Reports from various outlets in Italy claim that Luciano Spalletti still wants Juventus to bring in another option at centre-forward as he seeks ways to help bring the best out of summer signing Randal Kolo Muani.
Spalletti wants to change Juventus system to support Kolo Muani, but still wants another striker
The centre-forward role has been a conundrum that has burdened Spalletti ever since he took over at Juventus just shy of one year ago.
The club were unable to prevent Dusan Vlahovic from walking away for free at the end of his contract, Jonathan David and Lois Openda were sent out on loans over the summer after just one season with the club, which led to the arrivals of Kolo Muani, Jeff Ekhator and Nick Woltemade during the most recent transfer window.
It took Kolo Muani until October to re-open his Serie A account for Juventus, nodding in the equaliser in a 1-1 draw away against Cagliari on Sunday. The Frenchman had scored eight goals from 16 appearances in the Italian top flight during a loan spell from Paris Saint-Germain in the second half of the 2024-25 season.
It has been suggested by outlets including Tuttosport that Spalletti is still facing more or less the exact same issues he faced when he first arrived at the club almost a year ago: The most obvious being that he doesn’t have enough options at centre-forward.
Summer signing Ekhator has not yet featured competitively for the club owing to injuries, whilst Woltemade, who is already dividing opinions in Italy, is not considered a centre-forward in the traditional sense, a problem that Spalletti had with David and Openda last season.
This has left Juventus overly-reliant on Kolo Muani, as they were on Vlahovic in the early stages of last season, and as things stand, the Frenchman has only provided one goal from six starts in Serie A.
La Stampa suggests that Spalletti still wants and needs a new centre-forward in the January transfer window, whilst Tuttosport claims that the search for a new attacker is already on.
Tuttosport adds that Spalletti is also considering adapting his system to get more out of Kolo Muani, perhaps by deploying another striker alongside him in a 4-4-2, or with a second striker as he has recently tried to do with Woltemade and Nico Gonzalez.
In order for that to be sustainable over a longer period, Spalletti would ideally like another out-and-out striker to rotate and compete with Kolo Muani, and is also hoping that Kenan Yildiz provides another option in the central attacking area once he returns from injury in the winter.