What Is Massimiliano Allegri's Best Juventus Attacking Combination?

Juventus underwent a major roster overhaul this summer. Several key players were lost in the midfield and on the front line.

Of those players, none may have been more influential for the team than Carlos Tevez. Arriving in 2013, Tevez instantly provided the top-level goalscorer Antonio Conte lacked in his first two years in charge of the team. The forward play was so bad back then that midfielder Claudio Marchisio had a share of the scoring lead for all competitions in 2011-12 with 10 goals and Arturo Vidal was the outright leader in 2012-13 with 15.

By contrast, Tevez scored 39 goals in two league seasons and added seven during last year's run to the Champions League final. Even when the team was badly misfiring, Tevez could pull a goal out of nowhere to grab three points.

This summer, Tevez left the team to return to his boyhood club, Boca Juniors. The sale was worth €6.5 million in cash and a stake in several of Boca's promising young players, including 18-year-old wunderkind Guido Vadala, reported by Football Italia.

His departure signaled a total overhaul of Juve's attack. Of the forwards Massimiliano Allegri had available to him a year ago, only Alvaro Morata remains. Kingsley Coman left for Bayern Munich on a two-year loan deal, Fernando Llorente departed for Sevilla in search of playing time and Alessandro Matri's loan ended. With such massive turnover, it's on Allegri to find the best combination up front.

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Of his new options, there are a few players with similar characteristics to the men who left. Paulo Dybala has the potential to be the second coming of Carlitos and has already impressed, scoring the team's only league goal of the season to date and notching in the Supercoppa Italiana.

Also arriving is Mario Mandzukic. While not a skill player, the Croatian hitman scores everywhere he goes. Many Juve fans still remember the way he played against them in the Champions League quarter-finals in 2013, when he pressed the Bianconeri's defence hard and made it impossible for them to get the ball forward. He scored in the second leg to dust off the tie and went on to score the opener in the final against Borussia Dortmund.

The final new arrival was Simone Zaza. Zaza has a similar game to Morata, although the Spaniard's ceiling is higher. He can score as a poacher and is good enough with the ball at his feet to create his own chances when called upon to do so.

So what is the best combination up top? If Allergi continues to use the two-pronged forward line he used for almost the entirety of last year, he'll have to pick two of the four.

Last year, he tended to gravitate toward a little-and-big scheme with his forwards. The "little" was almost always Tevez, although Coman occasionally replaced him. Morata and Llorente cycled through as the "big" part of the equation, with the younger Spaniard slowly gaining a foothold and pushing his way into the starting XI as the season went on.

If he follows that pattern, there is only one player on the roster who can fit the bill as the "little," and that's Dybala. The shifty Argentinian can provide much of the dribbling and passing ability Tevez did. He's not going to attract the same kind of defensive attention as his compatriot—at least not right away—so his partner will have to find holes in the defense on their own.

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The question then becomes, who should partner him?

As much as Conte, in his new position as coach of the Italy national team, would love for Juve to push hard to complete the development of a young Italian forward—something he desperately needs—Zaza is most likely to serve as depth behind Morata and Mandzukic. He'll look to work his way past one of them and into the primary backup role.

Between Mandzukic and Morata, it's the latter who should start. Morata is by far the more skilled of the two and can dovetail much better with his skill set. Mandzukic, whose skill set is far closer to Llorente's, may fall victim to the same issue the Spaniard had when it comes to Allegri's tactics.

When Tevez first arrived, it was into Conte's regimented, predetermined tactical scheme. It kept him closer to Llorente, which gave him more room to work. After Allegri arrived, Tevez was given much more freedom. That freedom, however, had an adverse effect on his partner.

Without Tevez to stretch the defence, they collapsed on Llorente, and his goal total plummeted from 16 to seven.

Given the similarity between Mandzukic and Llorente, it stands to reason that Morata should start.

There is a wild-card option here who should be mentioned: Juan Cuadrado. The Colombia international is at Juventus on a one-year loan, and Allegri could use him to add a totally new wrinkle.

Allegri experimented with a 4-3-3 formation in the early rounds of the Coppa Italia last season. It was a bit makeshift, using the likes of Coman and Roberto Pereyra on the wings.  Now that Cuadrado, a pure winger, is in the squad, he could experiment with that formation with Cuadrado and Dybala around Mandzukic or Morata.

Considering the turnover Juventus have had this year, though, adding a third formation onto the usual rotation of 3-5-2 and 4-3-1-2 is probably too much to ask of the team. A two-striker system is the best solution, and Dybala and Morata are the best pairing Allegri can call on.