The Old Lady Speaks Podcast, Episode 113: Juve show shades of old self against Samp

The first Monday of the 2022-23 season, Juventus looked pretty solid.

The second Monday of the 2022-23 season, Juventus looked about the complete opposite of anything close to solid.

This was the stark contrast of performances from Juventus to begin the new campaign, as Monday night’s scoreless draw against Sampdoria was a vast difference from the Bianconeri’s season-opening win over Sassuolo. It was bad all the way around outside of the fact that Juve was able to record a second straight shutout. But a shutout is secondary to the fact that Juventus looked a lot like the team that was not very good for much of last season.

And that, my friends, is reason why things are a little worrisome.

Or, at the very least, why things aren’t being seen through some rose-colored glasses like they were seven days earlier when Juve looked like a well-oiled machine to open the season.

On this week’s episode of The Old Lady Speaks Podcast, we discuss:

• Takeaways from the week that was — including Manuel Locatelli’s future as a regista, how Fabio Miretti and Nicolo Rovella were two of the few positives against Sampdoria, and how (like the classic meme of the dog sitting in his house surrounded by fire) everything is fine.
• A deep dive into what went wrong for Juventus against Sampdoria.
• Seriously, folks: Dusan Vlahovic had nine — NINE!) — touches against Samp.
• Unfortunately, that meant talking about a lot of the same things that happened last season because Juventus’ draw against Sampdoria was a lot like so many games last season.
• Manuel Locatelli is not a regista yet Max Allegri still uses him as a regista.
• How just totally unsettled things are in the midfield at the moment.
• Twitter questions — including the best defense for further use of a McKennie-Locatelli-Rabiot midfield, what has Max Allegri done to actually help Juventus get better, thoughts on Pavel Nedved’s pre-game comments about training and the transfer market, how long until Miretti and Rovella get looks from the start, what needs to happen between now and Juve’s game against Roma for things to get better.

You can listen to Episode 113 of The Old Lady Speaks Podcast here:

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