Luciano Spalletti Under Pressure at Juventus: Carnevali's Support
Luciano Spalletti is already under pressure. The chaotic finish against Sassuolo – Juventus scoring, then collapsing and conceding twice in stoppage time – has lit the fuse. The anger in the stands was unmistakable, the chant familiar: calls for Antonio Conte to come back.
Inside the club, though, the message is very different.
Carnevali backs Spalletti – and the project
CEO Giovanni Carnevali moved quickly to protect his coach, using his appearance on Radio Anch’io Lo Sport to draw a firm line.
“Changing the manager frequently is not in my MO. I'm not considering it at all. We must plan and build,” he said, stressing continuity over panic. There will be “some disappointments along the way,” he admitted, but also “some satisfactions eventually.”
Then came the key endorsement.
“Spalletti is an extraordinary coach, one of the absolute best for how he works on the pitch. The evaluations are constant, but you must know what you're doing. I've been here for three months, and we tried to understand the opportunities and the possibilities. We need a bit of time. We must forge ahead without dwelling on what has been done in the past.”
In other words: no knee-jerk sacking, no reset after a single disastrous finale.
A shared plan derailed by injuries
According to Corriere dello Sport, Spalletti and the new management built this Juventus together. Every signing was agreed, every move weighed with one clear idea in mind: a credible 4-2-3-1, with two reliable options for each position.
The club spent heavily to do it. They chose not to sell, banking instead on depth and internal competition. On paper, the Old Lady looked stocked for a long season.
That blueprint, though, has been shredded early. Serious injuries have ripped through the squad and forced Spalletti to improvise before his system even had time to settle. The structure they designed hasn’t yet appeared on the pitch with anything like consistency.
Not a crisis yet, but time is already tight
Spalletti has cut a subdued figure on the touchline, his team just as flat in key moments. The end of the Sassuolo match was, by any standard, abominable for a side with Juventus’ ambitions.
Even so, a coaching change now would be extreme. This is not a full-blown crisis, not yet. The table is still malleable, the season still young.
What Juventus do need, and quickly, are new reference points. Technical leaders. A fresh internal hierarchy that can hold the team together while the absentees recover and the tactical puzzle reshapes itself. Serie A, though, offers no grace period. It moves on, brutally, with or without you.
Conte’s name will hover over all of this. His history with the club, his aura, his reputation as a fixer – they make him the obvious fantasy solution for restless supporters. But Conte is not a coach who usually dives into a job mid-season.
That doesn’t stop his shadow from stretching over Spalletti’s every move.
