It looks like having nearly a week in between games hasn’t prevented Luciano Spalletti from having to sweat out an injury to one of his most important players ahead of Saturday night’s Derby d’Italia at the
San Siro.
According to Sky Sport Italia and IlBianconero amongst others, Juventus midfielder Khephren Thuram is a doubt to face brother Marcus and his Serie A-leading Inter Milan teammates due to a bone bruise he picked up in training this week. Considering news of this broke on Friday and Juventus will take the field at San Siro on Saturday night, this means Thuram is a “serious doubt,” according to Sky Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio, and will leave Spalletti without one of the players who has played the most minutes for the Tuscan manager over the last couple of months.
Sky Italia believes that the younger Thuram will indeed miss the latest meeting with his older brother, forcing Spalletti into a change ahead of both the Derby d’Italia and potentially the first leg of the Champions League play-off round tie against Galatasaray three days later on Tuesday. Di Marzio predicts that if Thuram can’t play against Inter on Saturday then it will be the much-maligned Teun Koopmeiners coming into the starting lineup to play alongside Manuel Locatelli in Spalletti’s 4-2-3-1 formation.
Thuram will be re-evaluated on Saturday morning prior to Juve’s departure for Milan, according to reports, with a final decision coming following his scans at J Medical.
So that’s not something you want to see happen a little more than 24 hours before your biggest game of the season to date. On top of the simple Thuram Brothers Derby narrative suddenly not being available to talk about, the simple fact that Juventus’ midfield certainly takes on a different dynamic when Thuram is on form — something that has been rather hit or miss in recent weeks — as compared to that of Koopmeiners playing alongside Locatelli is going to now be even more noticeable against an Inter midfield that is arguably the best in Serie A.
Thuram was one of Juventus’ four goal scorers in September’s wild 4-3 win over Inter at the Allianz Stadium, with his 82nd-minute header pulling the Bianconeri even ahead of Vasilije Adžić‘s thunderbolt of a game-winning goal in the first minute of stoppage time.
