Maurizio Sarri was glad Juventus “didn’t lose our heads” when overturning Lokomotiv Moscow, but admits the tempo was “slow throughout.”
There was the real risk of a huge shock in Turin when Aleksei Miranchuk fired in on the counter to give the Russians the lead, but a Paulo Dybala brace late on secured the 2-1 victory.
Maurizio Sarri was glad Juventus “didn’t lose our heads” when overturning Lokomotiv Moscow, but admits the tempo was “slow throughout.”
There was the real risk of a huge shock in Turin when Aleksei Miranchuk fired in on the counter to give the Russians the lead, but a Paulo Dybala brace late on secured the 2-1 victory.
“We had few problems at the back. Unfortunately, we went behind on a counter and they became even more dense back there,” Sarri told Sky Sport Italia.
“I think we did very well not to lose our heads, as we kept patient and moved the ball. We felt it was always obvious the game could be turned around, but the real anxiety was we could get panicked. We had 28 shots on goal.
“I told the lads we shattered Champions League records on possession. The risk was to smash face-first into the wall repeatedly and then get irritable, but we kept our heads.”
Sarri has been hesitant to use Dybala with Cristiano Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuain, but introduced Pipita for the second half.
“We had the feeling later on that Lokomotiv no longer had the legs to counter, so I took the risk and put on Higuain as well as Adrien Rabiot with Rodrigo Bentancur.
“Unfortunately, our system tends to make us push more through the centre. In the second half, we tried to move more down the right, as when Paulo is a trequartista, he leans towards the right, so we often get a bit too one-sided. We’re working on that.
“I don’t think we got the wrong approach at all. We were just a little slow and kept the tempo slow throughout the first half, as we weren’t very sharp physically more than psychologically. We are playing every three days and a lull can happen.
“Lokomotiv in the first half went slow, then fast, whereas we were just slow throughout. The good news is that we were sharp mentally, as without that, we wouldn’t have kept our heads to unpick the lock.”