Maurizio Sarri felt Juventus “played in fits and starts, without much balance” in their 2-1 win over Hellas Verona. “We’re under construction and you can tell.”
Miguel Veloso had put Verona in front in Turin, even after Samuele Di Carmine missed a penalty, but Aaron Ramsey’s deflected effort and a Cristiano Ronaldo spot-kick secured the 2-1 victory.
“Perhaps there was some mental fatigue, because you need to immediately recharge the batteries a couple of days later. With a lot of changes, you lose some balance, and that’s what we saw today, as we played in fits and starts,” the Coach told Sky Sport Italia.
“Dybala had a very good game. Ramsey still needs to adapt, but that’s pretty natural in the circumstances.
“Our central midfielder was man-marked, but I think we could’ve done more with the other two midfielders. Changing two out of three in the middle meant it was clear we could’ve lost some balance.
“This is a team under construction and you can tell. We far too easily forget to defend moving forward and tend to run backwards under pressure, so it’ll take a while to get that out of them.
“When there are teams that provide width with their wing-backs, we need to stay tight, otherwise it becomes a problem and we’re constantly in the middle of nowhere.
“We should’ve been organised in our pressing on their three defenders, as the distances weren’t right today. Having said that, Verona are in excellent shape and attack you all over the field one-on-one, they press high and it’s not easy to beat them.
“These players are accustomed to the Champions League and dealing with the fixture list. We did well to turn around a game that had become very difficult, but we need to improve our possession and our initial approach, because we left it open and risked an equaliser at the end.
“It takes a long time to drill the defending movements into the team and right now they are not confident enough playing out from the back under pressure.
“Napoli were also a very symmetrical team and Juve are not as symmetrical, so the characteristics are different.”
Shagun
105
Matuidi is bad..he goes forward and wastes so many chances...so is Bentancur and Khedira..not champions league stuff. Ramsey is good. Pjanic and Rabiot can be other 2. Ronaldo, Dybala, Higuain at front..
Khayaledumile
54
We need Willian, Kante, one Tall good defender n a good striker because Higuain n Mandzukic they are slow, tired n always find themselves out of position most of the time.
Khayaledumile
52
Ramsey was great, I like his connection with CR7 it shows that we have a formation upfront that can work for us, they ain't shy to assist each other n he is skilled fool. Dybala is a great player but somehow he get too slow when we counter attack n seems like he have a lot on his mind
Kg4991
49
He said true about Ramsey as anyone who saw the game knows that Ramsey could have scored 3 and assisted 2 to Ronaldo and Dybala. He played well but there was some kind of misunderstanding between him and Matuidi while the forward play. While Dybala had a decent game but should work more with his finishing and dribbling.
Garnetg
32
1st give credit to Verona because they were well organized and they came to Turin to play their style and get a win, yes they were they were the weaker teambut Juve were just the richer team(so Juve grind out a win) 😑. The fear factor is missing at the begining of every season because for the past 4 years or so, the cycle of core players players are cycled, then the first quater or so (depending on the players) is spent trying to gel . Juve need adopt a better long term plan and stop changing up the core chasing CL glory or else it's just gonna be a coach's nightmare of just a bunch of aimless top players and not a top TEAM like PSG and the whole lot....