Coach Massimiliano Allegri assures Gonzalo Higuain “is very important for Juventus”.
The striker has two goals and an assist in four Serie A games so far, but was criticised for his performance against Barcelona in the Champions League, and for his showing against Sassuolo on Sunday.
“As far as Gonzalo is concerned, he’s played four games and scored two goals,” Allegri pointed out in his Press conference ahead of the Fiorentina game.
Coach Massimiliano Allegri assures Gonzalo Higuain “is very important for Juventus”.
The striker has two goals and an assist in four Serie A games so far, but was criticised for his performance against Barcelona in the Champions League, and for his showing against Sassuolo on Sunday.
“As far as Gonzalo is concerned, he’s played four games and scored two goals,” Allegri pointed out in his Press conference ahead of the Fiorentina game.
“As with all strikers there are periods where he scores more goals and periods where he scores less.
“It happened even last year, I don’t know if Higuain went three or four games without a goal last year but it went unnoticed.
“[Paulo] Dybala went so many games last year without a goal, but it’s just part of the season. Gonzalo has to remain calm.
“I don’t know if he’ll play or not play tomorrow, or if [Mario] Mandzukic won’t play, if [Juan] Cuadrado won’t play, I still haven’t decided anything.
“All that said, Gonzalo is a very important player for Juventus who, if he goes a game without scoring it’s a tragedy.”
The Bianconeri haven’t scored this many goals at the start of a Serie A season in 50 years, but they’re conceding more too…
“Every year is different from the other, the teams are different and it’s difficult to give an explanation.
“We can say that the attack is creating a lot and posting important numbers.
“Defensively, looking at the league, at the moment we’re better than last year. We conceded two goals in Genoa in rather unfortunate circumstances.
“Then again we could have conceded goals in other situations.
“The thing we need to improve compared to last season is handling moments of the game, we saw that against Barcelona and also against Sassuolo, because against Sassuolo we had some similar moments to Barcelona.
“In Barcelona we were punished, and with Sassuolo there was the error of the goal… it wasn’t so much the goal we conceded though, but there were moments where Sassuolo got a lot of shots at goal.
“At Juventus that doesn’t have to happen, so we need to handle these moments better and, I repeat, I’m convinced our season is defined by those moments and we need to handle them better.
“There are moments in a game, like after 30-35 minutes – I don’t remember exactly – against Sassuolo where they played nice football, pressed us well and got shots off.
“You’ve got an opponent, and the opponent can always create problems. Maybe they’ve lost two goals so they push further up, and in those moments you need to understand if you’ve lost control of the game.
“That means you need to find a different command of the game, i.e in the defensive phase, and not allow them to get shots off at goal. When that moment passes you can start playing again.
“With Sassuolo that might be five minutes, with Barcelona it might be 20. That’s what we didn’t do in Barcelona.
“That’s the most important thing to do this year, and that’s what the season will depend on.”
Allegri was then asked if he’ll stick with the 4-2-3-1 throughout the season, or if he’s working on some tactical masterplan.
“I don’t have a magic formula, I’ll put the players on the pitch in a formation according to the characteristics of the players who are going to play.
“Right now I’m curious to see [Benedikt] Howedes at work since he’s just come back to the team. He’s a player who also allows me to play with a back-three.
“It’s another positive variable for the season. As you saw on Sunday, when [Andrea] Barzagli came on, we finished the game with three at the back.
“Tomorrow? [Giorgio] Chiellini could be rested, I’ll see how he is today. [Sami] Khedira is progressing, but in my opinion it’ll take another 10 days for him to rejoin the squad.”