Juventus assistant manager Marco Landucci, standing in for Max Allegri during illness, assures they are not seeking ‘controversy’ after the 2-1 defeat to Lazio. ‘The only opinion that matters is that of the referee.’
The Bianconeri saw this as a head-to-head for second place, seeing as if they win the appeal against the 15-point penalty on April 19, it will have the Old Lady as the closest team to leaders Napoli.
Allegri did not make the trip to Rome after coming down with flu symptoms, so Landucci stood in on the touchline and in the post-match interviews.
There was controversy over the opening goal, but the referee and VAR did not intervene over a Sergej Milinkovic-Savic nudge on Alex Sandro.
“The referee decides. Juve fans would say it was a foul, Lazio fans would say it wasn’t, but the only opinion that matters is that of the referee,” Landucci told DAZN.
“All I can say is that our first half was below par, whereas we did much better after the break, deserved to score again and the draw would’ve been the fair result.
“As usual, we accept the result on the field. Our defenders were in the right positions, if the referee blows his whistle then it ends there, but he didn’t. We don’t stir up controversy over these things.
“Chiesa and Paredes did well off the bench, we had a good second half, but were only missing the goal – and that’s not just a detail.”
Adrien Rabiot bundled the equaliser over the line only for a well-worked Mattia Zaccagni team goal to decide the 2-1 result.
“We have never had Chiesa and Pogba in the squad, really. Chiesa was out basically for a year, he is starting to get back to full fitness and that is one of the positives tonight, as with him we can adopt a few different systems.
“Today we moved to four at the back in the second half and did well, it’s a pity we conceded that goal, but we did create numerous chances to equalise.”
Dusan Vlahovic had a few efforts, but went off with an ice-pack strapped to his ankle and it was another disappointing overall performance from the Serbian.
“Strikers need goals and it’s also fair to say we didn’t give him enough supply today. We were all a bit soft in the first half and needed to win more tackles. As the boss says, you need to win those tackles.
“I spoke to him after the game, he said we had a good second half and the first should’ve been better, but I knew that already.”
Angel Di Maria struggled in the first half, but seemed to improve after the change of system.
“I think everyone did better after that change. Everyone knows Angel’s quality, he suffered in the first half, but caused Lazio problems in the second.”
The verdict of the appeal against Juve’s 15-point Serie A penalty will be heard on April 19, but even if they do not turn that around, are they optimistic about qualifying for the Champions League anyway?
“We must always be optimistic, we wait for the sentence, we know that we picked up 59 points on the pitch, we’ve officially got 44 now. We’ll wait and see.”