What’s Happening at Juve? Black, White & Read All Over Breaks It Down Ahead of Roma Clash

It’s not that often that Roma gets to look down on Juventus in the standings. Still, thanks to the club’s offensively tenuous/defensively genius start to life under Gian Piero Gasperini, the Giallorossi venture to the Allianz Stadium in fourth place, four points above the Old Lady of Italian Football. Unfortunately, both fanbases are looking up at Inter, AC Milan, and Napoli—three clubs I’m sure our Juve colleagues loathe as much as we do.

The days of Juventus dominating the league may be in the past, but Roma can never assume anything against the Old Lady. To get a look inside the latest rendition of this rivalry, as well as the story behind Juve’s recent struggles, we turned to our friends at Black, White & Read All Over. And as always, the man in charge, Danny Penza, was kind enough to lend us his time and insight.

Let’s begin with a big-picture assessment of Juventus in the 2020s. What have been the main culprits behind the club’s minor stumble from invincibility over the past several years? Is there a path out of the non-Scudetto darkness?

You’re so kind by calling it a “minor” stumble, my friend. What a great way to start this!

As you can tell by that tone, I definitely think Juventus’ stumble has been much more than a minor one. They’ve gone from the top of the mountain to now trying to claw their way into the top four every season as the overall quality in Serie A has trended downward. That’s not great!

There is no main culprit for this. They’ve tried different managers with different playing styles and they’ve largely come in below expectations. They’ve now tried multiple people leading the front office and those results have been basically a lot of money spent without much results. Plus, the simple quality of the squad is not what it was five or six years ago, and that has caused whoever the manager is at the time to struggle to actually have this team playing well on a consistent basis because of the limitations the squad has. I have absolutely no idea if there is a quick fix to this because that was the hope with Cristiano Giuntoli after his title-winning project at Napoli … and that blew up in Juventus’ face and he was fired after two years. This is a rebuild that is going to take some time and, naturally, that only comes with a certain amount of patience because Juventus are, at their heart, a club that wins. So trying to do both at the same time is something that just doesn’t feel possible.

In some ways, Roma and Juventus have followed similar paths this season: anemic attacks and a stranglehold defense. Our problem is a total lack of production from the strikers. What’s limiting Juve’s offense this season?

The simple answer is that nobody outside of Kenan Yildiz has been consistently productive. And even Yildiz, for as good as he’s been this season, has even dealt with a spell where he hasn’t had many goal contributions.

Before his injury, Dusan Vlahovic struggled to score consistently because of a lack of service. Jonathan David and Loïs Openda have struggled at the start of their Juventus careers to find a good run of form. That’s a lot of money allocated to those three guys and they’ve produced a grand total of four combined goals in Serie A this season. Basically, outside of Yildiz, they have been limited in what they do — and the fact that Juve’s midfield continues to be a major problem is another reason why the attack the way it is.

Between the non-Yildiz section of the attack struggling, the midfield being what it is and two players in David and Openda who haven’t lived up to their pricetags and/or expectations so far, there is no one reason as to why Juve have struggled to score consistently this season. Sounds a lot like the overall theme of this thing, right? There’s just not one singular reason as to why Juventus are not in a great state these days.

Kenan Yildiz is clearly the exception to Juve’s slow-rolling attack. Talk to us a bit about his development since moving over from Bayern’s youth side, and how high is his upside?

Yildiz is a star in the making. That is as direct as I can put it. He is the shining star at the club right now, and one of the few reasons to think that they will have the ability to turn it around. He’s 20 years old, already one of the best players in the league and only seems to be getting better with each passing month. These are the players that Juventus need to build their club around and prevent big-money Premier League sides from swooping in and snatching away regardless of the temptation for the pure profit that a €100 million bid would bring.

It’s crazy to think that Yildiz scored his first goal for Juventus’ senior team around this time two years ago and he’s developed to the level he is at now. He’s gone from having the “young player with potential” label to “young star in the making” at this current pace. He’s got every aspect you want in a player that can be a centerpiece of a club’s attack, the club’s image, all of that stuff. 

He is the biggest reason to watch Juventus these days. And the good thing is that he just seems to do really cool stuff more often than not.

Many Roma fans (myself included) were pining for Jonathan David last summer, but he’s struggled through the first third of the season. Is it simply a matter of acclimation, or are there legitimate concerns?

 I like to think I’ve had a little more patience with David since his arrival. I feel like he’s suffering from a little bit of the same reactions that Weston McKennie did when he first signed with Juve five years ago is that folks are simply not all that familiar with him and therefore they don’t know what the good side of his game looks like.

Has he struggled? Absolutely. Should he be playing better? Yep! But he came to a time in which Igor Tudor was basically coaching for his job from the beginning and made his team selections as such. Vlahovic was the best performing striker on the roster, so he played more than anybody. David looked pretty good in the preseason, scored against Parma in the season opener and then saw his playing time tank. That’s gotta be a hit to his confidence — and he’s played as such.

I still think he’ll turn things around — especially now that Vlahovic is out for the next few months. He’s certainly going to get the playing time to convince your old buddy Luciano as such.

Who are some of Juve’s unsung heroes so far? Are there any potential contributors or stars poised to break through in 2026?

I wouldn’t say there’s any future stars on the horizon, but McKennie has definitely done another one of his “Just when you thought he was out, he pulls you back in” kind of deals. He’s proven to be another jack-of-all-trades kind of player, with Spalletti lining him up as a wingback, midfielder and even attacking mid behind the striker during his two months in charge. As a wingback he just seems to play into his best attributes — he can be a hound defensively, he can make runs into the final third and use his ability in the air, and he also just covers so much damn ground every single game. That’s why he’s convinced another manager at Juventus that he needs to be in the starting lineup the vast majority of the time.

Lastly, give us a prediction for Saturday’s match!

I’ll say 1-1 draw. That’s mainly because Juve rarely defends these days but Yildiz has shown he can produce magic in big games — which this very much is.

Double lastly: Is it difficult to sleep knowing that Juve let Matíás Soulé and Dean Huijsen walk?

Thanks for the reminder, Bren. I’m glad we’re finishing this on such a high note!

Thanks as always to Danny for his time and insight. You can follow his work at BWRAO and catch them on Bluesky, Facebook, and the Artist Formerly Known as Twitter.