Whenever our players have difficult situation with opponents pressing hard they give the ball to Pirlo yet the guy unbelievably almost always comes out as a winner, pulling out one trick after another and leading the passes completed chart in Serie A while having a high % also. He's not supposed to make the assists (rather start the attacking move, a pass or two before the assist and goal), he's supposed to connect defense and attack, so that we would not have to watch Chiellini dribbling down the flank. Lecce game was sub-par, but benching him is ridiculous, the guy still does his job and I'm not so sure we'd be able to play the game the way we want without him even if he's not putting in WC performances like in the first matches of the season.
With that being said, a certain Pizarro could help a lot to solve our problems in the mid and bring some competition there not only to Pirlo, but also Marchisio and Vidal.