The Old Lady Speaks Podcast, Episode 136: Juve sweep the week, but issues still remain

Juventus picked up a pair of wins this past week, giving Max Allegri’s squad what is hopefully the first two wins in what can become a decent winning streak at minimum.

They were two very different kinds of wins.

Tuesday’s win over Salernitana was very much a refreshing, high-scoring kind of night in Salerno for Allegri’s men. Sunday night, however, was one where Juve didn’t only not replicated said performance from a few days earlier but also had to grind out another win basically because of their own doing.

It was Allegri at his best — and for a lot of us that means seeing Allegri’s old habits coming back into the focus and a 1-0 lead becoming the ultimate play-with-fire situation.

Ultimately, they were two wins. But two very different kinds of wins.

And when your team is in need of points because they’re suddenly mid-table, then getting six points out of a possible six in the two games after advancing to the semifinals of the Coppa Italia is a decent situation to be in. (The six points part, not the mid-table part.)

On this week’s episode of The Old Lady Speaks Podcast, we discuss:

• Takeaways from the week that was — including how we keep waiting for Juventus to beat the teams it should beat consistently and not play to the level of its opponents and how Max Allegri clearly reads BWRAO because Angel Di Maria and Federico Chiesa both played from the start against Fiorentina.
• Thoughts on Juventus’ 1-0 win over Fiorentina, a game in which a lot of things happened even though a decent amount of said things weren’t exactly all that good.
• The way Max Allegri approached the second half against Fiorentina is nothing new, but it continues to be something that is putting points his team in tough situations when trying to close out games.
• Thoughts on Dusan Vlahovic’s return from injury.
• Thoughts on the attacking trident of Vlahovic, Federico Chiesa and Angel Di Maria that Allegri rolled out against Fiorentina on Sunday night.
• Twitter questions — including what we’re expecting from the first leg of the Europa League playoff round against Nantes on Thursday night.

You can listen to Episode 136 of The Old Lady Speaks Podcast here:

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