maresca

Our forwards look lazy - gio is working his socks off, shame it's not amauri and ADP up front

I don't see it - Our pre season has been average. Iaquinta and Trezegol have been pretty pants thus far

Giovinco is our gem - he is an incredible talent but rarely gets any playing time. He's a natural playmaker and slots in behind the front two. Melo is our new signing and he's cost us a fortune, mostly based on his confederations cup performance's. He'll play in front of the back four and break up the attacks. Chiellini is the rock in the back four - very talented, reads the game well but has a temper and makes some rash tackles.

Is that the same Trezeguet that looked utter tripe at Wet Spam last year? TBH, that team does not look a patch on previous Juve teams..... but then again I glance back at the Villa team! Trezeguet is sulking at the moment so i wouldn;t expect much. Iaquinta has not been much better - he is a shadow of the player that was banging them in at the end of last season. I would have preferred ADP and Amauri up front and Tiago in midfield.

Juventus: Buffon, Zebina, Legrottaglie, Chiellini, Molinaro, Camoranesi, Melo, Zanetti, Giovinco, Iaquinta, Trezeguet

We are definitely without Diego for the match, which is a bit of a pain as he's only played one game this summer. :? The lineup is almost certain to be the team that started against 'getReal' Madrid. Not overly confident about the match though

Cheers for that - we have quite a few youngsters in the squad as well but they will be on the bench until late on.

I meant to ask, how are Villa going to line up against us ? Will it be anything like the team at the foot of this page: http://www.goal.com/en/teams/england/95/aston-villa

Don't think we could get away with that ! A combined age of 66 for our two central defenders would have *risky*

In a word, he was pants ! The first game of last season, we played Fiorentina - we dominated the whole game and in the 90th minute, Mellberg loses Gilardino and they equalize. That was the story for much of his season - he was caught out of position too often. Granted, the blame doesn't rest on his shoulders alone, but he was always average at best. We had tonnes of defensive injuries last season, and when we really needed to rely on him, he went AWOL. Juventus missed a leader at the back - this season we have Cannavaro.

by the by, I run a UK based website for the Gobbini faithful - feel free to come and have a gander: www.juvefc.com

How do chaps, very much looking forward to the tie as we have been gash against English opposition for the last few seasons. Granted, it's only a friendly, but our boys didn't see it like that last night. I think Diego may be out for the game as he has a muscular problem so it will probably be Seba Giovinco behind Delboy and Amauri. Midfield will be 3-man with Zanetti or Melo in front of the back 4 with Tiago and possibly Marchisio on either side. Defence will be the same - Canna, Chiellini with Brazzo and Grygera/zebina on the right. there were no injuries for us last night but i think Ciro may rest a few players. He's still experimenting with the line up and finding out who works best. At a push, i think we'll play: ------------------------------ Buffon ------------------------------- --- Zebina --------- Canna ------------ Chiellini -------- Molinaro/Brazzo -------- Marchisio/Camo ------ Melo --------- Tiago -------------- ------------------------------ Giovinco -------------------------------- ------------ Amauri --------------------------- ADP ---------------------- Madrid were no real contest, we beat them every year - looking forward to playing against Birminghams best.