Leonardo Bonucci suddenly a doubt to face Napoli due to muscle fatigue

And just when it looked like Napoli would be the team facing a bigger roster crunch heading into Thursday night’s showdown at Allianz Stadium, Juventus is making its own case to take that title.

In Monday’s recap of the daily training session ahead of the club’s return to action in three days, Juventus announced that Leonardo Bonucci is listed as day-to-day because of muscle fatigue. Because of the timing of it and just how we don’t know how fast said muscle fatigue will be no longer around, Bonucci is most definitely one to consider a complete question mark for Thursday night’s showdown with Napoli in Turin.

With Bonucci now dealing with muscle fatigue and Giorgio Chiellini still out after his positive COVID-19 test over the weekend, Juventus now has just two available central defenders: Matthijs de Ligt and Daniele Rugani. Good times.

Ah, injuries. They’re fun, aren’t they? So much fun. So very, very fun.

With Danilo still out injured, Bonucci looking like he will be out because he’s injured and Chiellini still in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19 a couple of days ago, Max Allegri doesn’t really have any other option than to go with de Ligt and Rugani in defense. There’s no ability to switch to a three-man defense because Danilo is around and can play the hybrid role he was so good at last season. Hell, not even Koni De Winter can be called up from the Under-23 team because he also tested positive for COVID-19 a few days before Chiellini. It’s de Ligt, it’s Rugani, and there you go.

Throw in Luca Pellegrini being out with what the club has described as the flu and not COVID and you’ve definitely got the makings of a defensive crisis on our hands.

Welcome to 2022, everybody. It’s already looking like 2021 and 2020 when it comes to injuries (and this stupid, stupid virus) continuing to occupy a lot of our thoughts whenever we think about Juventus.