Pavel Nedved concedes ‘something went wrong’ at Juventus this season and expresses his frustration at Paul Pogba. ‘You cannot force a player to have surgery, even if we are paying him.’
The game with PSG kicks off at the Allianz Juventus Stadium in Turin at 20.00 GMT.
The Bianconeri cannot now reach the Round of 16 in this competition, but could still beat Maccabi Haifa to third place and therefore a Europa League play-off in February.
“We have not yet achieved our Europa League place, so we need a good performance to hit that target and we’ll have to sweat for it,” the vice-president told Sport Mediaset.
“The Europa League is not at the level of the Champions League, but on an economic and sporting level, it is still important.
“We lost four out of five games, it’s only natural we should go out of the Champions League after that. We are also lagging behind in Serie A.”
Juve go into this clash with Paris Saint-Germain missing 11 players, including suspended Danilo, injured Dusan Vlahovic, Moise Kean, Angel Di Maria, Leandro Paredes and Gleison Bremer.
“We’ve been battling with injuries since the start of the season, there are in total 12 or 13 injuries, so we need to ask ourselves some serious questions.
“Fortunately, the season takes a break on November 13 and we need to make evaluations on everything, then hope to start again on a different foot. I am not talking about the coach, club, players or anything specific, but something evidently went wrong.”
Even without the injuries, Juventus have never seemed in particularly good physical shape, tending to play in fits and starts.
“We lacked intensity for long periods, at least 60-70 minutes. There might be many reasons behind that, and when everyone gets back – hopefully one day we will have everyone available at the same time – we’ll have the squad we wanted, with the right mix between youth and experience.”
The most notable injury was for Pogba, who has not played a competitive match yet for Juventus since his return as a free agent from Manchester United.
He had a meniscus tear in July, refused surgery, then had to go under the knife after conservative treatment failed, and recently had another relapse that rules him out of the World Cup with France.
“We cannot force a player to undergo surgery, even if he is a dependent and we are paying him,” noted Nedved, expressing their evident frustration with Pogba.
“He chose conservative therapy, it did not go well, then he had an operation and that didn’t entirely fix it either. We had hoped he’d be playing now, so did he.
“He was meant to come back November 5 and then play the World Cup. Perhaps he made the decision not to go to the World Cup a little late, but he remains a great person and great player.”
surgery the faster option, but pogba correct here, let it heal – takes longer but heals better
He cannot be forced to put down the hair dye and the tik tok either.
Is there a surgery to fix what’s wrong with Pogba?