“It hasn’t been a good day.” Turin picks up the pieces of the first defeat of 2023, which slips at home with Spezia (0-1) and risks not being able to use one of the most anticipated players in this second phase of the season for the next matches: Lukic. In addition to the damage, even the insult for Juric, who finds himself once again in his hands a downsized team after throwing away three great opportunities to enter the fight for Europe: only 2 points in the new year. Unable to take advantage of the Italian Cup wind and now apprehensive again after an unexpected event with the midfielder which forced the coach to replace him with Linetty in the interval. “He had a muscle problem,” he confirms. This season the Croatian has been very unlucky with his protégé, who between off-field events and injuries has performed much less than his possibilities and could be sold in June, given his desire not to renew his expiring contract. Meanwhile, he has to plan for another stop in the busiest season of his career. How serious will be established by the tests that he will carry out in the next few hours on his right thigh: he felt discomfort in the flexor which however did not prevent him from completing the first half. “We have already lost Lazaro for a long time and now the same thing could happen with Lukic: he would be tough to digest”, Juric’s alarm with one eye on the calendar.
The coach can console himself with the condition of Schuurs, who also went off after 45′ – “it seems like a blow” -, however the 26-year-old Serbian is very likely to miss the most important match of the season for the grenades, the quarter-finals Coppa Italia with Fiorentina scheduled for early February. It would be a serious loss for the midfield, so in the last few hours Turin has made the decisive thrust against Verona for Ilic, the left-footed player that the coach had asked to reinforce the midfield. His arrival is one step away and will help to let a team breathe a bit which showed all its staffing limits against Spezia.
«There was a lack of energy, but we don’t have many solutions – again Juric -, so I decided to confirm the team that had beaten Milan. But we suffered a lot, everything negative that could happen happened». Juric defends his choices, no encore for the heroes by chance on the night of San Siro, no starting shirt for Radonjic who had also rested. «Vlasic is important even when he’s not brilliant – he says – and between Linetty and Adopo the former was better for how the game was going and in the final I preferred Seck to give something more in attack. Radonjic? He still has to grow a lot to be reliable, but he’s not listless: he’s a particular type.