New Juve boss points to Marchisio future

New Juventus coach Luigi Delneri revealed on Thursday that his first major change at the Old Lady of Turin will be to install Claudio Marchisio as the new captain.

Speaking to the Gazzetta dello Sport, the 59-year-old was mapping out his plans to return the club to the top of the Italian tree following the worst season in their history.

And he said he would be replacing evergreen forward Alessandro Del Piero with young midfielder Marchisio.

“Del Piero is the charismatic captain of Juventus but for the future I’m thinking of Marchisio,” he said.

“He’s an important element, a central midfielder, not a wide man. He’s young, he has the right temperament, I like him.”

However, Delneri insisted that Del Piero and goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon would be two of the old guard he wishes to keep on.

“For me they are two winners on whom you can count. They represent class, experience and character.

“Buffon and Del Piero cannot be ruled out because of one bad season.”

Crucially, one player he did not mention was Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro, who at 36 has just been one of the main culprits in Juve’s dire season — in which they managed a record high 15 defeats and 56 goals conceded.

But his main priority seems to be to bring in some good wide players, particularly with right-winger Mauro Camoranesi already 33 and out of contract in a year.

“The first thing I need is wingers, of different types,” added Delneri who said he will stick to his favoured 4-4-2 formation, although he did not rule out copying one of his rivals.

“At the base it will be that, you’ll never see me playing three at the back but there could be slight variations in the system.

“Such as 4-2-3-1 for example. I didn’t dislike that played by (Jose) Mourinho at Inter (Milan) with (Samuel) Eto’o, (Wesley) Sneijder, (Goran) Pandev and (Diego) Milito.

“Four forwards, all together.”

Delneri reserved special praise for striker Eto’o, a three-time Champions League winner who played most of last season on the wing for the good of his team.

“He’s a world class player at the service of his team and not vice-versa, that’s how football works these days,” he said.

“Also (Wayne) Rooney at Manchester United is an example of that, look how much he runs, puts on pressure, gets back.

“Milito was brilliant, excellent but for me the man of the match in the Champions League final was Eto’o.”