Andrea Pirlo was irritable when his tactical choices in the Juventus draw with Verona were questioned. ‘You should watch games before commenting. You tell me what I’m supposed to do.’
Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal was cancelled out by an Antonin Barak header, although Hellas could’ve had more, as Wojciech Szczesny twice fingertipped efforts onto the woodwork.
Andrea Pirlo was irritable when his tactical choices in the Juventus draw with Verona were questioned. ‘You should watch games before commenting. You tell me what I’m supposed to do.’
Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal was cancelled out by an Antonin Barak header, although Hellas could’ve had more, as Wojciech Szczesny twice fingertipped efforts onto the woodwork.
When Pirlo faced questions from Sky Sport Italia pundit Giancarlo Padovan about using players out of position, the coach was in no mood for it.
“We were in an emergency situation, if you look at the absentees. I had already adapted Alex Sandro as a centre-back, so we couldn’t invent more than that.
“If you are missing four defenders, full-backs and strikers, then you tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
Pirlo was asked if he could’ve adopted a four-man defence with Radu Dragusin instead of forcing Juve to stick with three.
“Dragusin is not a full-back and he has never played as a full-back, he is a third centre-back. You should watch games carefully before commenting.”
Padovan assured he had watched them carefully.
“It doesn’t seem like you did. Dragusin was never tested there.”
The line of questioning moved on to Federico Bernardeschi and Federico Chiesa being ‘out of position’ in order to use the 3-4-2-1 formation.
“Excuse me, but who would you have placed in that formation? Chiesa is an attacking winger, he played many games in that role. Bernardeschi has almost always played in that role.
“Perhaps they were the only two players there who were in their natural roles. When you have to make changes, everyone needs to adapt.”