By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Freddie Roach will be looking to turn his luck around when his fighter WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. returns to the ring this Saturday night to face Andy Lee at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas. This is the toughest fight of Chavez Jr’s career, and a loss here for him could lead to a lot of criticism leveled against trainer Roach.

Roach’s fighters haven’t been doing too well lately. Roach trained Peter Quillin looked awful in beating 40-year-old Winky Wright, unbeaten cruiserweight contender Lateef Kayode looked even worse in fighting to a 12 round draw with 43-year-old Antonio Tarver, and finally Roach trained Manny Pacquiao lost to Timothy Bradley last Saturday night.

Roach has been working with Chavez Jr. only for a little while, and he’s had mixed results. Chavez Jr. looked good in beating John Duddy in 2010. But then Chavez Jr. looked awful in defeating Billy Lyell, Marco Antonio Rubio, Sebastian Zbik and Peter Manfredo Jr. If you haven’t already noticed, Chavez Jr. has been spoon fed since capturing the WBC title against paper champion Zbik. It’s likely that Chavez Jr. would have never even fought for the WBC title if the World Boxing Council hadn’t stripped Sergio Martinez and given the title to Zbik outside of the ring. Chavez Jr. hasn’t shown a lot of interest in facing Martinez, although supposedly they’ve signed a contract for them to fight in September. Martinez doesn’t see that ever happening, and believes Chavez Jr. will back out rather than take the fight. It may not matter if Chavez Jr. can’t get past Lee on Saturday night.

Roach is pretty easy to read in predicting what game plan he’ll use for Chavez Jr. on Saturday against Lee. He’ll have Chavez Jr. pressure Lee, try to get in close to use his 180+ pounds to work the slender-legged Lee on the inside. If that doesn’t work, Roach will have Chavez Jr. using movement and an in and out attack style. It’s all pretty predictable because all of Roach’s fighters fight this way.