Allegri provides double blow for Juventus ahead of Chelsea Champions League clash

We saw the best and worst of Juventus in Sunday’s early game against Sampdoria, as the Bianconeri huffed and puffed to a 3-2 win at home. However, just as every time something good happened this season it was swiftly followed by bad news, so too today we saw injuries to Paulo Dybala and Alvaro Morata.

The pair will likely be unavailable for the Wednesday Champions League clash against Chelsea.

“Dybala and Morata certainly won’t play against Chelsea or Torino. That is for certain. We can only hope that we get them back after the break for international duty.

“This is part of the game, we have to keep going. We’ll see how to play against Chelsea without Dybala and Morata.

“It’s not a decisive game anyway. The key games for the qualification are those against Zenit.”

On how he felt about his team’s lapses that allowed Sampdoria to score twice at crucial junctures.

“The team defended well as a team, but there were errors on a corner for 3-1 and then we gave it away in midfield for 3-2.

“We should’ve killed the game off earlier, we’re happy to have a second consecutive victory, the first at home, and will now prepare for Chelsea.”

Allegri had previously rued making attacking substitutions when up 1-0 against AC Milan, and today went with defensive changes instead when leading 3-1.

“I introduced Aaron Ramsey because Manuel Locatelli and Rodrigo Bentancur were tired, while using a three-man defence was meant to give more width, so that’s not why we conceded. We conceded because we lost the ball in midfield and everyone ran backwards.”

Soon after his appointment the coach had indicated that getting more clean sheets needed to be a focus for the side, but the goals shipped in today makes it 20 league games since they did not concede.

“Clean sheets are pretty rare nowadays anyway, I saw yesterday 2-2 and 3-3 results. On the corner, there was a distraction in the marking and we need to be more focused. We man-mark on set plays. Bonucci realised there was danger and went to get Yoshida, but he’d lost his man before the corner was even taken.

“Matthijs de Ligt had never played three at the back, but he has the characteristics to play there. In some games we’ll have four at the back, in some three. What we do need to do is be more careful on set plays and take more of our chances.”

Allegri was also asked if mentally this was a different Juventus side from the one he had left a couple of years ago.

“I don’t know what happened over the last two years, I can only say we are working well. We should’ve been 3-0 up after 20 minutes, we created far more than in the other games. Killing off a match early gives you space and time to control the situation, whereas keeping it open to the end takes physical and psychological energy out of you.

“We cannot think Juventus must dominate for 90 minutes, because nobody can, but when the time comes to defend against a good side like Sampdoria, we need to be ready.”