Cesare Prandelli on Dušan Vlahović’s Juventus problems: “Teammates should give him more service”

Former Fiorentina manager Cesare Prandelli has expressed his disappointment about the situation of Juventus’ Dušan Vlahović amidst a poor run of form.

The Serbian did feature for Juve against Roma yesterday but couldn’t make a mark. As a result, he was criticised by many fans and the striker has not scored for the club in the last four games. Since his return from injury, he has scored in only one game and that isn’t a great sight for someone who was prolific at Juventus.

Prandelli managed Vlahović at Fiorentina and the striker scored 11 times under the Italian, impressing a fair bit and taking his game to a higher level. It was only after Prandelli’s stint that the Serbian began impressing under Vincenzo Italiano, who joined the club later.

Prandelli spoke to TMW about his former player’s situation and stated: “I’m very sorry to read some negative reviews. I’ve always started from the assumption that when you have a striker with such scoring qualities you have to look for him a lot. If we see, there are a lot of passes before the ball gets to him.

“I’ve always thought that he must be valued. I am sorry to say it, but the teammates should give him more service and don’t just make him do the dirty work. Others should do that and not the striker who has scoring skills. In my career I was lucky enough to find great strikers and when I saw them track back too much, it was because the team wasn’t doing well. It must be in an emergency, but not a constant.”

Prandelli further stated: “He was alone, always and it was against a three-man defense led by a certain Smalling. He has shown that he knows how to score. At twenty he scored fifty goals, the others should understand that.”

In all competitions this season, Vlahović has scored ten goals for Juve and has four assists. He has eight goals in the Serie A.

 

 

Kaustubh Pandey | GIFN

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