Juventus face AZ Alkmaar at the AZ Stadion in Alkmaar on Thursday at 20.00 GMT in the Europa League. Luciano Spalletti said the team will rotate, with Pape Matar Sarr and Lloyd Kelly set to start.
Spalletti confirms changes
Spalletti said: "Some of the choices are pretty easy for you to predict, because we’ve got to rest someone. I can confirm Sarr and Kelly will start, plus we absolutely need to rotate in attack."
He also said: "We feel good arriving for this match. The team gave an important response in the last game, and perhaps the lads realised it really does just depend on them, so it probably gave them some more self-belief."
Attack and squad call-ups
Spalletti said: "The club worked well to get Ekhator at our disposal, but we need to limit the minutes everyone plays, considering we have to be able to make changes in another game coming up in just three days."
Jeff Ekhator was called up for the first time in the Europa League, while Edon Zhegrova is not part of the UEFA squad.
On the forwards, Spalletti said: "We have the opportunity to take some of the fatigue off them, because you can recover fairly easily from playing 60 minutes, but an additional 20 or 30 starts to take its toll. We will try to have some alternatives to Kolo, but we’ll see tomorrow. He will probably start, because we took some minutes off him in the last game and so he’ll be fresher."
Absentees for Thursday
Weston McKennie was left out due to a muscular issue. Kenan Yildiz, Manuel Locatelli, Francisco Conceiçao, Nico Gonzalez, Zeki Celik, Kamil Grabara and Khephren Thuram were on the absentee list.
Alajbegovic to feature
On Kerim Alajbegovic, Spalletti said: "Alajbegovic took on the responsibility, a young player like him usually slides back in difficult moments, but instead he gave an important contribution to turn those difficulties around. He was signed originally as a player with promising prospects, but seeing his form and response, we are happy to give him a bit more responsibility. It is nice to see this response, but it is difficult to play regularly at this level, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves."
Spalletti said: "I can say he will feature for some of tomorrow’s game, either sooner or later."
Juventus won their first two Europa League matches, then drew 2-2 with Stade Rennais.
