Juventus vs AS Monaco Prediction - Time For Juve To Pull Ranks

Next Tuesday, 14th of April 2015, the former European champions, Juventus, will go head-to-head with the one time runners-up AS Monaco for the first leg of the Quarter-finals stage of the UEFA Champions League.

After leaving Borussia Dortmund behind without any major problems, Juventus will now face one of the underdogs of the tournament, AS Monaco. The Vecchia Signora have reacted well to departure of their former manager Antonio Conte as they keep displaying their power both on domestic and on international competitions.

Last weekend, however, Juventus were caught by surprise at Ennio Tardini, where they were defeated by a fragile, but at the same time valiant, Parma side. The current Italian champions have thus conceded their second defeat on 30 Serie A matches this term but such setback will certainly not prevent them for claiming yet another title at the end of the season nor interfere with the team’s motivation for the upcoming important clash against AS Monaco.

Juventus, who usually don’t concede many goals, will need to take great care with the French team's poisonous counter-attacks, that usually cause huge problems on well organized teams.

As for AS Monaco, after surprising Arsenal on the last round of the competition, Leonardo Jardim’s boys will now face a far more demanding task. After losing some important players last Summer, the Portuguese boss, who replaced Claudio Ranieri for this season, had to build up a new team and so far, it is fair to say that he did a great job.

Led by the mastery of João Moutinho, the experience of Dimitar Berbatov and the irreverence of some young players such as Martial and Bernardo Silva, AS Monaco are showing that a team doesn’t need to spend big in order to achieve success at a competition such as the Champions League.

Despite AS Monaco’s excellent moment (they haven't lost a single match on Ligue 1 since last February), it is fair to name Juventus as firm favourites for the upcoming match.

Juventus

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - LWWWW

AS Monaco

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - WDDWL

Possible Line-ups

Juventus (4-3-1-2) - Buffon - Lichtsteiner - Bonucci - Chiellini - Evra - Marchisio - Vidal - Sturaro - Pereyra - Tevez - Morata

AS Monaco (4-3-3) – Subasic - Raggi - Carvalho - Abdennour - Elderson - Toulalan - Kondogbia - Moutinho - Silva - Carrasco - Martial

Injury List / Suspended Players

Juventus

Paul Pogba (inj)

Andrea Pirlo (inj) (in doubt)

Caceres (inj)

Asamoah (inj)

AS Monaco

Lacina Traoré (inj)

Bakayoko (inj)

Head-to-head matches:

Top Players:

Juventus

Carlos Tevez

Claudio Marchisio

Arturo Vidal

AS Monaco

João Moutinho

Dimitar Berbatov

Yannick Carrasco

Predictable Goal Scorers:

Juventus

1. Carlos Tevez
2. Alvaro Morata
3. Arturo Vidal

AS Monaco

1. Anthony Martial
2. Dimitar Berbatov
3. Yannick Carrasco

Half-Time Score

Juventus 1 AS Monaco 0

Full-Time Score

Juventus 2 AS Monaco 0