Cristiano Ronaldo may be rested for Lecce as Juve boss Sarri ponders changes

Cristiano Ronaldo may be rested for Juventus’ Serie A encounter with Lecce on Saturday as head coach Maurizio Sarri weighs up the possibility of tinkering with his line-up.

Superstar forward Ronaldo has started all but one game for Juve this season and has five goals in 10 appearances across all competitions.

Juve travel to Lecce just four days on from completing a late revival aga
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inst Lokomotiv Moscow, where Paulo Dybala’s double earned a 2-1 win in the Champions League fixture.

Ahead of a busy run of games, Sarri is contemplating giving Ronaldo a break.

“With Cristiano, we speak often,” he told a pre-match news conference.

“Even for him there will be need for rest. We’ll see based on how he’s feeling. I don’t know when, we will decide.

“Right now we don’t have a lot of options in order to completely rotate the squad. We’ll change things with regards to the conditions of the players.”

 Sarri: “With @Cristiano we speak often. Even he will need to rest sometimes, we’ll see when based on how he’s feeling.”#LecceJuve #ForzaJuve

— JuventusFC (@juventusfcen) October 25, 2019

Centre-back Leonardo Bonucci is another who Sarri is planning on resting in the coming days.

“Leonardo Bonucci has played a lot this season and he’s needed to. We’ll see if we can give him a rest over the next few games,” he added.

Dybala’s future at the Bianconeri was in doubt during the previous transfer window, with Manchester United, Tottenham and Paris Saint-Germain having been linked with a move.

But Sarri was not surprised by the Argentina forward’s contribution against Lokomotiv, where goals in the 77th and 79th minute proved crucial.

“If we talk about an explosion with the one-two it is fine, but from the performance point of view Dybala has always played well this season, so I expected a good performance from him. I had no doubts,” Sarri said.

“I expected a high-performance level because I know he has the qualities to provide it.”