Bonucci insists Juventus’ winner should have stood regardless of Candreva

Leonardo Bonucci insists Arek Milik’s winner should have stood regardless of Antonio Candreva’s position: ‘I was not involved in active play.’

Juventus recovered from two goals down and almost took all three points home against Salernitana at the Allianz Stadium.

Milik scored the potential winner, which VAR disallowed for Bonucci’s offside.

What did the referee tell the Italy international after the game?

“The explanation was that I was involved in active play, but Sepe would have never caught that, my position didn’t interfere with his potential save. That’s what the rule says. And then, there is the doubt that Antonio Candreva keeps everyone onside.”

A few minutes earlier, Max Allegri had noted how Candreva could have kept Bonucci onside and that his position, close to the corner, was probably not considered by VAR.

DAZN journalist Marco Cattaneo argued that the line used by VAR should have considered Candreva and that the Italian winger didn’t seem to keep Bonucci onside.

“Who? Candreva?” Asked Bonucci.

“I am less than a meter behind the goal area, Candreva seems to be above. If you see the colour of the turf, Candreva could keep me onside.

“I hope they [referees] considered his position, but I guess we’ll never know it.

“Regardless of that, I was not involved in active play and the Salernitana defender even took my shirt off,” continued Bonucci.

“Now we must analyse the first half, if we play like that, we’ll go nowhere. If we play like in the second half, we can have a role in the league.”

At that point, the veteran defender explained where Juventus must improve and which are their issues.

“We’ve been playing games on rollercoasters in the last two seasons and it can’t happen. The problem is something we must understand all together,” he said.

“We can’t give away 10 or 15 minutes to any every opponent and throw the result into doubt. At Juventus, only victory exists, this is what we must understand. When we are not a unit we always struggle, whether we have the ball or not. That’s where Juventus e excels: mentality.

“We’ve changed a lot over the last few years. There was a generational change and it is still not clear how much this shirt weights.

“We can’t afford to give less than our best, in game or training. I hope we can learn from this game, it’s abut mentality. We can’t afford performances like today in the first half. I’ve seen a different mentality in training, but games are different and that’s where we must improve.

“It’s not one’s fault, we must help each other in defence, and we must all attack and defend. We conceded two naive goals tonight, We must improve and understand that every ball is the most important because it can change the game.”

Juventus host Benfica at the Allianz Stadium in their Champions League second group stage game on Wednesday, while the last Serie A game before the break is away at Monza next Sunday.