Sarr trains with the group, McKennie and Cambiaso do not: who Juventus can start against Sassuolo

The first positive sign in ten grim days comes out of the Continassa: Pape Matar Sarr is back working with his teammates, first for part of a session and then for a full morning, and a call-up for the Mapei Stadium is close. For anyone submitting a lineup by Sunday evening, though, the question is not whether the Senegalese makes the squad list. It is how many minutes he will get. Today's honest answer is: very few, perhaps zero.

How he arrived matters. Signed from Tottenham in the closing hours of the transfer window, Sarr showed up in Turin with a hamstring strain that has kept him away from the group since his first day of training. His last full match dates back to late March in the Premier League, and at the World Cup with Senegal he only picked up two substitute appearances. The club has built a reconditioning programme around him and has no intention of rushing it. The most realistic scenario is a place on the bench in Reggio Emilia, with his real debut pushed to the run of games leading into the international break, European competition included.

The caution has a simple explanation. In two weeks Juventus have lost Yildiz to a fracture, while Thuram and Locatelli have both gone under the knife on their knees. Add Ekhator, Cabal and Boga, already out beforehand, and the picture in that department is clear. In midfield against Sassuolo, the two who have started the last three matchdays will play again: Douglas Luiz and Koopmeiners. If you are looking for a Juventus midfielder to start without a second thought, those are the names, and the Brazilian in particular has gone back to being a regular starter after a season on the outside.

The other two names doing the rounds need handling with care. Weston McKennie is carrying a muscle problem and has kept training on his own: his return to the group is planned very gradually, with no shortcuts, and his stated target is the midweek Europa League fixture. Andrea Cambiaso still has discomfort in the ankle he twisted against Parma: he is better than a few days ago, but he will not be risked until the pain is fully gone. For both, Saturday's final training session will be the verdict, and the sense is that the calendar points them towards the cup rather than the league.

One last line on our own numbers, because it helps frame what we are talking about. On our price list Sarr is a midfielder valued at 1, at the bottom of the 1-10 band, where a high rating is worth an extra 2 points and little else. In the same role, on the same roster, McKennie sits at 16, Alajbegović and Conceição at 12. In practice: Sarr is a player you pick up cheaply and keep on the bench while waiting for October, not one who solves the coming matchday.

The practical takeaway, then. Douglas Luiz and Koopmeiners are the only Juventus midfielders with a guaranteed place on the pitch. Sarr should stay on your roster but out of your eleven: even if he is called up, he would come on for a handful of minutes in a game already decided. McKennie and Cambiaso should not be started, and anyone who has them as regular starters would do well to line up an alternative now, not at eight in the evening. None of the three is getting worse, which is the good part of the news. It is just that fantasy football is counted matchday by matchday, and this one only counts the feet that take the pitch from the first minute.