Juventus Match Hub 2016-17

Allegri rushed Alex Sandro. He was clearly not fully fit. Ohr midfield was terrible , You can't rely on guys like Sturaro against serious opponents. Dybala also had a bad game like most of our players. Games like this show our weakness in midfield. I can't believe we went from Pirlo Pogba Vidal to starting Stururru and Khedira who was probably our best mid tonight. That's how bad our mid is.

@S

Its not tinkering, its injuries and suspensions always forcing Allegri. Tonight we had no right back (injury and suspension) and only 1 LB (transfer confusion). We played with BBC plus pretty much our starting 11.

It would have been a good game to have 4 midfielders but we had no RB so either we played Sturaro or Barzagli there and both were a disaster tonight.

The CL stuff is just pessimism. City lost 4-0 today, Madrid lost 2-1, Barca just came from a loss last week iirc. Get a grip, you win some tough games, you lose some.

I don't agree that the midfield was responsible for this loss, thats just the easy way out.

Our worst players tonight were Barzagli, Buffon and Dybala. The first one was just awful the moment Kalinic or Bernardeschi pressed him. The second one was bad for both goals. And the third one was playing like Mr. Superstar out there trying unnecessary backheels and tricks in dangerous situation while misplacing tons of passes.

Verratti is a must in the summer. I don't care how much we have to pay for him. We could have Messi up front and he would look bad with our current midfield group.

And we need a destroyer as well. N'Zonzi would work well in that role.

rincon wrote:I don't agree that the midfield was responsible for this loss, thats just the easy way out.

Our worst players tonight were Barzagli, Buffon and Dybala. The first one was just awful the moment Kalinic or Bernardeschi pressed him. The second one was bad for both goals. And the third one was playing like Mr. Superstar out there trying unnecessary backheels and tricks in dangerous situation while misplacing tons of passes.

The reason Dybala tracks back so often and tries all his trick plays is we don't have anyone in midfield who can move the ball to the strikers so Dybala always has to track back. If you have Verratti in midfield Dybala could actually play as a second striker and do his job, which is to score goals.

Our midfield needs a total revamp in the summer. I'm not sure how that's gonna look like but a total overhaul is necessary. Bentancur is already in place. Mandragora may or may not be ready. Marotta has promised a big midfield signing in the summer. I wonder who that player will be.

Sturaro, Lemina, Asamoah, Hernanes, Rincon, Khedira. My God. I don't recall a time in the last 30 odd years where we had so many provincial type average midfielders on our team all at the same time.

Only Marchisio and Pjanic stand out to me as above average CL worthy type midfielders.

juve_gigi wrote:

rincon wrote:I don't agree that the midfield was responsible for this loss, thats just the easy way out.

Our worst players tonight were Barzagli, Buffon and Dybala. The first one was just awful the moment Kalinic or Bernardeschi pressed him. The second one was bad for both goals. And the third one was playing like Mr. Superstar out there trying unnecessary backheels and tricks in dangerous situation while misplacing tons of passes.

The reason Dybala tracks back so often and tries all his trick plays is we don't have anyone in midfield who can move the ball to the strikers so Dybala always has to track back.

Not tonight. Tonight he wasn't bad because he tracked back, he was bad because he always made the wrong choice. He literally tried a roulette a couple of meters from our box in front of two Fiore players, obviously he lost it and created a chance for them. He tried a backheel to Khedira close to our box for no reason, that Khedira received and then almost got injured from the clash due to it. He kept doing this and misplacing passes. Topped it off lashing out and getting a yellow at the end of the game.

He couldn't handle the game mentally. Fiore players fouled him the first couple of times he got the ball at the beginning of the game, then he got frustrated and lost it for the rest of the match. No composure.

Remember when a lot of you were laying into Pogba for trying to play like a star? that was Dybala tonight. Terrible.

Yeah the kid is still learning unfortunately. He still has a lot to learn. I don't think he has fully matured yet. Probably that penalty miss shook him up.

We need Dybala at his best if we are to win any trophies. If another midfielder does not come in January than we will be relying heavily on him and Higuain to take us to the promised land.

I'm starting to give up on Khedira in a 3 man mid against any decent team. Would rather have Pjanic there. If Khedira must play against a tough team that we attempt to control, then it needs to be in a 4 man mid.

He is just too weak (like Pjanic) but not decisive enough (unlike Pjanic) to be the key man from the mid going forward.

Against serious teams get Rincon-Marchisio-Pjanic for the mid 3, if those can't play then a mid 4 must be the answer. We need a right back ASAP.

We got rightfully beat tonight.

It's easy to ascertain why when you watch the game. Fiorentina pressured and outworked our slow, uninspiring midfield. The back three wasn't useful tonight either, I'm sure an extra body in the midfield would've paid dividends versus the cling to the 3-5-2.

Probably the worst game I've seen from Dybala, yet he's still so good that he almost assisted a goal (Higuain header) and almost (should've) scored one. With that being said, it was a really poor showing from him.

Fiorentina away always had the characteristics of being a match of this nature but I have to see, I figured by this point in the season our team would be further along than we currently are showing to be, despite being in a good position in the CL, the Coppa Italia and in Serie A, the performances leave much to be desired.

The next 4 matches

Lazio
Milan (CI)
@Sassuolo
Inter

Gonna be one hell of a month after Atalanta and Fiorentina already. We are only 1 point above Roma (with an extra match against Crotone), tight race for the scudetto again.

I hate to say it but I prefer last year's team to this year's team. Pogba and Morata made a bigger impact the prior 2 years than Higuain and Pjanic are this year. Plus guys like Barzagli, Buffon, Chiellini, Evra, Khedira, Marchisio are all one year older and all of them are past their prime years.

We need a major injection of youth. And we need "several" new midfielders. Caldara, Orsolini, Bentancur, Mandragora, Kean, Lirola, maybe Kolasinac and hopefully Berardi will rejuvenate this team. This team is getting old fast. I think Marotta understands this. The youth must come next year as well as some world class midfielders.

I disagree, I think this group has a higher ceiling.

Higuain has been nothing short of brilliant and has basically won several games on his own this season. Pjanic, it's kind of still early to tell but he's also had a few very bright games this season (a few too many for me though).

Agree with Luca.

I'd also say that Morata added pretty much nothing outside the Coppa Italia last season. Didn't help us in Serie A, and was bad in the group stage of the CL. Not a fan of the guy. Higuain to Morata is heaven to hell.

Pogba of course was great, miss him here.

Agree with some of this

juve_gigi wrote: We need a major injection of youth. And we need "several" new midfielders. Caldara, Orsolini, Bentancur, Mandragora, Kean, Lirola, maybe Kolasinac and hopefully Berardi will rejuvenate this team. This team is getting old fast. I think Marotta understands this. The youth must come next year as well as some world class midfielders.

The team is pretty old. A RB, a LB, a Mid need to come at least, and some leave.

It's clearly evident that this season is the beginning of the end to an amazing era that lasted 5 years. I'm not saying that we won't win from now on but it's obvious that many key players of the Conte-Allegri era have dramatically declined. Unfortunately BBC isn't what it used to be and due to this I believe that we shouldn't start games with 3-5-2 anymore. It's a great system to close games though. I understand that tonight we were forced to play with 3 at the back but if circumstances allow us, we should simply avoid starting games with it.

Also Khedira should retire already, the lad at 29 is playing like a 40 year old veteran.

one thing can sum up the game for me :

Credit to Sousa for putting Bernardeschi on Marchisio & taking him out of the game. Credit to Bernardeschi for executing it perfectly.


simple as that, that's why we lost

rincon wrote:Agree with Luca.

I'd also say that Morata added pretty much nothing outside the Coppa Italia last season. Didn't help us in Serie A, and was bad in the group stage of the CL. Not a fan of the guy. Higuain to Morata is heaven to hell.

Pogba of course was great, miss him here

You mean Morata the Real Madrid killer from two years ago and the Bayern killer from last year, that Morata??

From what I remember against Bayern we scored at home to tie the game right after we subbed in Morata. And in Bayern Morata destroyed half the Bayern team to assist Cuadrado on the second goal. And the first goal was scored by Pogba. The game was 2-0 Juve and we were comfortably ahead until Allegri decided to sub off Morata for Mandzukic. After Morata came off Bayern immediately scored, then tied it up then won in overtime.

One thing we DON'T have this year is Morata's speed in the lineup. I'm not saying he's a better #9 than Higuain, of course he is not. But Higuain needs service which we rarely give him because our midfield sucks and Dybala has to play as a quasi midfielder to start the attack which leaves Higuain by himself half the time.

Pogba/Morata helped us more last year, especially in the big games, than Higauin/Pjanic this year. One thing we are sorely missing this year is speed and also physicality. Pogba/Morata provided both while Higuain/Pjanic provide neither. They are simply better technical players which is great, but we are missing speed and more physical play which may become our downfall this year. I hope not but that is my concern.

Morata against Bayern last year, the destruction of half the team and the assist to Cuadrado, the BEST goal of last year...

I also want to add that last year after our disastrous start to the year from November onward we never lost a game until the very end of the season when the scudetto was locked up. We almost won 26 games in a row, just one tie in between those 25 wins. So the fact that we are losing games in January, and sucking big time while we are losing, is very concerning to me.

Last year we were a machine in January. We should have beat Bayern really. This year we are losing to Fiorentina in January. Not good. I'm expecting more from this team moving forward.

@juve_gigi you are talking about 1 game of Morata. We can only talk about 1 game because he sucked the entire season outside of the coppa. He was terrible last season, going months without scoring and sulking around the pitch like a baby. Zaza scored almost the same in like half the playing time.

How can you mention physicality when Morata was the weakest player in our team and Higuain is now the strongest. Everything is better with Higuain, small games, big games, all games.

Losing away games in Serie A has to be fixed ASAP, but it has nothing to with Morata not being here to walk around and miss sitters.

With Higuain we got what we were lacking with Morata. Morata wasn't a clinical finisher like Pipita but he could create chances on his own thanks to his speed and good skills on the ball. He was far too incosistent in Serie A. Higuain is miles better butvwe have a weaker midfield who doesn't deliver. We know what Higuain is capable of from his days in Napoli. But Napoli were far more attacking threat than us this season. We miss Vidal and Pogba who were running and creating all the time. Remember Vidal finishing as a striker just because our strikers were so poor? Remember Pogba's long range strikes? I'm not talking about Pirlo...
Pjanic has been good but he lacks something physically. We can't rely on him and Marchisio. We got two more spots in midfield where we play Khedira and Sturaro... they can't be starters for Juve ffs. We ain't in 2010 anymore...

Man I hope Bentancur is great cause Gagliardini had one hell of a debut at Inter, starting just days after joining.

I used to believe that our bad performances were a product of having mediocre personel at key positions. Now I'm starting to believe that personel is merely the problem. We've seen teams with less than half of the quality we have put in some spirited performances. In my opinion the real issue is our approach to the game. It might sound a bit cringe but we aren't showing that Juve DNA anymore. The sensation we are getting from the players is that they don't have a clear idea of what our game plan is nor that they are calm and selected. We simply rely on individual moments of brilliance. They don't have that famous "to the end" attitude and they seem to be uncharacteristicaly soft. To add to that, Evra asked to leave all of the sudden, rumors saying that Max isn't doing well with Dybala and some of the veterans and also some rumors are linking him with a potential move to England. Now I know that a lot of the rumors are nothing more than BS but where's smoke, there's a fire. It can't ALL be fabricated. The soulless performances are speaking for themselves anyway.

I hate to break the news but Higuain has missed quite a few sitters in much bigger games than Morata over the last few years. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Morata was a proven big game performer. He has the stats to back it up. Higuain does not. I don't care if Higuain scores 1000 goals in Serie A, until he does it in the biggest CL games he is still a question mark.

Morata was misplaced last year. He doesn't fit into this continuing 3-5-2 BS that we keep on playing. We are NOT going to win the CL playing a 3-5-2. We can't even beat Fiorentina or Milan with that formation never mind Barca or Bayern.

Our team lacks speed that Morata brought. Our team lacks physicality that Pogba brought. We are one dimensional and rely mainly on Dybala being a quasi midfielder and Higuain scoring goals. I don't see much offence coming from anywhere else. Alves was a flop. Khedira is finished. We have 3 midfielders in Asamoah, Lemina and Hernanes who aren't even worthy of wearing the Juventus jersey.

We need a total overhaul in midfield. Gagliardini is a stud. I already said before that he was the jewel from Atalanta not Caldara. I would have paid $30 million for him. He was the priority signing not Caldara. Caldara was just a luxury signing. Gagliardini was needed right now and would have been an instant starter on our team.

Anyways, we'll see what happens moving forward. I hope we sign Kolasinac this month. He can really help the back end and be a perfect sub for Sandro as well as cover for the CB's. I'd love to get another midfielder but I am not sure anyone of quality is available. N'Zonzi would be great. Even though he couldn't play in CL at least we could use him to help us win the scudetto and Coppa Italia. Based on what I saw today the CL doesn't look that promising anyways. I don't see how it's conceivable we can win the CL with the midfield we currently have.

Comparing Morata to Higuain...

You don't care if he scores 1000 goals in Serie A, thats you. I absolutely care because thats the bulk of our games and the league we play in.

Not even just about the goals, watching about one half of football of Higuain and 1 season of Morata's and the difference is just so big.

There is a reason why Morata is a 24 yo player always on the bench. Because his game is so incomplete and he was bad last season. Shit during the group stages and then good in the game where we got knocked out, and embarrassing in Serie A.

Few things I want to see.

Rugani starting regularly. I don't think it's far-fetched to say he's been our best defender this season along with Bonucci and I'm sure as hell he would've helped distribute the ball way better than Chiellini yesterday who was nothing short of horrible. Rugani has impressed in big games. He deserves his due.

Sturaro not starting a single important game again now that we have Rincón. I wish we could say the same for Khedira but we have no viable alternative sadly.

Pjanić playing in the hole supporting Dybala-Higuaín. If we have serious ambitions about the CL then these three have to play together regularly and strike a chemistry. Don't care if it's a 3 man or a 4 man backline , these are our 3 best/most offensive players and should be starting every game barring injuries.

^That. All of that.