Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Monza

In all honesty, a very large part of me has absolutely no interest in Juventus’ trip to Monza this afternoon, the Bianconeri’s final game before the upcoming international break.

That has nothing to do with the fact that there is an international break coming up and that a winter World Cup is all of about two months away from starting up after that. It’s all about what Juventus has done and how they’ve suddenly made a lot of us feel about the club’s immediate future — which is not very good at all considering it is, and I can’t stress this enough, the middle of September.

Juventus is in the midst of a very sub-par 2022-23 season. and the only thing that a potential win over Monza can provide is a temporary respite from the larger problems at hand. The thing is, that’s “problems” and not “problem” because there are multiple issues at this club being completely exposed right now even as they sat “just” four points off the Serie A lead entering the weekend.

No matter if it’s the manager, the roster construction, the consistent injuries to important players or the unavoidable fact that Juve just aren’t very good right now,

And who knows when things will start to turn in the right direction.

Even though it’s Monza, it’s hard to think of Juventus running away with a win based on how they’re playing, who isn’t available to play in this one and the fact that so many players are just all out of sync right now. Monza, for all the wheeling and dealing their well-known front office and leadership team did during the summer transfer window, sit at the bottom of the Serie A table and are one of three teams in Italy’s top flight to not win a game this season.

The thing is, Juve has just two more wins than Monza this season.

That’s not good, and hopefully it doesn’t get worse after the trip over to Lombardi this weekend. But you can see it getting worse because that’s just the Juventus team we’re seeing at the moment — and that’s not good at all.

MATCH INFO

When: Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022.

Where: U-Power Stadium, Monza, Italy.

Official kickoff time: 3 p.m. local time in Italy and around Europe, 2 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 9 a.m. Eastern time, 6 a.m. Pacific time.

STARTING LINEUPS

Juventus starting XI (4-3-3): Perin; De Sciglio, Bremer, Gatti, Danilo; McKennie, Paredes, Miretti; Di Maria, Vlahovic, Kostic.

Juventus bench: Szczęsny, Pinsoglio, Bonucci, Rugani, Barbieri, Fagioli, Barrenechea, Kean, Soulé, Iling-Junior.

Monza starting XI (3-4-3): Di Gregorio; Marlon, Pablo Marí, Izzo; Ciuriia, Rovella, Sensi, Carlos Augusto; Pessina, Mota, Caprari.

HOW TO WATCH

Television: BT Sport 3 (United Kingdom).

Online/Streaming: Paramount+ (United States); fuboTV Canada (Canada); BT Sport app, BTSport.com (United Kingdom); Amazon Prime Video (Italy).

Other live viewing options can be found here, and as always, you can also follow along with us live and all the stupid things we say on Twitter. If you haven’t already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.