{"id":5207,"date":"2026-09-09T08:55:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T08:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/?p=5207"},"modified":"2026-09-09T08:55:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T08:55:59","slug":"report-locatelli-faces-three-months-on-the-shelf-with-meniscus-tear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/?p=5207","title":{"rendered":"Report: Locatelli faces three months on the shelf with meniscus tear"},"content":{"rendered":"


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One of the questions coming out of Juventus\u2019 Sunday clash with AC Milan was just what was going on with Manuel Locatelli.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It was his second game in a row looking uncharacteristically slow and far less effective in defensive responsibilities that he usually excels in. The last thing the team needed as it tried to find its footing without Kenan Yildiz was another key player losing the plot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The second-t0-last thing they needed was another key player ending up on the shelf for multiple months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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According to Tuttosport<\/a>, Locatelli went in for tests on his knee after the Milan game, and those tests came back revealing meniscus damage. The report further claimed that the preferred course of action is a procedure to repair the meniscus, which could see Juve\u2019s captain miss the next three months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On the one hand, the fact that this has been detected and is being dealt with promptly is a good thing. Recent history has seen Juventus midfielders make\u2026less than intelligent choices when it comes to meniscus injuries. I refer, of course, to the infamous situation in 2022 when Paul Pogba ended up missing more than two-thirds of the season after some charlatan convinced the idiot<\/s> midfielder that it was possible to rehab cartilage, delaying the needed surgery for six weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On the other, this comes at an absolutely awful time. Kh\u00e9phren Thuram is already out multiple months with his own knee problem. Weston McKennie has been out the last two games with muscle fatigue, and new signing Pape Matar Sarr arrived from Tottenham carrying a knock. With Locatelli on the shelf, it leaves Douglas Luiz and Teun Koopmeiners as the team\u2019s only ambulatory midfielders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The spotlight will now be firmly on those two\u2014players that most expected to be on other clubs when the summer transfer window began\u2014to continue the mini-renaissances that they\u2019ve initiated in the early parts of the season. Luiz has been one of the most creative players on the team in the early going, and Koopmeiners has a goal and an assist off the bench in the last two games. It\u2019s also likely that Augusto Owusu, a NextGen midfielder that reportedly caught the eye of Luciano Spalletti in preseason, will be in line for some minutes until McKennie and Sarr can get themselves back onto the field.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Spalletti will have his work cut out for him as the team\u2019s depth continues to erode. He was already missing seven first-team players on Sunday, and now he\u2019ll be down even more in an area of the field that was already a little threadbare. He\u2019ll need to balance this well if Juve are to see this period through while still getting the results they want on the pitch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the questions coming out of Juventus\u2019 Sunday clash with AC Milan was just what was going on with Manuel Locatelli. It was his second game in a row looking uncharacteristically slow and far less effective in defensive responsibilities that he usually excels in. The last thing the team needed as it tried to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-aggiornamenti-serie-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}