Modesto: ‘Juventus have faith’ in Tudor, Openda and David

Juventus technical director Francois Modesto insists they ‘have a lot of faith’ in coach Igor Tudor, and are confident Lois Openda and Jonathan David will flourish eventually.

The trip to Lazio kicks off at the Stadio Olimpico at 19.45 GMT.

You can follow all the build-up and action as it happens from today’s Serie A games on the Liveblog.

The pressure is growing on the Old Lady after a dire run of nine competitive matches without a victory, including back to back defeats to Como and Real Madrid.

“Igor is our coach, we are very happy with him, have a lot of faith in his work, and want to focus on getting the win this evening,” Modesto told DAZN Italia.

David and Openda have struggled to make any kind of impact since their transfers to Juventus, so how long will it take for them to flourish in this new league?

“It is a very difficult league in Italy, there are some very well-organised coaches and teams, which makes it tough for those who come here from other divisions. If we look to the past, we’ll see many great champions who struggled at the beginning in Serie A,” warned Modesto.

“The positive thing is that they have settled well into the group, and of course they have always scored lots of goals in their careers, so we think it’s just a matter of time. We hope that they will start scoring from tonight.”

Dusan Vlahovic starts tonight and is still taking a strong role at Juventus, despite the fact he has refused to sign a new contract and will be a free agent at the end of the season.

“There are absolutely no issues. Dusan is a great professional, a leader of this team, he is helping David and Openda off the field too, and we are very happy,” added Modesto.

“We have leaders in this squad, like Bremer who unfortunately is injured, Gatti and Kenan Yildiz, so we have no lack of leaders.”

Teun Koopmeiners was a big investment at over €50m from Atalanta last summer, but never quite lived up to those expectations, and made comments on playing in his preferred role.

“Koopmeiners works hard, he had difficulties like many who first come to Juve, but he is improving, the coach has put him in a few different positions, and we hope he can show what he has always done with Atalanta and in some games at Juventus,” concluded the director.