The Old Lady Speaks, Episode 126: Positives, negatives from Juve’s first half

We’re done with the first week of the World Cup break, so we decided to talk about some Juventus things nonetheless — namely what has taken part over the course of the first half of the 2022-23 season. On this week’s episode of The Old Lady Speaks Podcast, we discuss: There are no takeaways this week! Because, unless you count Italy’s two friendlies, there were no games to discuss! (Gotta love Italy playing a meaningless friendly on the same day of the opening day of the World Cup, by the way.) We don’t know if you’ve heard, but Juventus went into the World Cup break on a six-game domestic winning streak. Because of that, we decided to start out with some positivity. What were some of the positives from the first half of the season? The kids — most notably Nicolo Fagioli and Fabio Miretti — have been doing pretty well. Juventus’ defense has played surprisingly well. So much so that they’ve allowed just seven goals all season — four of those coming in two games — and have the best defense in the league. They went into the World Cup break with six straight shutouts. Danilo is good. Bremer is good. Alex Sandro ... also fairly good lately, too?! And then the not-so-good stuff from the 2022-23 season. Yes, the Champions League might have been mentioned. Same goes for all those damn injuries Juve’s had this year. There’s also how Max Allegri has managed for much of the season — which was not great. Twitter questions — including if it’s time to truly move on from Leonardo Bonucci and if Danilo should become a full-time center back with how well he’s played there this season, allowing Juventus to focus on signing a new fullback or two. You can follow us — or send us questions — on Twitter @JuventusNation or on Facebook. You can also follow us on our new Instagram page, too! Get all of our match coverage, transfer rumors and much more at our website, blackwhitereadallover.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices