Exit-bound Juventus boss Max Allegri wants a new club soon amid Chelsea & Spurs links
Departing Juventus manager Massimiliano Allegri has confirmed he wants to join a new club ahead of next season.
The 51-year-old has guided the Old Lady to five straight Serie A titles and four Coppa Italia crowns since taking over as manager in 2014 but has decided to leave the club at the end of the season, having failed to end the club’s long wait for Champions League success.
No break for Allegri: Five things to know…
- After winning five consecutive Serie A titles, Allegri is leaving Juve at the end of the season.
- He also led the club to two Champions League finals but lost Barca and Real Madrid in 2015 and 2017 respectively.
- Following Juve’s Champions League exit to Ajax in April, Allegri had initially planned to stay on as manager.
- But in the weeks following, events have changed his mind.
- The 51-year-old has insisted he is looking for an immediate return to management over the summer.
However, Allegri isn’t planning on staying out of the game for long and – amid speculation linking him to Chelsea and Spurs – he has stated his intention to jump back on the horse as quickly as possible.
“I’ll only take a sabbatical if I have to, but otherwise the idea is to find a project that convinces me. Life is full of surprises and you have to be ready for anything,” said Allegri, whose contract with Juventus was due to run until the summer of 2020.
He then added that following Juve’s embarrassing Champions League exit to Ajax in April, he had initially planned to stay on in Turin but events in the following weeks changed his mind.
“I spoke to the president (Andrea Agnelli) after Ajax (knocked Juventus out of the Champions League) and we had plans to continue, but over the last six weeks or so we all came together and reached the same conclusion,” Allegri added.
“We never got to contracts or anything like that, but I realised that for the good of Juventus, it was right to move on and change.
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“Otherwise we’d run the risk of reaching September or October next season and hit problems, so it was best to leave on a high.
“I was told on Friday morning. When I left the meeting on Thursday evening, I knew that I was no longer the Juventus coach. I wasn’t told, I just knew.”
What next for Allegri?
Given his immense success with Juventus and AC Milan, Allegri is bound to be a wanted man over the summer.
The Italian tactician has won no fewer than six Serie A titles with the aforementioned clubs, while he also led Juve to the 2015 and 2017 Champions League finals.
Reports have suggested Allegri could replace Maurizio Sarri at Chelsea next season. Although the Blues reached this season’s League Cup final and may yet win the Europa League, many fans have become disenchanted by Sarri’s rigid style of play, with the former Napoli boss being jeered several times at Stamford Bridge in his maiden campaign.
Allegri has also been linked with a move to Spurs this summer, with the future of Mauricio Pochettino appearing to be somewhat uncertain.
The Argentine has done a brilliant job in transforming the club into genuine Champions League contenders but has been consistently linked with massive European jobs, not least Man United and Real Madrid.
Those two posts have now been filled but that will not stop Pochettino’s name being linked with other vacancies, including the one at Juventus, after he suggested that victory over Liverpool in the Champions League final could lead him to call time on his tenure in north London.
