There was a familiar back on the training fields at Continassa on Wednesday.
That would be that of Dusan Vlahovic, who at least partially took part in his first training session with his teammates for the first time since undergoing surgery for his adductor injury back in early December. Since then, the only Vlahovic sightings had been before kickoff of games or in the tunnel as he celebrated a Juventus goal like he did a few weeks ago when Pierre Kalulu scored late in stoppage time to equalize in the Bianconeri’s
2-2 draw with Lazio at the Allianz.
You want proof? Well, Juventus’ social media folks are making sure you’ve got that proof. Here’s video proof …
While he still hasn’t reportedly completely trained with the rest of his teammates for a full training session with Luciano Spalletti, the hope is that Vlahovic will be available in some sort of way for Juventus’ fixture against last-place Pisa this Saturday night in Turin. That almost certainly would be as an option off the bench for Spalletti, who has shown the limitations of his current depth situation in recent weeks.
But if Vlahovic is to come back in these couple of fixtures before the March international break arrives after Juventus’ March 21 matchup against Sassuolo and play a decent amount of minutes, it’s the potentially big development that Spalletti might be hoping for in attack knowing how much his team has struggled to consistently get goals from its No. 9.
Or, in this case, namely Jonathan David since he’s started the vast majority of games in Vlahovic’s place since the big Serbian’s injury all of a month into Spalletti’s tenure as manager.
In 17 appearances (10 starts) in all competitions this season, Vlahovic has scored six goals and recorded two assists. Remarkably, even though he hasn’t played since late-November, Vlahovic is still the fourth-highest goal scorer for Juventus in Serie A with three goals, trailing only Kenan Yildiz, the aforementioned David and Weston McKennie.
