Allegri furious at Costa, Juve’s complacency

Juventus beat Sassuolo 2-1 earlier today with Cristiano Ronaldo marking his opening goals for the Bianconeri, but the game ended in some disrepute after Douglas Costa got into an ugly spat.

After the game, manager Massimiliano Allegri was unhappy at the reaction of Costa, who elbowed the visitors’ Federico Di Francesco before spitting at him and then attempting to headbutt him as well.

“Maybe he was irritated at a foul before, but it doesn’t matter, because this absolutely must not happen. The one thing we must avoid doing is falling for provocation.”

Juve should have been out of sight well before the last quarter of an hour, but missed multiple chances to put this away.

“We could’ve scored a third goal, but instead we started to play as individuals, we tried to dribble past everyone, this wound up the opposition, who then reacted badly and you get to situations like Douglas Costa.”

Ronaldo finally got the first goals of his Juventus tenure as Allegri had predicted.

“You just had to see the first three games and how close Ronaldo went to scoring. Again today, he was a little too hasty and eager to score, but it bounced off the post and right into his path. That unblocked him.”

The manager gave Paulo Dybala the start, but the Argentine was not on the frontline today.

“Today, even though it was the first time with this system, we did well. Naturally, the full-backs have to give more width. Sassuolo fought hard and as they became tired later on, we took full control of the game.”