Luciano Spalletti addressed the media in Perth on Thursday evening ahead of Friday’s pre-season friendly against Inter — and his words, as usual, were delivered with a combination of tactical intelligence, philosophical depth, and strategic honesty that distinguishes him from almost any other manager in European football.
“We Have a Couple of Objectives — but We Are Waiting Because the Squad Is Already Very Large”
On the transfer market, Spalletti struck the tone of a man who knows exactly what he wants but is in no mood to be pressured into acting before the conditions are right. “We have a couple of objectives remaining,” he confirmed. “But we are waiting — because the squad we already have is very large. We cannot simply keep adding players without finding the right solutions for those who need to move on first. The balance has to be right.”
It is the clearest public articulation yet of the sequencing problem that has defined the second half of Juventus’s window: every incoming signing is contingent on a departure, and with a squad still carrying the legacy of previous administrations, those departures have been slower to materialise than anyone at the Continassa would have wished.
“We’re Not Missing a 20-Goal Striker”
“The striker? Even without the physical center-forward you’re missing — though Ekhator has some of those traits — Kolo Muani fills the box well; it’s a bit of a gap on the tactical sheet if we’re mapping it out, but with what we have available, with what we’ve done in the transfer market, it’s something we’ll manage to make up for through everyone’s work. I think we’ve brought in players who, added together, will be able to surpass those numbers. It’s not essential to have just one 20-goal striker in a season. This year the league will be shaped by the fact that we play Thursdays and Sundays, so it’ll be hard to always field the same players. The Europa League demands more from you than the Champions League does. It’s better to have more players who can chip in goals so we can rotate them from match to match. Alajbegovic is also someone who can score goals too. We want to help Kolo Muani boost his numbers. For now, we’re pretty relaxed about it.”
On Bastoni: “I See It a Certain Way — and I Think He Would Be Extraordinary Here”
The moment that will generate the most discussion arrived when Spalletti was asked about Alessandro Bastoni of Inter — a player whose name has circled around Juventus in the context of possible approaches, and who, sitting directly across the city divide, represents one of Italian football’s most symbolically charged hypothetical transfers.
Spalletti’s response was characteristically measured but unmistakably positive. “On Bastoni, I see it in a certain way — he is a player who would be extraordinary in a club like ours.” He was careful not to cross any institutional lines, and the word “extraordinary” was preceded by a caveat that kept the observation within the realm of tactical appreciation rather than transfer intent. But in the theatre of Italian football press conferences, the remark will not pass unnoticed — particularly with Inter’s squad sitting in the same hotel complex in Perth.
A Manager in Full Command of His Narrative
Taken together, the Perth press conference paints the portrait of a Spalletti who is simultaneously honest about what the squad lacks, measured about the timeline for addressing it, and entirely unbothered by the optics of making his views known publicly. The window is open. The targets exist. The squad is large. And in two weeks, the season begins — with or without a 20-goal striker between the posts of Spalletti’s ambitions.
