Juventus vice-president Pavel Nedved confirms the club owners brought in Dusan Vlahovic and Denis Zakaria to ‘send a message’ and transform the squad.

Their Coppa Italia quarter-final with Sassuolo kicks off at 20.00 GMT.

You can follow all the build-up and action as it happens on the LIVEBLOG.

Coppa Italia Liveblog: Atalanta-Fiorentina and Juventus-Sassuolo

Nedved was asked if the arrival of Vlahovic and Zakaria had changed the ambitions for Juventus in this current campaign.

“Our ambitions remain the same. The owners gave us clear indications, we are where we wanted to be at this stage, in the Coppa Italia and Champions League. Admittedly, we wanted to be further up the Serie A table, so we’re really lagging behind there,” Nedved told Sport Mediaset.

Vlahovic, Paulo Dybala and Alvaro Morata started upfront against Verona at the weekend, but considering two of those players are only under contract until June 30, will this be the same trident for Juventus next season?

“We’ll see. You know we have several players whose contracts are running down. If they should maintain this strength and work-rate, then it’ll be difficult to take them out of the starting XI.

“I think the coach has in his mind changes to the team and the way it plays with a trident.”

Zakaria is playing as a channel between defence, midfield and attack, as this evening looks more like a 4-4-2 formation.

“I think he can play any midfield role, in a two-man midfield or three. He has great substance, these long legs to run into spaces and also knows how to attack going forward, something our midfielders have lacked,” continued Nedved.

“I must compliment our lads Maurizio and Federico for having a really fantastic transfer strategy.”

Juventus had warned for months they would not make big investments in January, but then spent over €70m for Fiorentina striker Vlahovic and bought Zakaria from Borussia Monchengladbach.

“The message was very clear, the owners gave us this opportunity to intervene in January, as we brought our summer objectives forward by six months. We are very happy and saw the team has changed a great deal.”

3 thought on “Nedved: ‘Juventus owners sent message with Vlahovic and Zakaria’”
  1. He meant to say they are almost bankrupt but somehow bought these players so the could buy their way into the UCL or Scudetto. Explain to me FFP rules again.

  2. villarusso
    Ask MC and PSG. A fine of 100.000 euro and good to go. FFP is for average people, not the ones with big paychecks

  3. They sure did send a message.

    But they squad was left to degrade for years, and they they many more players of a higher level to get back to where they were 4 or 5 years ago when they had a really strong team.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Tickets Kit Collector