Timothy Weah becomes the latest Juve player to be sidelined due to injury

At a time in which the depth on Juventus’ roster is already being tested for multiple reasons, the last thing Max Allegri needed to see happen was another one of his players suddenly set to miss game time because of an injury.

And yet ...

The start of a new work week brought us the news that one half of Juventus’ American contingent is set to miss some time due to a muscle injury he picked up during Saturday’s win over Hellas Verona. That American is Timothy Weah, who is set to miss an undefined amount of time with a low-grade thigh injury, it was announced Monday. While Juventus have not laid out an amount of time that Weah will be out for, many in the Italian media believe that this new muscle injury will likely keep him out until at least the international break, which means he will miss the first two games of November against Fiorentina and Cagliari.

So, now with the player who has started the last couple of games out wide on the right in Allegri’s 3-5-2 formation, that means Juventus now has no natural right wingbacks available for the next couple of weeks at least. That creates quite the problem for Allegri considering that depth out on the right has been so thin that the only other player to be fielded in Weah’s position is his fellow American, Weston McKennie, who has surprisingly handled himself well as a makeshift wingback.

Without Weah for the next couple of weeks in all likelihood, Allegri now has the dilemma of what to do with his starting lineup.

• Does he shift McKennie back out wide on the right and have one of his few remaining midfielders, Fabio Miretti, step into the lineup?
• Or does he take one of his few fullbacks/wingbacks in Andrea Cambiaso and play him in a much more unnatural spot on the right wing?

Considering McKennie has been very good in his handful of starts as a wingback this season, bringing Miretti into the starting lineup probably seems like the more logical option. But the fact that starting Miretti would leave the only Hans Nicolussi Caviglia as the only senior midfielder on the bench, it might not be as simple of a decision as you might think.

We might not know which direction Allegri will go right now, but at least one thing seems certain: we’re about to see a name or two from the Next Gen squad called up because Juve’s very slim depth out wide is now even thinner than it was a few days ago.