Think of it as taking one step forward then two steps back. A win against Benevento meant Juventus took advantage of Napoli’s stalemate in Verona to move within a point of the league leaders as Serie A shut for the final international break of the calendar year. It felt like a pivotal moment in the title race, particularly with Napoli losing one of their key players, Faouzi Ghoulam, to a serious knee injury in the Champions League loss to Manchester City.
On Serie A’s return, however, the Old Lady lost the ground she had made up. Napoli re-extended their lead at the top to four points on Saturday night with a comfortable win against Milan. A response from the champions wasn’t forthcoming. Defeat by Sampdoria came as a shock. But it was hardly a surprise. The Blucerchiati have a perfect record at Marassi this season. Only Barcelona, Manchester United and PSG have been as good at home in Europe’s top five leagues and the shame in losing to a team this well-coached is negligible. Sometimes you just have to congratulate your opponent on a fine performance.
Still, the sight of Juventus 3-0 down as they headed into stoppage time was cause of understandable consternation and legitimate concern back at headquarters in Continassa. While, as Maurizio Sarri keenly emphasised, there is still two-thirds of the season to play and 75 points up for grabs, the sense this could be Napoli’s year only deepened. Juventus have come back from far greater deficits. It’s enough to recall they were 12 points back at the end of October in 2015 and still won the league. Even last year it took until mid-January to figure things out. Writing them off would be foolish.
What feels different this time around, though, is the vibe Juventus are giving off. This is not the Old Lady we have come to know over the last six years. Juventus' starting point has always been that the team with the best defence nearly always win the league. Max Allegri believes it’s different in the Champions League. The analysis he made after Cardiff concluded Juventus need more skill, more finesse. They had to score more goals. Juventus wrestled with this tension last season, finding equilibrium in the spring. But the balance of the team titled further in the summer with the sales of Leonardo Bonucci and Dani Alves and acquisitions of Douglas Costa and Federico Bernardeschi.
Win cash prizes for free with our competition!
Don't miss out - join our November Tipster Competition today
Heading into matchday 13 in Serie A, it looked - superficially at least - like the only thing to have changed from a year ago was Juventus’ rivals raising their game. Juve were a point better off than in 2016/17 and had only let in two more goals. They were also Serie A top scorers. The underlying stats, however, tell a different story. Number cruncher Alfredo Giacobbe pointed out that Juventus' Expected Goals Conceded is up from 5 to 10.3, while the number of shots allowed has also spiked. More worrying is that 8% of them are inside their penalty area. Only Benevento and Cagliari fare worse in this regard.
The explanation is surely more complicated than Bonucci’s departure alone. Allegri’s team selections have been criticised. Gigi Buffon, Andrea Barzagli, Alex Sandro, Claudio Marchisio, Douglas Costa, Blaise Matuidi and Paulo Dybala all started on the bench at Marassi. Both of Juventus’ defeats this season have come in the first game back after the international break - make of that what you will.
Allegri is reportedly unhappy that some players are not training with the intensity of old. When that was put to him, he insisted the intensity is the same as in other years, but Giorgio Chiellini seemed to question the hunger and desire of some of his teammates. He said the senior players have it. Whether the others do or not was left to our imagination.
Application maybe isn’t the issue. Emphasis is. Too many Juventus players now seem to like attacking more than defending. In fairness to them, that’s the message the club has sent in its recruitment strategy. Take Sami Khedira. That hat-trick in Udine indicates a taste for goals. But maybe he should think twice about making so many late runs into the box. Juventus’ defence needs protection and there are calls for Allegri to consider an extra man in midfield and either revisit experiments with a 4-3-3 or test out a Christmas Tree just in time for the holidays.
Allegri’s calculated gamble didn’t pay off at the weekend. It cost Juventus. But you can understand one eye being on Wednesday’s Champions League clash with Barcelona at the Allianz Stadium. Allegri clearly doesn’t want qualification to go down to the final day, as it did under Antonio Conte in 2014, when Juventus crashed out on the ice in Istanbul. That’s why he kept so many of his stars in reserve. It’s a key moment in the season. If Juve qualify with a game to spare, it will allow them to best prepare for December when they play Napoli, Inter and Roma.
Until then, it’s as Allegri says: the Old Lady needs to remain calm. And stop shipping so many unnecessary goals.
.png)
