Max Allegri reveals he ‘had already seen warning signs over the last few days’ that Juventus had the wrong mentality going into their 4-2 defeat to Sassuolo. ‘We rather lost our heads.’
The Bianconeri were unbeaten this season and hoping to keep up the pressure on leaders Inter, but the trip to the Mapei Stadium did not go according to plan.
They fought back twice from a goal down and were trailing 3-2 when gifting the fourth deep into stoppages, as Federico Gatti did not pay attention on his back-pass to Wojciech Szczesny, failing to realise the goalkeeper was nowhere near the net.
Allegri was asked if he wanted to discuss the potential Domenico Berardi red card for a shin-high tackle on Bremer, but shrugged it off.
“No, let’s talk about the game. It was the first defeat, we must learn from it. We were not phenomenal before this game, just as we are not awful after it,” Allegri told DAZN.
“We had our heads in the clouds with the butterflies, it had started well and there were some fairly simple situations we didn’t make the most of. We conceded at their first attempt and rather lost our heads, so we paid for that.”
Surprisingly, the coach said he had an inkling this week that Juve players were not entirely focused.
“I’ve had a few games in my career, I know the strengths and weaknesses of Serie A teams. This was just the final chapter, I already had warning signs over the last few days that we tried to attenuate.
“Now we mustn’t get downhearted, there is an important match coming up and we must try to get three points.”
It was the first time since his return to Turin in 2021 that Allegri had picked the same starting XI twice in a row, ending a run of 112 different line-ups, so this was the same side that beat Lazio last week.
In theory, they should’ve been fresher than the clubs playing in Europe midweek, but made so many unforced errors.
“This was a match where we were lacking in terms of mentality. We are still not able to switch during the game, to stay in it at every moment. I already had the sensation that we were panicking a little whenever the ball was put into the box, which had not happened against Lazio or the other games, so that had me on alert.”
Dusan Vlahovic was substituted and seemed irritated at the decision, shaking his head as he walked off for Moise Kean.
“He needs to improve, he didn’t make the most of a few chances, but he also struggled with his fitness over the last few days. It was not a great performance from the whole team, it was very unbalanced and turned into an end to end match, in which anything can happen.”