The Old Lady Speaks Podcast, Episode 131: Juve start 2023 with a pair of wins

For the first time in over a month-and-a-half, we had a Juventus game or two to talk about again.

Of course, they weren’t the prettiest games that Juve will ever play. But they were, nonetheless, two games in which Juventus won and got a clean sheet on top of it, so there was at least two very definitive reasons to be happy about things.

And they meant that Juventus’ winning streak continued. Also, combined with Napoli’s first loss of the season, gave us another reason to see what Juve can do when they make the trip to Naples this week knowing that the lead atop the Serie A table is a little smaller compared to what it was when games resumed after the World Cup break.

Coulda been worse for a team that hadn’t played a competitive game in 52 days.

So, for that, we are happy about how things started to begin the new year. Hooray for 2023.

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

• Juve keep winning!
• Takeaways from the first week back in action after a month and a half away due to the World Cup — including how it might not be about how you start the season but how you rebound from it, why Juve’s play still might have us a little trepidatious about things, and holy bleeping bleep that assist from Federico Chiesa.
• Seriously, Juve keep winning!
• As nice as it is to see Juve keep winning games and adding to the winning streak, just how sustainable is this brand of football knowing that much more attack-minded opponents are coming up on the schedule.
• What a win (or a draw) against Napoli would mean for Juventus, its Scudetto chances and for the rest of the top of the Serie A table.
• Federico Chiesa is back, his assist against Udinese most certainly shows that, and he’s obviously going to be vital for Juve’s success going forward in Serie A and the Europa League.
• With Arek Milik’s goal on Wednesday against Cremonese, Juve have another free kick option that we didn’t necessarily knew they had before that game.
• Twitter questions — including how Juventus can generate some more offense and what it will take to do that, has Max Allegri’s recent run of success made up for the beginning to the season and the Champions League struggles, and if Danilo has proven to be the best piece of business Fabio Paratici did during his time in Turin.
• A few thoughts on the passing of former Juve captain Gianluca Vialli.

You can listen to Episode 131 of The Old Lady Speaks Podcast here:

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