Juventus' Maurizio Sarri: 'Premature' to Play Ronaldo, Dybala, Higuain Together

Juventus manager Maurizio Sarri believes starting Cristiano Ronaldo, Paulo Dybala and Gonzalo Higuain at the same time would leave the team unbalanced. 

He spoke to Sky Sport Italia (h/t Football Italia) after Juve's 3-0 UEFA Champions League win over Bayer Leverkusen and said:

"If I am sitting in a bar, it seems like a good idea to me too. If I am on the bench, then I have to take the balance of the side into consideration.

"If the team in future finds a great deal of balance, then we can try it, but right now that seems premature."

In the summer, it looked as though one or both of Higuain and Dybala might leave the club.

According to Goal's Romeo Agresti, Higuain was told in July that he was not in the club's plans for this season, while Juve were rumoured to be open to letting Dybala leave amid links with Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

Dybala struggled to fit in alongside Ronaldo under Massimiliano Allegri last season, and he scored just 10 goals, having notched 26 in the campaign before the Portugal superstar's arrival.

Sarri has typically favoured a partnership of Ronaldo and Higuain, who spent last season on loan with AC Milan and Chelsea.

Higuain opened the scoring on Tuesday before setting up Federico Bernardeschi for Juve's second.

Dybala replaced Higuain with seven minutes remaining and assisted Ronaldo for the second consecutive game (U.S. and UK only, respectively):

The Argentinian had also created Ronaldo's goal in Juventus' 2-0 win over SPAL on Saturday.

Bleacher Report's Gianni Verschueren is hoping the pair are learning to work together effectively:

It's understandable Sarri is reluctant to deploy all three together. Dybala struggles to make an impact when he's used on the right, so it wouldn't be a natural fit to put them in the same formation.

Dybala has only started two matches this season, one of them when Ronaldo was absent through injury.

Unseating Higuain will be difficult for him, too, given Sarri has a prior relationship with the striker from their time together at Napoli.

Ronaldo will be 35 in February and the Bianconeri will need to manage his fitness carefully in the second half of the campaign to keep him fresh for key Champions League games, so Dybala should have some more opportunities then.

The depth he provides as an option from the bench is useful to Juve, but if Ronaldo and Higuain remain fit he may not be happy with the amount of game time he'll receive in the coming months.