Massimiliano Allegri spoke to the press ahead of Juventus’ clash with Milan on Sunday evening after what has been a testing week for the Bianconeri coach.
Last Thursday, Juve were eliminated from the Europa League semi-finals at the hands of six-time champions Sevilla, before falling to a 4-1 defeat against Empoli on Monday.
Then, to make matters worse, the club were slapped with a 10-point deduction as a result of their hearing at the FIGC Court of Appeal, plummeting the team down to seventh in the Serie A table and knocking them almost out of reach of the Champions League positions with just two games of the season remaining.
“It was a difficult week, not a good one looking at the results,” Allegri confessed to the press. “The disappointment of Sevilla, the bitterness, the anger and then the defeat of Empoli.
“Now we need to dust ourselves off because there are two games left and tomorrow is Juventus-Milan. The stadium will be full, it will have to be a good evening also because we have to make up places in the league table.
“Tomorrow is the last game of this season at home. Tomorrow is only about Juventus-Milan. They aim to get into the Champions League, mathematically we are not out of anything. The match in Empoli certainly did complicate the process, though.”
Allegri was then asked whether he had any conflicts with the clubs over the appointment of a new sporting director, to which he concretely denied any involvement in the hiring process.
He told the media: “With the club, we are in line on everything. I’m a coach, I’ve never had the power and I don’t even want to have it. The club makes the decisions and these are things I have never spoken about and above all never had a say on.
“I care a lot about the team that I work for, I work well with all the people who are employed by the club because the goal is getting results for Juventus. I didn’t like the rumours that I had an influence (over the choice of sporting director). I don’t have the power, these are things that exclusively concern the club.”
The Juve coach was then asked to explain what has gone wrong for his side over the course of this season.
“Answering this question in 1 minute is difficult,” he replied. “I think we have worked very hard and we have another 10 days in which we need to work even harder. We need to get the most out of Juventus’ DNA. We made a mistake in Empoli, we lost a match we couldn’t afford to. We know it. We went in off the back of the disappointment of Sevilla and the 10-point deduction.
“Let’s look to tomorrow, a good match against Milan to reach the top four spots. We have to think about Europe as a viable possibility.”
Asked whether he has had any assurance from the club over his long-term future in Turin, Allegri replied: “We’ll talk to the club on 5 June when everything is over because at the moment the present focus is on tomorrow. We’ve already had too many distractions in recent months, from the ruling to the board. It hasn’t been an easy season since November.
“What happens next year is not yet known. The players are focused, I’ve asked them to give all their energy tomorrow.”