Walter Zenga Warns Juventus About Attack Strategy
Walter Zenga has fired a sharp warning at Juventus on the eve of their trip to Sassuolo, insisting that despite a busy summer in attack, Luciano Spalletti still lacks a classic penalty-box predator.
Juventus kick off at Sassuolo this evening at 19.45 UK time (20.45 CEST), but they travel light. Too light, in Zenga’s eyes, when it comes to goals.
Spalletti is already juggling an injury list that keeps growing. Manuel Locatelli, Jeremie Boga, Weston McKennie, Andrea Cambiaso, Kenan Yildiz, Khephren Thuram, Jeff Ekhator and Juan Cabal are all out, stripping depth from midfield and wide areas and forcing the coach into more improvisation than he would like this early in the season.
Against that backdrop, Juventus are expected to start Randal Kolo Muani through the middle, with Kerim Alajbegovic, Nico Gonzalez and Francisco Conceicao working around him. On paper, it looks fluid, mobile, modern.
Zenga is not buying it.
“Kolo Muani is not a Number 9, that kind of hitman who can score 15 goals per season, and neither is Woltemade really,” the former goalkeeper and coach said, questioning the club’s transfer strategy despite the arrivals of Kolo Muani from PSG and Nick Woltemade from Newcastle United.
For a club built on ruthless forwards, his criticism cuts deep. Juventus let Dusan Vlahovic go in the summer, a decision that still hangs over the squad like a cloud.
“To think that Arek Milik has been out injured for two years and is still on the Juve books,” Zenga continued. “Above all, to think that they had a striker like Dusan Vlahovic who left for reasons we don’t know, but which are presumably tied to his agent and the contract.
“In theory, Juve had two strikers in the squad there with the potential to score 25-30 goals between them.”
The numbers matter. Vlahovic and Milik represented a traditional solution: two recognised centre-forwards, both comfortable living between the posts, both able to turn half-chances into winning goals. Now, Spalletti leans on versatility and movement instead of a pure finisher.
Kolo Muani thrives when he can drift, attack space, link play. Woltemade, too, offers size and touch, more facilitator than executioner at this stage of his career. They can hurt teams, but they do it in different zones, in different ways. Zenga’s point is simple: who finishes the season on 15 league goals?
That question might push Spalletti towards a tactical twist. He has never been afraid to reshape a system to suit his forwards, and with this mix of profiles he may be tempted to abandon the classic lone No. 9 altogether, leaning into rotations, false nines and late runners from deep.
With injuries biting and the old reference points gone, Juventus walk into Sassuolo not just chasing three points, but hunting for a new identity in attack. Whether that identity can deliver the goals Zenga demands will define far more than one night in Emilia-Romagna.
