19 October 2016
Perhaps understandably, Massimiliano Allegri was in satisfied mood after the ten men of Juventus battled to a 1-0 win at Lyon in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
“We’re on seven points after three games but the most important thing is that we still haven’t conceded a goal,” declared the Bianconeri coach during his post-match press duties. “Tonight we owe our clean sheet to [Gigi] Buffon’s performance.”
Despite the victory, Allegri was keen to stress that there was plenty for Juventus to work on in the coming weeks.
“We can and must get better. We weren’t direct enough with our running in the first half. The turning point came when we went down to ten men: the play got stretched and we did well to raise our game. It’s never easy to win on the road.
“We found it tough going with their counter-attacks in the first half. We dwelled in possession too much and gave away too many simple passes, but we improved after the break. Generally speaking, I think we need to relax a bit more and not rush things.
“When a team keeps it tight you have to know how to be patient – it’s the same problem we saw against Udinese. We ran a few too many risks on Saturday too,” admitted Allegri.
The Juve boss also provided some insight into his team selection in France.
“[Medhi] Benatia didn’t start because we hadn’t planned to play him on Saturday and he did end up playing, so I don’t want to risk him, plus [Patrice] Evra is strong in that position. I went with [Mario] Lemina because I was expecting it to be a physical contest.
“As for [Juan] Cuadrado, I could have started with him but then I wouldn’t have had him to bring on! Sometimes you have to wait until after the 70th minute to win a match. Cuadrado is an important player when he plays where he did tonight, but he also performs well where we saw him on Saturday,” said Allegri.
Finally, the coach looked ahead to Saturday’s visit to San Siro to take on AC Milan.
“We’ll need to make our play nice and quick against Milan, which is something we failed to do in the first half tonight. The Rossoneri are a very good, young side and if we don’t match them for running then it’ll be a tough night.”
