, even with these conditions, and being on the bench against Manchester United helped me a lot. Luckily a team that takes pauses never wins anything, and I had no doubt we’d immediately cancel out the loss to United.”

(Source: Football Italia)

Do I think that Matuidi would be saying this if Juventus had more than three midfielders available for most of the past four weeks worth of games? Of course. the fact that there is not much depth in the center of the midfield is one of the few yet noticeable flaws in this very well-crafted roster.

He’s got good reason to want to do nothing other than sit on a beach with a big drink for the next week.

While most of his other teammates were either on holiday or just getting back to Turin to start up preseason training, Matuidi — as well as Mario Mandzukic — was taking part in the World Cup final. Because of that, his summer vacation was shorter than most, and the ability to rest before the grind of the club season was obviously cut short.

Simply by the tone of his words, Matuidi is feeling it these days. How much of that is because he has started 10 out of Juve’s first 12 league games, played the fifth-most amount of minutes of any Juventus outfield player and just went on a run of starting pretty much every game between the October international break and the current one is anybody’s guess. But, in general, Matuidi sounds like he could use a full summer off next year.

In the meantime, somebody make sure he gets some rest — and maybe a rest whenever Juventus has some options in the midfield for once.