Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Udinese

For weeks now, Juventus manager Max Allegri has been commenting on the Scudetto race. It's probably because his team is right in the middle of it all after starting the season so incredibly poorly. The better Juve play, the more Allegri will be asked not only about his team's chances to win a fifth straight title, but also how it stacks up against the other contenders.

It wasn't any different entering this afternoon's game against Udinese, the official beginning of the 2015-16 season's second half.

.@OfficialAllegri: "There are 19 fixtures remaining and I think the title race will go right down to the final game." #UdineseJuve

— JuventusFC (@juventusfcen) January 16, 2016

Seeing how tightly packed the top three or four teams are right now, it's not all that surprising of a viewpoint to have. Of course, this was said before Inter drew with Atalanta and Gonzalo Higuain continued his dismantling of Serie A defenses in Napoli's win over Sassuolo on Saturday night.

So, with the results last night, there are two rewards for tacking on another game to the Serie A winning streak. For one, Juventus would have second place in the league table all to themselves because of Inter's little slip up. Two, they'd be able to remain two points back of Napoli. Of course, that's just a given. And if it's been anything like the last three months worth of games, then we're going to have something to be happy about.

But, there's still a game to be played. One that will see Udinese unveil it's new-look Arena Friuli — packed full of sweet-looking seat colors — with Juventus coming to town. I would like to think Juventus know something about having good debuts in fancy new stadiums that used to be old-ish but not-so-modern. The thing is, though, Juventus won their first game in the new stadio, and I'm pretty sure we all want that same black and white team to win this afternoon.

No offense to you, fellow bianocneri friends, but we've got a Scudetto race to keep up with.

Lineups

Juventus XI (3-5-2): Gianluigi Buffon; Daniele Rugani, Leonardo Bonucci, Giorgio Chiellini; Stephan Lichtsteiner, Sami Khedira, Claudio Marchisio, Kwadwo Asamoah, Alex Sandro; Mario Mandzukic, Paulo Dybala

Juventus bench: Neto, Emil Audero, Martin Caceres, Patrice Evra, Simone Padoin, Stefano Sturaro, Hernanes, Paul Pogba, Juan Cuadrado, Simone Zaza, Alvaro Morata

Udinese XI (3-5-2): Orestis Karnezis; Molla Wague, Danilo, Felipe; Silvan Widmer, Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu, Francesco Lodi, Manuel Iturra, Edenilson; Antonio Di Natale, Cyril Thereau

How to watch

TV: beIN Sports, fuboTV, RAI International (United States and Canada); BT Sport 2 (United Kingdom); Sky Calcio 1, Premium Calcio (Italy)

Online: beIN Sports CONNECT (United States and Canada); BT Sport Live Streaming (United Kingdom); Sky Go Italia (Italy)

Other live viewing options can be found here, and as always, you can also follow along with us live on Twitter. If you haven't already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.