One of the downfalls that led to Igor Tudor being sacked as Juventus’ manager two weeks ago was the simple fact that his team just wasn’t scoring goals. And, as you can probably figure out, the fewer goals you score,
then the less likely you are to win games no matter if it’s domestically or in Europe.
Since the mid-September matchups against Inter Milan and Borussia Dortmund where Juve scored a combined eight goals and looked like their best Bremer-less course to victory might just be to simply outscore teams, it has been a struggle to get goals on a consistent basis.
To what extent? Well, try this on …
Juventus have been shut out in four of their last six Serie A fixtures, the most recent coming in Saturday night’s scoreless draw with Torino in the first Derby della Mole of the 2025-26 season. Over that span, Juve have collected just eight out of a possible 18 points, and the Bianconeri’s attacking players have scored all of one measly goal from open play over that span, as La Gazzetta dello Sport points out. That would be Chico Conceição very nice solo effort in the Sept. 20 draw against Hellas Verona at the Bentegodi.
Since then, a span of 50 days as of this writing, it’s been a struggle. It’s been an absolute struggle.
It doesn’t matter if it’s Dusan Vlahovic, Kenan Yildiz, Conceição or any of the three summer signings that haven’t made much of a consistent impact whatsoever, scoring from open play has become quite the issue for Juventus’ strikers. Vlahovic’s last goal in Serie A came in the 3-1 win over Udinese nearly two weeks ago that Massimo Brambilla was in charge for as we awaited Luciano Spalletti’s arrival. Heck, his last goal against league opposition from open play came when he was doing his super sub thing against Genoa in late August. It’s almost as long of a stretch for Yildiz, whose long-range bullet against Inter on Sept. 13 was his last goal from open play in Serie A.
We all know about the struggles that Jonathan David has dealt with since his season-opening goal against Parma. We also know about Loïs Openda’s struggles now that he’s gotten more playing time of late and the simple fact that Edon Zhegrova was always going to be slowly worked back into the squad following his lengthy injury absence to begin the 2025 calendar year.
There are many issues for Spalletti to try and turn around as his time as manager goes on over the next couple of months, but getting the attack at least firing on some kind of cylinders feels like one of the most pressing priorities coming out of the November international break. They won’t always be facing an opposing goalkeeper who’s suddenly on a heater, but at the same time they need to get the attack going if they want any chance of getting into the play-off spots in the Champions League and actually into the top four — and stay there — in Serie A.
Juventus’ summer transfer dealings focused so much on the attack that you would have hoped to see some of the benefit of that as we hit the month of November. Instead, those same issues of finishing the scoring chances they are creating have come back to the fore and reared their ugly head again. Regardless of what talent he has at his disposal, Spalletti has his work cut out for him to try and get things figured out up front because Juve need a change for the better — and fast.
