Max Allegri reassures a distraught Nicolò Fagioli after a costly error against Sassuolo, insisting Juventus on the whole ‘reacted after the slap in the face’ and took the wrong approach.
The Bianconeri will learn on Wednesday whether their appeal against the 15-point Serie A penalty has been accepted or not, but meantime they are stuttering on the field.
This was their second consecutive defeat in the competition, as after falling to Lazio last week, they were beaten 1-0 at the Mapei Stadium by Sassuolo striker Gregoire Defrel’s goal.
It was accidentally set up for him by a Nicolò Fagioli error and the young midfielder burst into tears when he got back to the bench minutes later.
“We did not play well for an hour, then reacted after the slap in the face of the goal. It was an important game for the table, but it was a second consecutive defeat in Serie A, both away from home,” Allegri told DAZN.
“We’ve got to get back on our feet, work on what we got wrong and take a different approach to the matches.”
It is a packed fixture list coming up, with Sporting CP in the Europa League quarter-final, then Napoli in Serie A and Inter in the Coppa Italia semi-final.
“We need to take it one game at a time. There are players like Federico Chiesa and Paul Pogba who are getting back into shape, while others have played a lot more and are fatigued. That is not an alibi, as we were distracted on the corners.
“It was better in the closing stages, but we had to rest players like Chiesa and Pogba. I saw improvements from Pogba, but he’s still a long way behind schedule and not in condition to play 90 minutes. We’ll try to slowly get him up to 30 minutes and see how he responds.
“All we can do now is stay quiet, work hard and drag out the last drops of energy to get past Sporting.”
Fagioli was utterly distraught when going back to the bench after his error set up the Defrel goal, his teammates trying everything to console him.
“Everyone makes mistakes, it was an error, but he is not responsible for the defeat. The whole team didn’t play up to the right standard,” assured Allegri.
With the appeal coming up on Wednesday, Allegri continues to talk as if Juventus had already won their case and received the 15 points back in the table.
“I told the lads this was an important step for our table, we had to get the Milanese clubs nine and 11 points behind us. Instead, we dropped points. As I always say, there are some games Juventus must not play, they must win.”